Canfor Pulp said today it is moving up a planned maintenance shutdown at Prince George Pulp and Paper mill, previously planned for April, to this month.

This is being done to coincide with unplanned maintenance requiring the shutdown of the

mill’s recovery boiler, said the company. It was discovered that the recovery boiler had a leak which needed to be repaired.

The total duration of the shutdown of the boiler is expected to be approximately 20

days and the total reduced pulp production in the first quarter is expected to be approximately 15,000 tonnes, including the four days and 3,600 tonnes previously scheduled for the April outage.

The company is not anticipating any job impacts from the extended maintenance shutdown. Canfor Pulp spokesman David Scott noted mill workers are working on the repairs on the recovery boiler.

Operation of the paper machine during part of the shut down period is expected to mitigate the financial impact of these outages to a reduction of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of approximately $6 million in the first quarter, including an estimated

$2.5 million impact of the 2010 planned maintenance outage.

This additional maintenance outage is not expected to have any impact on the level of distributions declared by Canfor Pulp.

Canfor Pulp, an income trust, was spun out from Canfor Corp. several years ago. Canfor Pulp operates three pulp mills in Prince George which employ more than 1,100 people.

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