While news is the same on the closure of the Castlegar mill, CEO of Interfor Duncan Davies says from his view, getting operations started is high on the list of priorities.

“We didn’t buy it to have it sit idle,” says Davies. “We bought it to run it. We believe there’s an attractive business opportunity in Castlegar long term, and we’re working actively to try and find a solution to the issues that Castlegar has.”

With the recent start of the mill in Grand Forks, Davies says the business there “has a better cost structure than the Castlegar operation, ranging from logs right through to mill operations.” The main reason being the business would do better financially than if the mill continued to be curtailed, he says.

“The reality is, we’ve been going through the most difficult economic situation that we’ve seen in this industry for probably 70 years. I mean, no one’s having any fun during this period of time, and we’re only now starting to see things beginning to improve,” explains Davies, “but the reality is, housing starts in the U.S., which are the primary market for products that are produced by our industry in Canada are running at a rate of about 25 per cent of what they were at in ‘05/’06.”

Davies said Interfor is waiting for the return of steady financial and product markets. He said there’s no trigger for opening the mill, such as a set price per board foot, for example. “It’s a little more complicated than that. It’s a combination of what the costs of logs are, what products you can make, plus what pricing looks like and what the Canadian dollar looks like at the time. Our sense right now is it’s still a ways off of making sense to run that business.”

Davies says he’s not aware of any local harvesting in the Arrow Lakes area. He says he doesn’t know what’s happening with other operators, but on Interfor’s part, very little is being done. Interfor does have two active log dumps, one in Galena Bay and the other at Needles. The logs are currently being sent to the Celgar Pulp Mill in Castlegar.

For local information, Davies assumes the local managers are talking to people in the area to keep people aware of what’s happening in the industry. Interfor is still in ongoing dialogues with the United Steelworkers Union Local 1-405, but there hasn’t been much discussion regarding starting the mill, as the focus has been on the Grand Forks and other operations, Davies says.

Efforts by Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell to increase markets into China and other areas have been greatly appreciated, said Davies. He said the market for products is growing rapidly but it’s still going to take some time before a significant volume of lumber is traded.

“I think the message is, it’s going to take time, and as conditions improve I think we need to recognize the Canadian dollar continues to rise in value, and there’s other factors that mean if we’re going to operate, we need to be competitive in the market to be able to do that.”