State workforce services to assist Conifex employees
Last week, Conifex Timber announced it would close its El Dorado sawmill over the next six months, resulting in 92 layoffs. The Canadian company cited a poor earnings report and low timber prices as the reasons for the closure of the facility, which reopened two years ago after an $80 million renovation.
Caletha Stewart, an administrative specialist with the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, said the company had been in contact with the state, and that the department plans to hold a meeting at the facility to provide services to the workers who need assistance.
“It depends on the service they want,” she said. “If they qualify for our services, we can help them transition to another career like truck driving, or if they need help paying for technical school or college, we have programs that can send them to school or get them professional training.”
Stewart noted that interested individuals can call to set an appointment with Allison George and fill out an application. The workforce services’ El Dorado office phone number is 870-862-6456.
Conifex’s most recent earnings report revealed a 31% decline in earnings compared to the same quarter in 2018. Pine stumpage prices have suffered since the most recent recession and have been slowly recovering over that time, according to Dr. Kyle Cunningham, an assistant professor of forestry at the University of Arkansas. An abundance of available timber to harvest in the state, combined with only slowly im
proving demand, has impacted those prices, he said.
“A positive sign is that SYP (southern yellow pine) lumber prices have been on the increase the past couple years, according to reports from forest economic reporting firms,” Cunningham said. “Both lumber and stumpage prices are directly impacted by housing starts, which had been on an upward trend until a few months ago, where they saw a downturn.”
Cunningham noted that it’s not uncommon for sawmills to close, restructure and reopen after a new plan is in place. Conifex officials said that they hope to reopen the
plant at some time in the future. The facility was owned by Georgia Pacific and shuttered for almost a decade before Conifex purchased it in 2015. The company had hoped to complete a second phase of work on the facility.
“We regret this difficult decision, however lumber prices are simply too modest to justify continued operations at a site that requires further capital expenditures to realize its potential as an efficient, modern mill,” Conifex chair and CEO Ken Shields said in a statement last week. “While our wish is to restart the mill as soon we can, our immediate priorities are to identity the scope of a Phase 2 capital investment to help better inform a re-start date.”