Uncertainty hangs over Nackawic after pulp mill announces temporary shutdown

A pulp mill that’s the backbone of a rural New Brunswick community’s local economy is facing a closure that will impact hundreds of workers.

AV Group NB Inc., a subsidiary of the India-based Aditya Birla Group, announced Thursday it would temporarily idle its AV Nackawic facility west of Fredericton around the end of October.

AV Group says about 350 workers will be out of work, and attributed the decision to “prevailing market conditions” and other challenges.

“Nackawic has been challenging for a number of years. This was not a flippant decision by any means,” said Mike Legere, AV Group’s director of government relations and communications.

“There is presently a surplus of dissolving-grade pulp on the marketplace, which compounds the problem in terms of trying to get a higher price realization, and really the price for it is stable, but is not at all keeping up with production costs.”

Nackawic-Millville Mayor Tim Fox says the news isn’t surprising since there was already a slowdown in wood deliveries to the mill last month.

“(We) started having some concerns in August when they stopped purchasing roundwood, so it’s not a huge shock, although we are disappointed that they took the decision they did,” he said.

The mayor added it’s an uneasy time for their community, and the province’s forestry industry at large.

“It’s no secret the global forest industry is not great right now. There is a lot of uncertainty, and that plays heavily into the decisions that were made,” Fox said.

Unifor, the union representing 228 of the 350 impacted workers, says it believes action could have been taken much sooner on the issue.

“It’s a sector that ought to have been planning for the future and modernizing what that would look like. Unfortunately, in this mill, that didn’t happen,” said Jennifer Murray, Unifor’s Atlantic regional director.

“There is no space to shut this mill down and think it is going to restart again.”

Natural Resources Minister John Herron issued a statement saying he was “disappointed and saddened” by the news. He called it a “difficult day for New Brunswick.”

“AV Nackawic is an important cornerstone in New Brunswick’s forest industry, in the local community, and to our province’s economy,” he wrote.