Columbia Forest Products Ltd.

Columbia Forest Products is North America’s largest producer of hardwood veneer, and a major producer of flooring and plywood. The company is based in Portland, Oregon and has 16 North American plants. In Ontario, Columbia owns mills in Rutherglen, Hearst and Nipigon, and outside Ontario has plants in Quebec, Arkansas, Georgia, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.

The Rutherglen division was acquired in 1989 and employs approximately 300 people. Rutherglen buys logs on the open market, and produces 260 million square feet of hardwood rotary veneer annually. Its customers are based in Canada and throughout the United States, as well as overseas.

The Hearst mill is part of the Levesque division, which includes three additional mills and employs more than 470 people. The Hearst location has its own woodlands operations for veneer log procurement, as well as a plywood, particleboard and melamine plant. This division also includes a plant in St. Casimir, Québec, and the Ste-Thérése, Québec sales office.

The Nipigon acquisition was effective December 30, 2002. This mill employs in excess of 140 people and currently converts 100,000 M3 per year into a high grade 4 x 4” underlayment, known in the marketplace as Mulitply. This site fits well with Columbia’s Flooring Division and will also be of strategic importance to the mill in Hearst when Nipigon grows its throughput to 140,000 M3 to produce 4 x 4 1/7” core veneers for the Hearst hardwood plywood program.

Columbia Forest Products is committed to supporting local community causes and events, and employee involvement in local activities is encouraged. Columbia provides support to its valued workforce through endorsement of various events and activities throughout the year.

For more information, please contact:

Columbia Forest Products Ltd.
Highway 17 East
Rutherglen, ON
P0H 2E0