Ontario wood allocations support pellets, lumber

June 20, 2011 – Three companies in the
Thunder Bay area have accepted four Ontario wood supply offers.

AbitibiBowater in Thunder Bay has accepted
two offers totalling 621,600 cubic metres/year of merchantable and
unmerchantable spruce, pine, fir, white birch, and poplar. It will use the
fibre in a wood pellet facility that it will construct in the Fort William
First Nation Industrial Park as well as to fire a condensing turbine to
increase clean electrical generation at its pulp and paper manufacturing
operation.

Giishtoon Cedar Products in Murillo, just
west of Thunder Bay, has accepted an offer of 11,000 cubic metres/year of
merchantable white birch. It will construct a sawmill to produce white birch
and cedar lumber. "This little mill should help boost the local economy,
while at the same time getting tremendous value-added products from underutilized
wood," says Paul Buckley of Giishtoon Cedar Products.

Precision Wood Design in Murillo has
accepted an offer of 33,000 cubic metres/year of merchantable white birch. It
will modernize and expand its sawmill and remanufacturing facility to produce
framing stock, panelling, dimensional lumber, trim, and mouldings. "With
our new allocation, this will allow us to become fully integrated, controlling
our costs from the standing tree to custom baseboards in your home," says
John Hockenhull of Precision Wood Design.