BAILEYVILLE – There was more bad news Friday for pulp and paper millworkers at Domtar Inc.

Company officials said the paper machine would be shut down from April 16 until May 21 because of unfavorable market conditions.

The cut-size operation – the machine that turns large rolls of paper into 81/2-by-11-inch sheets – went down Thursday. That machine will start up again on May 28.

The shutdown will affect about 100 employees. The company has about 500 workers.

The rest of the mill – those machines that produce pulp – will continue to operate.

“It is a continuation of the market conditions,” Domtar spokesman Scott Beal said Friday in explaining the temporary shutdown of the paper machine. “The market hasn’t rebounded like we had forecasted last fall and last winter, so we are still in this climate. So we are trying to match our production to the demands of our customers.”

Town officials learned of the shutdown Friday morning. “Obviously, we are deeply concerned with the shutdowns and hope for an improved market in the very near future,” Baileyville Town Manager Scott Harriman said.

Friday’s news was a repeat of what happened in March, when the paper machine was shut down. And it was just last November that the company announced it was cutting back on production for two months because of the same market-related conditions. Production resumed in January.

The mill has a long history in the community.

It began in 1906 as part of St. Croix Paper Co. The Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific Corp. bought it in 1963 and sold it to Domtar in 2000. The mill, with its aging paper machine, for years has had to compete with international mills that have come on line with new and faster equipment.

Last year the Montreal-based Domtar reached an agreement with Weyerhaeuser Co. to combine its fine-paper business with the Canadian papermaker in a deal that is valued at around $3.3 billion. Earlier this year, the company mailed a 500-page notice to shareholders about the merger.

Domtar is the third-largest producer of uncoated, free-sheet paper in North America. It is also a leading manufacturer of business papers, commercial printing and publication papers, and technical and specialty papers.