by CN9634
newpylong wrote:Bucksport could have been converted to pulp OR sold to another party, of which there was at least one interested. Instead it was a ramrod sale to a scrapper, that should tell you something. The fact of that matter is the mill was sacrificed so that the New Page merger could continue with less scrutiny.Doubtful, the cost of doing such would certainly outweigh any of the real benefits of using that existing site (and likely far exceed just starting over at a new, or less complicated site). Timing was right to exit and they did so, likely rightfully so. Not all mills can, or should, be saved. To Roberttosh's point, the West Lynn and Appleton Coated shutdowns out west coupled with those in Maine really drove the other more viable projects to fruition. Some of it was certainly luck too, given that Irving shut off their market pulp to feed their own new tissue assets (rebuild in SJ, expansion in Moncton and new mill in Macon) and now ND has opt'd to export all their pulp to China (not surprising since that was the point of the purchase). Oh and the export pulp is going mostly railcar whereas some of the market pulp was trucking locally. No wonder the Rumford jobs are pushing 6 and 7 days (and the SLRs are being run on their own DJ-1 or other shuttle almost M-F now, at times we have had 6 trains a day here on D1 between Portland and Danville recently).