West Fraser closes on Texas SYP mill purchase
West Fraser Timber Co. reported that it has completed and closed on its acquisition of a lumber mill in Lufkin, Texas.
Purchased from Angelina Forest Products for about $300 million, the state-of-the-art facility officially opened in late 2019 with McCoy’s Building Supply being the recipient of one of the plant’s original deliveries.
The facility produces southern yellow pine lumber (SYP) products and began construction in 2018.
According to West Fraser, the mail is expected to progress toward full production capacity of approximately 305 million board feet over the next three to four years.
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, West Fraser is a diversified wood products company with more than 60 facilities in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe.
West Fraser’s manufacturing portfolio includes lumber, engineered wood products (OSB, LVL, MDF, plywood, and particleboard), pulp, newsprint, wood chips, other residuals, and renewable energy.
In October, West Fraser also announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Georgia Pacific’s OSB mill near Allendale, S.C. for approximately $280 million.
The Allendale facility, which initially began producing OSB in 2007, has been idle since late 2019 and has an estimated stated capacity of approximately 760 million square feet (3/8-inch basis).
West Fraser’s plans for the mill include investing an estimated $70 million of additional capital to upgrade and optimize the facility in preparation for its restart. The company expects the upgrade and restart to take about nine months.
The mill will employ about 135 people and be one of the lowest cost mills in the company’s OSB portfolio after the optimization is complete and the mill has ramped up to full production; a process that typically takes 18-24 months after the restart, West Fraser said.
