OLD TOWN – State Economic Development Commissioner Jack Cashman said Friday that the number of potential buyers for the Georgia-Pacific Corp. mill has increased from seven, to eight or nine.

The commissioner is continuing to work with interested parties and said he hopes to have more information in the next 10 days.

“This is a complicated sale, and it takes people a good bit of time just to determine their level of interest, and that’s the process we’re going through right now,” Cashman said Friday.

G-P announced last week that it had decided to close the mill, but the company is working with the state to allow time to find a new buyer. Workers will continue to be paid for 60 days from the time they are let go.

“There are still about 90 employees on-site,” G-P spokesman Robert Burns said Friday. “Basically, what’s keeping people busy is a combination of still shipping out parent rolls and some market pulp.”

Employees also are removing chemicals from the facility, he said.

Cashman and Gov. John Baldacci previously have said they are optimistic that a buyer will be found, but Cashman said Friday it probably won’t be a company the size of G-P.

“It probably will be more of a niche company,” Cashman said. “That’s how that mill started. Diamond [International Corp.] was kind of niche-market.”

The commissioner said there are some “very, very high-quality groups” from both in and out of state interested in the facility, and he will continue to work with them next week.

Cashman said he has given six tours of the mill this week to potential buyers and hopes to be in a position in the next week or so to “get down to serious discussion” with a handful of interested parties.

“This isn’t like selling a house, it’s going to take me awhile,” he said.