Stora Enso has confirmed the mothballed Tolkkinen sawmill in Finland will not reopen as part of a wider move to cut capacity across the group.
Most of the 55 staff at Tolkkinen were laid off in January. Consultations began in August to close the mill permanently, citing continued long-term overcapacity and limited availability of cost-effective raw material.
A spokesperson said the site had attracted a lot of interest and the company hoped to find alternative businesses to provide long-term employment.
Tolkkinen can produce 260,000m³ of sawn timber a year and its closure is the larger part of a programme to reduce capacity overall. Significant cuts are to be made at the Varkaus sawmill and output will be curtailed at other sawmill sites.
Stora Enso has also said that unless there is a recovery in demand for office paper, the integrated mills at Varkaus would have to shut by the end of 2010, as the closure of the fine paper machine would make it impossible to produce newsprint.
The company made major cuts a year ago when capacity was reduced by 1.12 million m³ by closures, shift reductions and maintenance stoppages in Estonia, the Czech Republic and Finland.
