Washington state Sen. Jeff Wilson (R-Longview) is drafting a bill that would require outside inspection and certification of above-ground chemical tanks at paper mills. Ecology would set rules on registration, leak detection, inspections and corrective actions, with fines of up to $5,000/day. The bill responds to May's white-liquor tank implosion at Nippon Dynawave in Longview, which killed 11 workers; a Chemical Safety Board report found a contractor had warned 10 months earlier that the tank was "not fit for continued service." Port Townsend Paper is one of three WA kraft mills affected, and a local petition for independent tank inspection there has passed 1,000 signatures (Peninsula Daily News)
U.S. Paper Mill, which bought Pixelle's former Chillicothe, Ohio mill in October 2025 after its August 2025 closure, is restarting Paper Machine 12 ("The Chief") and expects it fully operational by December. The site has 180+ workers today, plans to hire up to 350 more for paper operations within a year and is giving former employees priority (PULPAPERnews, WSAZ)
Sylvamo is reported to be adding a $1.00/cwt fuel surcharge on shipments from Oct. 1, with diesel at ~$6.51/gal, up from $5.61 a month ago and $3.69 a year ago. Distributor Midland expects other mills to follow (PaperAge)
Cascades launched lithoURB, a 100% recycled brown paperboard made at Kingsey Falls, Que., for litho-printed corrugated and folding-carton packaging. It is How2Recycle pre-qualified, BRCGS food-safe and available FSC Mix or 100% recycled (Cascades)
Workers at French folding boxboard mill La Rochette held a one-day strike over the mill's future. Management confirmed production problems over the summer and says it is working to recover the lost output (EUWID)
RDM Group's Eska unit debuted Eska Leaf at Luxe Pack Monaco (Sept. 28–30). The premium recycled solid board is laminated with Releaf paper made from fallen leaves collected on city streets, including in Paris (PULPAPERnews)
Forestry & Timber
A maintenance worker, James Wiley, was killed Sept. 28 after being pulled into a conveyor at Canfor's Southern Pine facility in Axis, Alabama. Canfor has suspended operations at the site; OSHA is investigating, and the sheriff's office found no foul play (Fox10)
Palantir CEO Alex Karp, through Cladonia Skog AB, bought ~15,000 ha of SCA land at Storsjö kapell in northern Härjedalen, Sweden, for SEK 235M (~SEK 15,700/ha). That is about a quarter of the regional average for productive forest land, and SCA says the land is mostly bare mountain. The deal equals one-fifth of all productive forest land sold in Sweden in 2025 (Dagens PS, Global Wood Markets Info)
Do it Best used its Fall Market in Indianapolis to recommend Forest Economic Advisors' PricePulse as an alternative to Random Lengths. PricePulse is a transaction-based lumber price report built from producer data rather than mill surveys, and Random Lengths owner Fastmarkets has issued a response (HBS Dealer via Tree Frog)
Canada filed a notice of appeal on Sept. 23 against the Court of International Trade's July 27 decision. That ruling upheld Commerce's differential-pricing ("masked dumping") method in the 2021 administrative review of antidumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber (Trade Law Daily via Tree Frog)
Chinese plywood exports rose 21% to 7.88M m³ in H1 2026 while export value fell 1.9%, a sign that squeezed mills are pushing volume abroad at lower prices. Australia took 426,000 m³ (+55%) and its imports of Chinese particleboard jumped 256% (Wood Central)
The ACCC fined Victorian importer Bayswood Timber Wholesalers $19,800 for marketing meranti claimed at 400 kg/m³ for BAL-12.5 bushfire construction. Door frames in that rating require at least 650 kg/m³, and other suppliers have since pulled similar claims (Wood Central)
Two Nordic sawmill leadership changes: Pfeifer Nordics CEO Alexander Kainer is stepping down in Finland, and Bergs Timber is appointing a new chief executive in Sweden (Global Wood Markets Info)
Update: the US–China Board of Trade lists were published Sept. 29 and include 146 US wood-product lines. They cover oak, maple, cherry, ash, birch and poplar lumber; pine, fir, spruce and Douglas-fir logs and lumber; and OSB, plywood, LVL, particleboard, pallets and flooring. Glulam and CLT are excluded. China says more than 90% of covered products will lose the extra retaliatory tariffs and revert to normal MFN rates, but the cuts are not yet in force pending domestic procedures (Wood Central, Fordaq)
Update: AV Nackawic's closure is now dated Nov. 4 and affects ~350 workers. A committee of management, union, federal, provincial and community representatives met Friday to coordinate employment counselling, information sessions and a job fair, but workers still lack answers on employment status and finances (Telegraph-Journal via Tree Frog)
Co-generation at Mills
A super-oversize heat recovery steam generator was hauled out of the former Pixelle mill in Jay, Maine on Sept. 29–30 for South Portland. Barnhart Crane & Rigging handled the move, and crews had to raise utility lines along the route; the buyer has not been disclosed (Central Maine)
Wood Pellets
CM Biomass has rebranded as Northflare Energy after Danish group USTC, majority owner since 2021, consolidated full ownership. CM Biomass describes itself as the world's largest independent pellet trader and one of the five largest producers, trading 3.1M+ t/yr across 13 countries. Its contracts, legal entity and supplier agreements are unchanged (Fordaq)
Alder Renewables' Project Avance pilot in Port-Cartier, Que. has passed 1,000 hours of continuous operation turning woody-biomass pyrolysis oil into Alder Renewable Crude. Partners are Bioénergie AE Côte-Nord and Arbec Forest Products, with CAD 10M from Boeing. The project targets 10M gal/yr of Québec SAF from forest and mill residues; commercial scale-up is the next phase (Fordaq)
