NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Building products maker Louisiana-Pacific Corp. said Thursday it will permanently close a wood panel mill and sell a sawmill in Quebec.
Closing the St-Michel-des-Saints mill that produces oriented strand board will cost the Nashville-based company $47 million.
About 200 people worked at the mill at full production, but the mill has been idle since August 2006.
''A number of factors have combined to put the mill in a poor competitive position for the foreseeable future,'' said Jeff Wagner, the company's executive vice president for oriented strand board production. He did not give specific reasons for the closure.
Louisiana-Pacific said it won't sell the wood panel mill, but plans to sell a neighboring sawmill that has also been idle since last year.
The wood panel mill was built in 1989 and had an annual production capacity of 500 million square feet. Louisiana-Pacific bought the mill in 1999 as part of its acquisition of Le Groupe Forex.
