Chilco Sawmill Pulled Off Market

After five months passed without a qualified buyer, LouisianaPacific has taken its Chilco, Idaho, sawmill and a Sandpoint finishing plant off the market.

“Buyers never materialized, or met the criteria,” L-P spokesman Gerry Soud said Wednesday.

Soud said he could not address whether L-P has entirely ruled out selling the operations or shutting them down.

“The short answer is that the mill is off of the market. I cannot speculate what will happen in the future,” he said.

The sawmill near Garwood, Idaho, and the Sandpoint finishing plant employ about 170 people. The two were among seven properties nationwide that L-P put up for sale in October.

The five other properties - all in the south - are in the process of being sold, according to the Associated Press.

L-P plans to use the profits to reposition itself as a major producer of small-dimension lumber, company officials said in earlier interviews.

The Chilco mill, upgraded in 1990, can make small-dimension lumber. However, the facility is best suited for milling larger-diameter logs, which then are sent to Sandpoint for drying and finishing.

L-P also has a sawmill in Moyie Springs, Idaho, and a regional office in Hayden Lake that serves Western and Midwestern states. L-P mills in Priest River and Post Falls have been closed in recent years.

L-P has been hit hard by reductions in federal timber sales because it has little timberland of its own, said Charley McKetta, forest economist at the University of Idaho.

“They’re one company that had little self-sufficiency … Louisiana Pacific operated on the philosophy that there was a fairly reliable and dependable source of timber from federal lands,” McKetta said. “It surprised me that they hung on as long as they did.”

Mills throughout the region have been squeezed by a glut of lumber on the market and low prices. Canadian lumber, for instance, that once sold in Japan now competes with domestic lumber, driving down prices. That makes it more challenging for companies such as L-P and competitor Crown Pacific, which have small land bases, McKetta said.