News

Cross Pointe + Fraser + thorold=Fraser Paper Inc.

Cross Pointe Paper Corporation, Fraser Paper Ltd. and Thorold Specialty Papers merged in February to form a new specialized paper company. In March the decision was made to operate under the name of Fraser Paper Inc. This makes Fraser one of the largest producers of specialized paper products in North America.

All three companies were formerly wholly owned as separate companies by Noranda Forest, Inc., a Canadian company. The new company will be headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, and will remain wholly owned by Noranda Forest, Inc.

The mills are located in Madawaska, Maine; Edmunston, New Brunswick; Thorold, Ontario; Park Falls, Wisconsin; and West Carrollton, Ohio. The Madawaska mill's production is about 42% alkaline freesheet. The Edmunston and Thorold mills do not make printing and writing grades. The Park Falls and West Carrollton mills (formerly of Cross Pointe Paper) make printing and writing grades and are both 100% alkaline.

Cross Pointe's nine text and cover product lines will be consolidated into four. A new product line released in January, Cross Pointe Synergy, combines the most popular items from four former lines: Bellbrook Laid, Medallion, Normandie and Cross Pointe Bond.

The International Paper & Coating Chemistry Symposium

The 1996 IPCC Symposium will take place at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, June 11-13, sponsored by eight paper industry organizations from five or six countries plus Europe. For information contact Glen D. Black, Technical Section, CPPA, 1155 Metcalfe St., Ste. 190, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3B 4TC.

Forty papers are on the program, including the following:

• Identification and Determination of Surface Sizes on Paper - B. Sitholé
• Detection of ASA and Desizing Agents in Hard to Size Paper by SIMS - J.S. Brinen and R.J. Kulick
• Mechanism of Rosin-Ester Sizing for Alkaline Papermaking - K-I. Ito, A. Isogai and F. Onabe
• Surface Chemical Aspects of PCC-Filled Groundwood Furnishes - N. Sanders and J.H. Schaeter
• Cationic Polymeric Microparticle Flocculant for Precipitated Calcium Carbonate Retention in Alkaline Condition - H. Deng and H. Ono
• Calcium Carbonate Stability and Interaction with Pulp Fibres in the Presence of Polyethylenimine - R. Alince and T.G.M. Van de Fen
• Development of Multipurpose Office Papers with Improved Ink Jet Print Quality Utilizing PCC Fillers - A.J. Bauch, D.W. Donigian and R.A. Gills
• Competitive Adsorption of Alkyl Ketene Dimer (AKD) on Pulp Fibres and Calcium Carbonate Fillers - P. Voutlainen

Offices Find Ways to be Frugal with Paper

Both business and government have been reacting to recent price increases in paper, according to a report in the December Imaging Supplies Monthly. The federal government has already begun to use the Internet for sending information to the public and for license renewals, among other things, in order to save taxpayer money. Businesses already use electronic communication because of its convenience, but they are starting to monitor the use of paper by mandating the use of two-sided copying, circulating office memos instead of sending a copy to each person, and by internal reuse of old letterhead.

Mills Bought, Sold or Not Doing Well

Boise Cascade's uncoated freesheet mill in Vancouver, Washington, has been operating at 2/3 capacity, and 60 out of 443 employees have been laid off because of soft market conditions. (Although the paper industry as a whole pulled out of its slump in 1995, coated and uncoated freesheet have not recovered as fast as the rest of the market.) In December 1989 it converted to alkaline, and in October 1990, Bob Hieronymous published a description of the process in this Newsletter.

Simpson Paper Co. said in January that it is selling five of its mills, in order to focus on coated and specialty papers (and perhaps also to get rid of some of its older, less efficient mills). The five mills are West Linn, Oregon and Simpson Plainwell in MI (both of which are alkaline mills); Ripon, CA and Vicksburg, MI (acid); and Pomona, CA (part acid, part alkaline). Of these, the West Linn mill is the largest, with a daily capacity of 400 tons per day.

Appleton Papers Inc. acquired the Stora Newton Falls mill in New York last year. It is 100% alkaline and makes 400 tons of coated printing paper per day. Appleton is already a leader in carbonless and thermal papers. It plans to enter the coated freesheet market now as well.