Taking stock after Suzano’ purchase or Arkansas’ Pine Bluff Paper Mill

By Kyle Massey
Arkansas Business
August 19, 2024
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States, US East

ARKANSAS — Brazilian pulp and paper giant Suzano has a vision for the mill it is acquiring in Pine Bluff, but precisely what that is poses “the $64,000 question,” Arkansas forestry expert Matthew Pelkki says. It’s really an $80,000-a-year question to many of the 800 or so workers at the Pactiv Evergreen plant in economically distressed Pine Bluff. Suzano announced last month that it paid $110 million for the 68-year-old Arkansas facility and a similar one in North Carolina. …Suzano says it plans to continue operating with the current Pine Bluff team. Pelkki, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, said he has no reason to doubt that, but foresees other options for Suzano that could have major implications for timber jobs in the region. The company could invest in modernizing the mills, or fit them into the vertically integrated approach it has perfected in South America. [to access the full story an Arkansas Business subscription is required]

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