The San Group has announced that it is curtailing operations at its sawmill locations and its value-added remanufacturing plant in Port Alberni.
San Group CEO and president Kamal Sanghera said on Thursday, Oct. 17 that these curtailments are "temporary in nature" and are related to available log supply off the coast of B.C. According to Sanghera, these curtailments will affect upwards of 75 people across their operations.
“We sincerely regret having to take downtime at our facilities and apologize to our employees and customer base,” said Sanghera. “Unfortunately
lack of log supply has put us in a situation where we cannot continue to run efficiently on key product lines connected to our markets and customer demand.
"Despite our location in what once was the breadbasket of forestry and manufacturing on the west coast of Vancouver Island, most of the logs that currently feed our large log mill are distributed into Port Alberni from suppliers on the North Island and Central Coast. That supply is very lean right now. Our small
log line is currently running on local log sources and will continue to operate for now.”
Sanghera says San Group is a non-tenured company and relies on open market purchasing, Timber Sales and First Nation partnerships in accessing logs.
“If the logs are available, we will run both mills," he said. "The restricted log supply is having a direct impact on our value-added facility in Port Alberni. Due to the lack of primary lumber, commencing Monday, we are shutting down this value-added location for a minimum of two weeks to allow working inventory to rebuild. We remain overly concerned about the long-term outlook for log supply and economic viability of operating in B.C.”
San Group will continue to source logs for both facilities and is actively seeking short- and long-term supply options.
