Canfor shuts two BC sawmills, citing operating costs and higher US tariffs

Canfor (OTCPK:CFPZF) said late Wednesday it is shutting two sawmills in British Columbia and reducing production at its operations in the southern US, the latest blow to Canada’s struggling forestry sector that has seen several mill closures in recent years.

The company said shutting the Plateau and Fort St. John operations will remove 670M board ft of annual production capacity.

President and CEO Don Kayne said Canfor’s (OTCPK:CFPZF) BC operations had lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” in recent years due to “increasing regulatory complexity, high operating costs and the inability to reliably access economically viable timber to support our manufacturing facilities .”

Kayne said the company’s operating challenges were further exacerbated by “punitive US tariffs” announced last month, when the US nearly doubled duties on softwood lumber to 14.54% from 8.05%.

Canfor (OTCPK:CFPZF) said the Canadian closures will impact ~500 employees; “in a lot of the smaller rural communities, it’s devastating because there are not really transferable jobs within the area,” the president of the Prince George, BC, United Steelworkers local told CBC News.