According to several local news reports, McKinley Paper officials have confirmed the company will begin production at its Port Angeles, Washington mill by September 2019, ending a curtailment that began in April 2017. The company announced plans to produce 250,000 short tons of containerboard at the mill, doubling its domestic capacity and bringing its total annual capacity to 2 million tons in Mexico and the U.S.
McKinley purchased the Port Angeles newsprint mill from Japanese-owned Nippon Paper Industries USA for $20.6 million in March 2017. The company is retooling the 98-year-old factory to manufacture containerboard from recycled paperboard.
Plans to reopen the shuttered mill in December 2018 were put on hold last February. Officials at the time cited market conditions for delaying the startup until an unspecified date in 2019. McKinley has ordered “state-of-the-art” machinery and equipment for a startup by next September, company officials said. Additionally, the cogeneration system will be upgraded to efficiently produce green energy. The Nippon cogeneration plant produced steam and electricity for the mill and electricity for sale to green energy buyers. The $85 million biomass facility opened in 2013.
