“and it was pretty close to a guarantee that the mill will open…”

With wood chips heading south, a loading facility being constructed at the pulp mill site and forest licenses changing hands, the optics might not seem too good for a fast revival of the Skeena Cellulose pulp mill.

Yet one of the principles in the recent sale of harvesting rights in the Hazletons suggests that the impression he received at a recent meeting with Sun Wave Forest Products, was that the Watson Island site may be back in operation by the spring.

Gordon Sebastian of the Gitxsan Chief’s Office in the Hazeltons provided that bulletin board quote that those still holding out hope that the Mill will once again swing back into production.

“We met with them and it was pretty close to a guarantee that the mill will open,” he said, adding that China Paper has set an April 2007 date for the event.

Which would be welcome news for the hard hit local economy, however, it may be a tad optimistic at best, as we head into January there would not doubt be quite a lot of work required to bring the mill back up to standard after it’s lengthy shut down.

One hopes his intuition is correct, but many will be waiting for more tangible proof to bank on.

The entire story of the license changeover is provided in this weeks edition of the Northern View.



Gitxsan buy license to sell wood to Sun Wave

By Black Press
Dec 13 2006

A First Nations-owned logging company says it’s content to sell wood to a Vancouver Island pulp operation for now, but what it really wants to do is sell that wood to the Chinese company that wants to re-open the closed Prince Rupert pulp mill.
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Gordon Sebastian of the Gitxsan Chief’s Office in the Hazeltons made the comment leading up to the purchase last week of a forest licence in the Hazeltons from the same Chinese company Sun Wave Forest Products, which is owned by the China Paper Group. Newly-formed Gitxsan Forest Enterprises made a $250,000 down payment to Sun Wave December 9, representing part of the total $1 million purchase price. Harvesting rights amount to approximately 390,000 cubic metres of timber annually.

Sebastian said a re-opening of the former Skeena Cellulose pulp mill in Prince Rupert will boost the area’s economy.

“We met with them and it was pretty close to a guarantee that the mill will open,” he said, adding that China Paper has set an April 2007 date for the event.

“It is a local pulp mill and will put local people back to work,” said Sebastian of the mill.
He said the Gitxsan have established a strong relationship with the Chinese which began when they bought the licence as part of their purchase of former Skeena Cellulose assets.
“They made it clear they didn’t want to be in the logging business and that they simply wanted to buy the fibre,” Sebastian added.

That brought about an examination of the forest licence potential and liabilities by the Gitxsan beginning in the early summer. Sebastian said the licence purchase also represents an assertion by the Gitxsan of control over resource use on their traditional territories.
Several calls to Sun Wave Forest Products were not returned.