Mercer International will file a prepackaged Chapter 11 in Houston to swap ~US$1.1B of its US$1.275B senior notes for equity (an 88% cut, saving ~US$96M/yr in cash interest), backed by holders of 87%+ of the notes and a majority of shareholders; an ad hoc noteholder group has fully backstopped US$400M of new money, existing shareholders keep 8.5% of new common stock, mills in Germany, Canada and the US run as usual, and completion is targeted by year-end (~45 days after filing) (Papnews, Fordaq, Houston Today)
RYAM posted a Q3 net loss of US$229M on US$383M sales after US$221M of non-cash impairments — US$210M on paperboard/high-yield pulp assets, mainly Temiscaming, which was economically idled Oct. 3 under the 50% US tariff on Canadian paperboard and costs US$2–3M/month to hold; adjusted EBITDA rose to US$52M, cellulose specialties prices climbed 19% to US$2,227/t, and the strategic review's conclusion slips to Q1 2027 (StockTitan, Lesprom)
Update: New Brunswick has submitted a sealed bid for the privately held "Project Riverwood" timberlands tied to AV Nackawic — 106,574 acres in York and Carleton counties marketed by LandVest, bids due Dec. 17 — to preserve fibre access, and has hired AFRY to assess options for the ~190,000 t/yr dissolving-pulp mill, including prospective buyers (Papnews)
Sonoco will spend US$40M over two years modernising its ~120,000 t/yr Richmond, Va. uncoated recycled paperboard mill — new wet-end pulper, profiling calender stack, stock-prep and automation upgrades — adding ~9,000 t/yr, with construction from early 2027 and Phase 2 done by end-2028 (Papnews, PaperAge)
Graphic Packaging's Q3 net income fell 85% to US$22M on flat sales of US$2.19B as adjusted EBITDA dropped 25% to US$289M (13.2% margin); full-year guidance is ~US$8.6B sales and ~US$1.05B adjusted EBITDA, with a return to EBITDA growth expected in 2027 (Lesprom)
Holmen set up a UK sales company, Holmen Board and Paper Workington AB, to handle all Incada folding boxboard sales from its ~220,000 t/yr Workington mill, primarily to simplify EUDR compliance for EU customers (EUWID)
Metsä Fibre named UPM Rauma operations director Jukka Flinkman VP and mill manager of the Äänekoski bioproduct mill from March 1, 2027, replacing Janne Rantanen; Antti Eskola is interim from Nov. 14 (Papnews)
Forestry & Timber
Democrats won control of both the House and Senate in Tuesday's midterms, adding pressure on construction costs, but tariff authority stays with the President and any Canadian lumber deal remains his to negotiate; separately, Commerce cut the 2017-investigation CVD rates on Canadian softwood (all-others 14.19% → 12.80%; West Fraser 16.73%, Canfor 12.49%) as the nine-year NAFTA Chapter 19 appeal closed — largely symbolic for reviewed firms, and the 10.64% AD rate and 10% Section 232 tariff are untouched (CBS News, GWMI, Lesprom)
Canfor swung to a Q3 operating loss of C$76.6M (net loss C$88.2M) on sales of C$1.28B as adjusted EBITDA slipped to C$98.1M; lumber lost C$19.9M after a C$31.8M Fox Creek write-down, pulp lost C$44.6M with C$36.7M of Northwood restructuring costs, a C$45.9M duty expense lands in Q4, and management expects softer North American lumber prices through Q4 with pulp subdued as new capacity arrives (GlobeNewswire)
Holmen will stop sawing at its Kroksjön sawmill near Skellefteå, warning 50 staff, with finishing (planing, painting, impregnation, finger-jointing) continuing on logs from Bygdsiljum; the transition completes March 1, 2027, as the company says current sawn-timber volumes are unprofitable (SVT, Woodnet, GWMI)
Derome has indefinitely postponed its billion-krona Kinnared sawmill expansion — first unveiled in 2021 to quintuple sawn-timber and pellet output — with CEO Linda Andersson saying the market is "far too weak" and earnings must recover first (Woodnet, GWMI)
