Dismantled sawmill off to Siberia

A shuttered Maine sawmill has been dismantled and shipped off to Russia, where it will be reassembled in a timber-rich region of Siberia, according to an article in the Kennebec Journal.

It took workers two months to take apart and pack up the structure and equipment of Morgan Lumber, a 28,000-sq.-ft. former sawmill located in  Bingham, Maine. The owner, citing the housing slump, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in June, according to the article. A bank holding company in Canada with a lien on the property foreclosed on it and then sold the mill to a Russian company.

Russia has lost a considerable amount of wood products trade since 2007, when it imposed a 25% tariff on its own exported logs, which come mainly from Siberia. Russian trade officials wanted China and other trading partners to buy finished products, like lumber, instead. Since that time, China has largely turned to Canada and the United States for its log imports.