Displaying items by tag: Terrace Bay Pulp

Terrace Bay Pulp, a mechanical contractor, and three individuals are facing charges in connection with a fatal explosion at the pulp mill last October.

T.J. Berthelot was killed in the explosion.

According to CBC.ca, Terrace Bay Pulp and Venshore Mechanical are charged for failing to ensure a tank being worked on was free of an explosive or flammable substance

The three individuals face similar charges. All are charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

A local news site, Chroniclejournal.com, reports that the charges specify the tank was being worked on without “adequate instructions (being) given to a worker performing welding-related work on a cracked tank that normally contains a hazardous substance.”

A few months after the explosion, Terrace Bay Pulp became insolvent. The mill was sold in 2012 to Aditya Birla Group, and restarted. The new owner has not been charged.

News source : http://www.pulpandpapercanada.com 

Prospective buyers have been touring the Terrace Bay mill in Northern Ontario, while in Nova Scotia, the bidder on the NewPage pulp and paper mill is ironing out details with the provincial utility and the employees’ union.

The Chronicle Journal reported in early March that eight companies with an interest in purchasing the insolvent Terrace Bay pulp mill had toured the facility.

The mill was closed in October 2011, following an explosion that killed one worker. The mill shut down for repairs, and then extended the shut down due to poor market conditions. In January, the company was put under creditor protection and the mill put up for sale.

Under the sales process approved by the courts, a new owner is to be in place by the end of April.

The Chronicle Journal also reports that the Ministry of Labour has concluded its investigation in the fatal explosion, but hasn’t yet decided whether there were any violations of the labour code.

For the NewPage Port Hawkesbury mill in Nova Scotia, the sales process is more advanced. The court appointed monitor is in negotiations with Pacific West Commercial Corp., an affiliate of Stern Partners Inc. of Vancouver, to finalize a going-concern sale of the mill.

In an update to the court presented in February, Ernst & Young said negotiations are proceeding on several fronts, according to the Chronicle Herald newspaper.

A plan of arrangement is being developed to determine how the company will handle its debt. In addition, Pacific West has contacted the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union, Local 972, to schedule negotiations on a new labour agreement, the newspaper reports.

Talks between Pacific West and the province on fibre costs, and Nova Scotia Power Inc. on energy costs, are also ongoing.

Source: Pulp and Paper Canada

A worker is dead after a late-afternoon explosion at the Terrace Bay Pulp mill on Monday.

Ontario Provincial Police have not released the employee's identity.

Two other people were taken to hospital for non-life threatening injuries.

Ontario Ministry of Labour spokesperson Greg Dennis said details are preliminary until investigators can confirm what happened.

Dennis said it appears the explosion was in a blow tank, a large cylindrical container in which cooked wood chips are blown after coming out of a digester during the pulp process. Residents reported hearing a loud explosion and seeing black smoke.

"This is a terrible thing and our sympathies go out to the family of this ... young worker," Dennis said.

The Ministry of Labour, Ontario Fire Marshall's Office, Coroner's Office and the OPP are all investigating.

source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/

Terrace Bay Pulp has emerged from creditor protection and is back in business. The northwestern Ontario pulp mill resumed production in late September, aided by financial support from the provincial government and $30 million in financing from a Toronto-based lender.

More than 300 people have returned to work at Terrace Bay Pulp Inc., which had been shut down since 2009. The kraft pulp mill is owned by Buchanan Group.

Forestweb reports the mill has restarted only one line, which has a capacity of 350,000 tonnes/year, producing northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) pulp.

The province is providing a conditional $25-million term loan to TBPI to help refinance the restart of the mill.

Located in a town of about 2000 people, Terrace Bay Pulp has a significant economic impact in the region, providing direct jobs in the mill as well as supporting employment in woodlands operations and the transportation industries which supply the mill.

The approval of Terrace Bay Pulp's repayment plan moves the idled Ontario pulp mill one step closer to resuming production this summer. According to the Chronicle Journal newspaper, 165 of 168 voted in favour of the plan, which represents $35 million in claims.

The paper also reports that the company has reached a separate agreement with about two dozen logging contractors who are collectively owed about $9 million for logs and wood chips delivered before the mill was idled in February 2009.

The mill, located in Terrace Bay on the north shore of Lake Superior, has been under creditor protection since March 2009. A sanction hearing set for July 13 in Ontario‘s Superior Court is expected to set the stage for recalling mill workers and restarting the mill.

Yves Fricot, a lawyer for Terrace Bay Pulp's owners Buchanan Forest Products, said barring any further obstacles, the plant could be making product by the end of July.
Though an unnamed private lender willing to loan the operation $40 million pulled out on June 10, Fricot told the Chronicle Journal that an agreement with another lender is very close to being finalized.

The company had earlier secured an additional $25-million loan from the Ontario government on the condition that it secure its own financing.

Thunder Bay-based Buchanan Group took over Terrace Bay Pulp in the fall of 2006 from Georgia-based Neenah Paper.