HOUSTON EMPLOYEE & FAMILY CELEBRATION BBQ
September 21, 2023
Join Kevin Horsnell, Stephen Mackie and I on October 3, 2023 (4 pm-6 pm) at Canfor Houston for an Employee & Retiree Family BBQ to celebrate the building of a new Houston mill and appreciation for your perseverance through the process.
Come and let’s properly celebrate with friends, food and family fun. The tented BBQ event will occur, rain or shine!
We hope to see you there,
Sincerely,
Don Kayne
President and CEO, Canfor Corporation
Investing in Houston
September 14, 2023
Following an extensive review of the project, I’m excited to announce we’ll be investing approximately $200 million in a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Houston.
We appreciate your patience as we took the necessary time to ensure that we carefully assessed all aspects of the project. In particular, we needed to ensure the facility will have an adequate supply of economic fibre to support this significant investment and we are now confident about the fibre outlook.
For more than 85 years Canfor has been proudly headquartered in BC, and it means a lot to us that Canfor will invest in a new facility in Houston. This decision will provide long-term stability for our people, the community and our company.
We are very optimistic about our future and the opportunities that forest products have to be part of the carbon solution by supplying the climate-friendly wood products that the world is asking for.
Building a modern, globally-competitive facility in Houston will be one of the largest investments in a new wood products facility in BC in decades and that’s something we can all be proud of.
We’ll immediately start on engineering, construction and environmental permitting requirements to prepare for the new facility. In early 2024 we’ll look to finalize vendor and equipment selection, followed by demolition and site preparation in the spring. Overall, we expect planning, construction and commissioning of the new facility to take between 28 and 32 months, depending on contractor availability and equipment lead times.
We are committed to keeping you regularly updated as we move through construction and will let you know if there are job opportunities with our contractor during construction. As we get closer to start up, we’ll have more information to share about the jobs at the new facility.
We would like to properly celebrate this decision in person with a BBQ on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 3 from 4pm to 6pm. We will share more information about the BBQ over the next week. Kevin Horsnell, Stephen Mackie and I look forward to seeing you there.
We want to thank you and your families for your patience and perseverance, and I look forward to working with you to build a best-in-class facility that showcases our province’s skilled forestry workers, suppliers and leading technology.
Sincerely,
Don Kayne
President and CEO, Canfor Corporation
If you missed the Houston update call with Don Kayne and Kevin Horsnell you can listen to the replay.
Phone: Toll Free 1-888-390-0541 and enter code 495694#
Online: Click https://app.webinar.net/PMJEX6Kn7Rv
Recording available until September 28, 2023.
Show your Support for Our
Houston Redevelopment Project
August 10, 2023
Many of you have been asking how you can help us get to a positive decision to build a new, state-of-the-art facility in Houston. We appreciate your support and desire to help.
As we updated last month, we’re making good progress and have completed our planning and technical work.
We’ve also been working to assess the availability of fibre supply in the region, which includes discussions with the Ministry of Forests to understand their outlook, because we need to be confident that there’s enough economically available fibre to support an investment of this magnitude.
Our discussions with the BC Government are continuing to progress well.
We want to move this project forward but need to make sure that we have the fibre to support both a successful investment and continuous operations for many years. We know that’s important you and it’s important for our contractors, Nation partners and the community.
For those who want to express their support, the contact information for Premier Eby and the Minister of Forests, Bruce Ralston can be found on this page.
You can contact them to let them know how important a new mill is to you and your family.
Thanks,
Clem Luken
Plant Manager, Houston
Update on Houston Redevelopment
July 27, 2023
I am writing to give you an update on our progress to advance the redevelopment of our Houston facility.
Earlier this year, we announced our intention to close our old and outdated Houston facility and undertake the work required to plan and construct a new, globally competitive, state of the art manufacturing facility.
At that time, we indicated we would be commencing a comprehensive planning process including project scoping, preliminary engineering, and a thorough financial analysis. This work is now complete.
In addition, we indicated that we would be undertaking a thorough assessment of the availability of economic fibre in the region to ensure that, if approved, the facility would have access to an adequate supply of economic fibre to support an investment of this size and scope.
As part of that assessment, we have done a thorough review of our planning assumptions and sought input from independent experts. We have also engaged in a series of discussions with the Ministry of Forests to understand their outlook, including any potential policy changes that could impact the availability of fibre in the region.
These discussions have been progressing well but are not yet complete. As such, we require a little more time to seek assurances that our assumptions about the availability of economic fibre required to support this investment and the successful operation of this facility are also supported by the Province.
We hope to complete these discussions in the coming weeks and, once concluded, we will be advancing this project to our Board for decision.
We recognize and appreciate that you and your family are eager for us to finalize our plans. We too want to advance this project and to build a world-class facility in Houston. However, we need to be sure that once built, we will have the fibre to operate consistently and successfully for years to come.
We thank you for your continued patience and will update you again when we have more information.
Sincerely,
Don Kayne
President & CEO, Canfor