Louisiana parish in line for $160M lumber mill

BATON ROUGE — A Canadian lumber products company is making its first investment in Louisiana, delivering a $160 million mill to Beauregard Parish, state officials said Tuesday.

Canfor Corp. expects to hire 130 people with average annual salaries of $59,921 plus benefits, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news release.

The sawmill project will be built on a site at Beauregard Regional Airport, which is near DeRidder, and is expected to support 175 construction jobs.

Plans for the lumber mill include processing yellow pine trees from Louisiana forests to create wood products from lumber to paper and pulp. Operations are expected to begin by the end of third-quarter 2022.

The facility is expected to have an annual production capacity of 250 million board feet.

The project is the company’s first “greenfield” or ground-up construction lumber mill. The company was attracted to the area for its supply of pine forests and labor force with a long tenure in wood products manufacturing sector.

“The significant incentives and support we are receiving from the state of Louisiana are helping to make this project possible,” Tony Sheffield, president of Canfor Southern Pine, said in a news release.

To secure the project, the state offered an incentive package that includes a performance-based grant of $1.5 million, subject to the company reaching specified investment and payroll benchmarks.