Canfor will spend roughly $12 million to upgrade the planer at its Prince George Sawmill with the onsite work to be carried out during a one-month shutdown in December, a senior executive said Friday during a conference call.
The purpose is to remove some of the bottlenecks that have been identified,Alistair Cook, senior vice president of Canfor's wood products operations added. The intent is to optimize the facility so it matches the sawmill, and Prince George Sawmill's annual production capacity will remain at 300 million board feet.
"It's going to allow us run more efficiently and to utilize our capital better," Cook said.
Along with improvements to its Grande Prairie, Alberta facility, the Prince George project was announced during release of second quarter results late Thursday afternoon.
Cost of the latest round of work adds up to $46.7 million and is part of an expected $140 million worth of capital spending for 2011 - the first year of a three-year plan to spend $300 million to further modernizing its mills.
In February, Canfor announced $38 million on upgrades at its Polar sawmill north of Prince George and its Plateau sawmill near Vanderhoof and $24 million at its shuttered Vavenby sawmill in the southern Interior.
This work includes a planer rebuild at Polar, an energy system and hogger at Plateau, and planer optimization, a new canter and more sorting capacity at Vavenby,
The work at Polar is scheduled for completion this fall, and at Plateau in November. The Vavenby facility re-opens on Sept. 6, with one shift in the sawmill.
