March 25, 2023 9:30 a.m.

In the KQEN Business Spotlight:

Roseburg Forest Products has announced that it will permanently end operations at its Missoula, Montana particleboard plant on May 24th.

A release said the closure is the final step in the company’s strategic plan to exit the particleboard manufacturing business and focus resources on other product segments, including MDF, engineered wood, plywood, and lumber.

Corporate Communications Director Rebecca Taylor said Roseburg acquired the Missoula particleboard plant in 2003, in an expansion of the company’s composite panel business. Built in 1969, the age of the manufacturing platform created challenges as the mill competed with more modern plants.

Roseburg’s President and CEO Stuart Gray said, “The decision to permanently close a plant is always difficult”. Gray said, “It is especially difficult with our Missoula operation as we complete our exit from the particleboard marketplace. Unfortunately, Missoula’s older platform and technology is simply not competitive from a cost structure perspective in a marketplace with many new, modern particleboard facilities”.

Gray said, “We know this closure will have a significant impact on our team members there, and thus, our primary objective with this closure is to assist them through this transition as smoothly as possible”. Gray said the plant currently employs 150 team members. Roseburg will work closely with local resources to assist affected team members as the closure date approaches.

The release said Roseburg is heavily invested in the composites industry, with manufacturing across North America. The company recently announced a $700 million investment in manufacturing in Oregon, including a new plant, Dillard MDF, which will make both medium and high-density fiberboard and Dillard Components, which will produce exterior trim. Construction of its Roanoke Valley Lumber mill in Weldon, North Carolina, is nearing completion, with sales of dimensional lumber underway.