No chief executive wants to be remembered for closing mills. Susan Yurkovich makes that clear when discussing Canfor's latest decisions, describing them as among the most difficult moments in managing a forestry company. Every closure affects employees, contractors, timber suppliers and the communities that have grown around a sawmill. Yet, she argues, keeping facilities open when the long-term fundamentals no longer support them would ultimately put the rest of the business at risk.<\/p>\n
The latest example is the company's Fox Creek sawmill in Alberta. Canfor expects the operation to cease production later this summer after concluding that the region can no longer provide enough economically available fibre to justify continued operations. According to Yurkovich, the decision was not driven by a single event but by several factors that gradually converged over recent years.<\/p>\n
She points first to the changing fibre situation. When Fox Creek was rebuilt in 2011, additional timber was available as Alberta accelerated harvesting in forests threatened by the mountain pine beetle. That exceptional supply has largely disappeared. Salvage timber from wildfire-affected areas has also been processed, leaving the mill with a resource base that no longer supports long-term production.<\/p>\n
Market conditions only added to the pressure. Lumber demand has remained subdued, while U.S. duties and tariffs continue to weigh on Canadian producers exporting south of the border. Yurkovich does not present those challenges as temporary setbacks. Instead, she argues that management has a responsibility to act before losses threaten healthier parts of the company.<\/p>\n
That explains why Canfor has chosen to close some operations while continuing to invest in others. The company remains committed to Alberta through its Grande Prairie and Whitecourt sawmills, its Spruceland manufacturing facilities and its recently acquired PinkWood building materials business. Concentrating investment in sites with stronger long-term prospects, Yurkovich says, gives the company a better chance of protecting employment across the wider organisation than attempting to preserve every individual mill.<\/p>\n
The same thinking has guided other recent decisions, including the closure of Canfor's Northwood pulp mill in British Columbia and two sawmills in Sweden announced earlier this year. While each case has its own circumstances, the common objective is to ensure that the remaining operations are financially capable of competing through changing market conditions.<\/p>\n
For Yurkovich, the hardest part of restructuring is not explaining the numbers but explaining the consequences for people. Closing a mill affects families and communities long before it appears in a quarterly financial report. Nevertheless, she believes postponing difficult decisions rarely makes them easier. If a production site no longer has sufficient fibre or cannot generate sustainable returns, delaying action simply increases the pressure on the rest of the business.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No chief executive wants to be remembered for closing mills. Susan Yurkovich makes that clear when discussing Canfor’s latest decisions, describing them as among the most difficult moments in managing a forestry company. Every closure affects employees, contractors, timber suppliers … Continue reading