Vancouver, BC, Jan. 23--Slocan Forest Products Ltd and Louisiana-Pacific will begin construction this spring on a C$200 million oriented strand board mill, officials said on Thursday.
The Fort St. John, British Columbia plant is to be completed by late 2005. It will have a production capacity of 820 million square feet of 3/8 inch panel annually and employ about 150 people in production and woodland operations.
Slocan and Louisiana Pacific agreed to create the Slocan-LP OSB Corp. joint venture in 2000 after the province requested proposals to harvest aspen and cottonwood around Fort St. John in northeastern British Columbia.
Slocan has agreed to be a taken over by Canfor Corp. with Slocan's chief executive Jim Shepherd taking the CEO post in the combined companies. Shepherd said when the deal was announced that the OSB project would go forward.