West Fraser filed notice to lay off 123 workers at its Huguley OSB mill in Lanett, Ala. effective Jan. 2, a week after saying it would idle the mill (and its Leola, Ark. sawmill) indefinitely on weak wood-products demand (Lesprom, Timber Processing)
Gillfor Manufacturing closed its purchase of Teal-Jones' Surrey and Sumas, B.C. operations and TFL 46 on Oct. 30 under a Sept. 18 reverse vesting order; price undisclosed, the Teal-Jones name stays, and pre-closing claims remain in the CCAA estate under EY as monitor (Fordaq)
Western Forest Products closed the ~C$80M sale of TFL 39 (154,000 ha, 469,200 m³ AAC near Powell River) to Tla'amin Nation's Qwoqwnes Forestry Holdings, with a long-term fibre supply agreement sending harvested timber to Western's coastal mills (Lesprom)
Boise Cascade's Q3 net income rose 67% to US$36.4M on sales of US$1.80B as Wood Products swung to US$16.1M operating income (EBITDA US$42.7M vs US$14.5M) on plywood prices up 31% y/y; LP posted record Q3 siding sales of US$473M (+7%) but OSB lost US$24M in EBITDA as prices fell 6%, and guides full-year OSB EBITDA at –US$95M (Fordaq, Fordaq)
Swedish Q3 settlement prices: spruce sawlogs +6% to SEK 1,124/m³ while pine fell 4% to SEK 822 and conifer pulpwood held at SEK 564; Germany's sawmill output fell almost 9% in Jan–Aug as the housing slump deepens (Fordaq, GWMI)
DABG's ISC forecast has Middle East softwood imports falling 24% to ~2.9M m³ in 2026 on the Gulf war and Hormuz closure, while North Africa edges up 2% to ~5.4M m³ as Egypt rises 10% to ~3.2M m³, 90–95% of it from Finland and Sweden (Fordaq)
Greenpeace Nordic says tracked logs from eight northern Swedish continuity forests reached SCA's Munksund and Bollstabruk sawmills and on to makers of IKEA's IVAR and HEJNE shelving; SCA is disputing the claims (Timberbiz, GWMI)
USDA asked Judge Chhabria to lift his Oct. 13 freeze on the Forest Service reorganisation (HQ to Salt Lake City, nine regions replaced by 15 state offices, 23 R&D sites closed), citing 25 vacant fire-management posts and 18 avalanche-centre jobs; responses are due Nov. 13 with a Dec. 10 hearing (Lesprom)
Chile's Q3 wood chip exports fell 22.4% to 388,000 t; Japan remained the top buyer while Chinese purchases dropped 66.7% (Lesprom)
Co-generation at Mills
Moelven Vänerply's new 17.6 MW energy centre at its Otterbäcken plywood plant — supplied by AKJ Energiteknik, fired on chipped plywood residues and higher-moisture bark, delivering 20-bar process steam and fully fossil-free — is in operation after an Oct. 13 inauguration, freeing more peeler-core chips for sale to pulp and paper mills (EUWID, Bioenergy International)
Wood Pellets & Biomass
Japan's erex hit 30% wood-pellet co-firing (vs a 20% target) in an Oct. 7 test at Vinacomin's 30 MW Nong Son coal plant in Vietnam, its third such trial, backed by a Japanese government decarbonisation subsidy (Bioenergy Insight)
Ecostrat and the BDO Zone Initiative launched the Canada FIRM (Forest Innovation & Resource Management) Challenge, targeting $1B of new bioeconomy plants across 15 forest regions (Canadian Biomass)
Industry Technology Vendors
Trimble — Q3 revenue rose 7% to US$966.8M with record ARR of US$2.56B (+11%) and non-GAAP EPS of US$0.86; full-year guidance is US$3.91–3.94B revenue, and a US$562M T&L goodwill impairment drives a GAAP loss — no forestry-specific disclosure (PR Newswire)
Kadant — Record Q3 revenue of US$313.2M (+15%, 4% organic) and adjusted EPS of US$3.64 (+21%), with bookings up 22% to US$291.1M; Industrial Processing revenue jumped ~US$37M to US$143.4M, and 2026 guidance rose to US$1.195–1.21B revenue and US$12.58–12.73 adjusted EPS (GlobeNewswire)
CPM — Pellet-mill maker CPM named Jeremy Patten, previously president of Modine's Performance Technologies segment and ex-ATS, IDEX and Danaher, as its next CEO (Wood Bioenergy)
