TORONTO, Ontario – Fraser Papers Inc. announced Wednesday that it will take up to 5,100 tons of downtime on two paper machines at its mill in Madawaska, Maine, due to weak markets.

The mill shutdown will begin Dec. 24 and is expected to run through Jan. 5, 2009.

The company said it expects to restart the mill on Jan. 5 subject to customer orders, according to a press release issued by the company.

Closing down the mill will allow Fraser to balance inventory levels of specialty and commodity groundwood papers with customer demand.

Fraser Papers is an integrated specialty paper company that produces a broad range of specialty packaging and printing papers.