Severe weather caused flooding in B.C., which directly caused West Fraser to reduce the operating hours of multiple kinds of wood and pulp mills in Western Canada.
The company announced that the disruption of rail and truck routes has led to a decline in wood and pulp shipments. Their weekly wood shipments from Western Canada fell by 25-30%, and their pulp shipments to the Port of Vancouver were on average less than 20% of the normal volume.
The company said in a statement: "Although West Fraser is using alternative transportation routes and methods as much as possible to continue to provide services to customers, the extent and duration of the current weather events are still uncertain."
The company said it is unclear when it will clear the backlog caused by the interruption.
Tolko also announced earlier that its BC business will be suspended for two weeks from December 21 to January. The last day of factory production is December 20th. In addition, Tolko’s office will be closed during the week of December 23-27. During this period, the staffing level of all businesses in British Columbia will be limited to basic services.
The downtime of the Tolko plant will reduce its timber output by approximately 21 million board feet and its panel output by 10 million.
In addition, the Skeena sawmill in B.C province was short of logs due to flooding and temporarily suspended production for one week. Due to summer fire restrictions, rain, and roads being washed out, the factory encountered problems in obtaining logs. As a result, it has been unable to establish sufficient log stocks to ensure the production of the factory during the interruption of transportation.
