Boise Cascade Forms Chilean Joint Venture

Boise Cascade Corp. said it plans to form a joint venture with a Chilean company to build a $160 million plant in southern Chile to make oriented-strand board, more than doubling Boise’s annual capacity for the building product.

The venture with Maderas Condor SA will build a plant capable of producing about 600 million square feet a year of the structural paneling, often used as a substitute for plywood. Boise Cascade, a maker of paper and building material, owns 60 percent of the venture, called Compania Industrial Puerto Montt, and Maderas has the remaining 40 percent.

Boise Cascade aims to expand production of oriented-strand board to meet an expected increase in demand.