Miramichi River

An agreement in principal has been reached whereby the N.B. government will provide a $1.5 million loan to the fourth-generation mill owner, to make up part of the $3.5 million in capital and equipment it’ll need to modernize the mill his family has owned, with the remainder arranged by Anderson.

“We’re going to be rebuilding the mill this winter, start the sawmill up probably in June and go right straight ahead,” Anderson said.

Separate from the modernization, the government is also putting up a $1.5 million working capital loan guarantee.  The family owned mill will also receive a new 150,000 cubic-meter Crown allocation, almost double the 83,000 cubic metres it currently holds. A fair bit of logs were already piled up off to one side, with cutters in the woods almost as soon as the deal which is an agreement in principal was signed.

Anderson said the financial aid and wood supply were the key issues that needed to be dealt with before the mill could come out of receivership and back to operation, although he notes the current market conditions made things much worse. “The markets are starting to pick up, but the big change for us has been the wood supply and the modernization of the mill,” Anderson said.

His $3.5 million modernization plan would include $2.5 million in the cost of the actual modernization, with the rest consisting of capitalization, he said. Anderson estimated it took around eight months to reach the deal with the province. “Took a lot longer than I figured, but its one of those things you can’t hurry,” he said, adding he never doubted it would actually happen. He said throughout the whole negotiations, the support he and his company had from people on the river, from banks and business to woodlot owners and ordinary citizens, was very humbling.

Business New Brunswick Minister Victor Boudreau said that Anderson’s business plan was carefully reviewed, and his department was comfortable with it. “We believe that the new package that has been put together by Mr. Anderson has some merit and has a future, and we feel its important to support this project,” he said. This is an agreement in principal, and a more formal announcement will follow in due time.