The new president of Great Northern Nekoosa Corp. said Friday that his company still was committed to building a new paper operation in Millinocket, but he said that it was unlikely that both a new tissue mill and a new lightweight coated paper mill would be built.

During their successful takeover bid for GNN, Georgia-Pacific officials promised to look into the feasibility of manufacturing tissue in Millinocket. And GNN has conducted a continuing study to explore the possibility of building a $400 million, lightweight coated paper mill in Millinocket as a joint venture with MD Papier of West Germany.

Alston D. “Pete” Correll, G-P’s executive vice president and the president of GNN, said that it wouldn’t be practical to do both projects at once. Correll said that Raymond H. Taylor, president of Great Northern Paper, and other GNP officials had presented their case for the joint venture with MD Papier to a group of G-P officials in Connecticut earlier this week.

Correll called the joint venture “well-thought-out” and a “viable option,” but he said that he didn’t yet know “if it was the best option.”

Correll and Taylor were in Bangor Friday to meet with reporters. Correll said that Taylor had agreed to remain with G-P as head of the company’s newly acquired assets in Maine. And, he said, Gordon Manuel, GNP’s long-time public-relations specialist, would be the G-P spokesman in Maine.

Correll also said that GNP’s headquarters would remain in Portland. There was “no natural reason” to move the 20 people working in the Portland office, he said.

The G-P executive said that lawyers estimated that it would take 60 to 120 more days to complete the merger of the two woods-products companies. G-P has purchased 97 percent of GNN’s stock, Correll said, and GNN has been operating as a majority-owned subsidiary of G-P. After the merger is complete, he said, GNN would be a wholly owned subsidiary of G-P.

GNN’s chairman and former president, William R. Laidig, had agreed to remain chairman during the transition, Correll said. Earlier Friday in Portland, Correll said that he assumed Laidig would retire after the merger was in place. But he later backed off from his statement, saying it had been inappropriate speculation on his part.

A spokesman at Laidig’s office in Connecticut later told the Associated Press that no decision had been made as to when Laidig would leave the company.

As to speculation about layoffs, Correll repeated his pledge that there would be no layoffs at the plant level, and layoffs that did occur would result from doing away with duplicate functions. He indicated that it probably would take six or seven months to study the merged entity to see just which management personnel would receive their pink slips.

According to Correll, no decision has been made regarding the fate of the Great Northern Paper name after the merger is complete. “There are some brand names and corporate-identity names that we don’t want to lose,” Correll said. “I don’t know if Great Northern Paper is one of them.”

As promised, Correll said, a group within G-P has started to study the multiuse requirements for the GNP land in Maine. “We hope to reach a consensus as to how the land will be managed,” he said.

Correll admitted that there was a lot of apprehension on the part of both G-P and GNN employees. But, he said, things should settle down once the merger is in place.

“We will no longer be the news of the day,” Correll said. “We want to put our heads down and go back to being businessmen.”