gokeefe wrote:I think Verso is going to sell that mill to another paper company. This one is much bigger, and more modern than Bucksport. They've put a fair amount of money into paper making systems as well. I think it's competitive in a way many other mills were not.
Why, other than wishful thinking, would you trust in that belief? Bucksport wasn't floated to another mill owner at all; Verso did an immediate 'stealth' sale to the scrappers at below-market rate, and that was that. There was not so much as an opportunity given to evaluate it for other purposes, so why would a site's relative competitiveness matter to Verso? They're bad actors. And they're immune to "Well, it would be unthinkable!...so I am sure the mill will be saved" optimism. They got away with it on Bucksport because that was the prevailing local mentality, and it didn't dawn on anyone that the unthinkable was happening until it was already done.
Verso's stock is delisted, they're up to their eyeballs in debt, and its executives are openly looting the company ahead of the inevitable bankruptcy. Over the past 9 months where this nosedive has accelerated to terminal velocity they've been acting the part of a company that does not expect--nor much care--if it'll be there by the end of fiscal year 2016. They are more scrap dealer than mill owner by this point. That's why they scrap below market rate as first move.
Maybe Jay ends up different than Bucksport, but it won't be under this ownership and there has to be some evidence other than personal belief that another owner is a cinch to come in as the white knight. It's pretty well proven Verso has no @#$% to give about searching for a caretaker, and could care less about the relative quality of the facility vs. other facilities before they shoot first. So some other mechanism is going to need to be in-play here coming from
outside of Verso that wasn't in-play on Bucksport to substantiate that personal belief that the plant's going to make a soft landing. This has nothing to do with Jay or paper in Maine...everything to do with Verso's and its executives' motives.
Same thing stressed in recent threads about the future of Maine railroading: forget about the view from inside Maine; this isn't a local issue at all. Focus on
who is making the decisions from far outside the state and what
their motives are.