World’s largest strawboard plant to be built in Alberta

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Published: February 27, 1997

THORHILD, Alta. – An Edmonton-based company plans to start construction on the largest strawboard plant in the world near here this fall.

Alta Goldboard has plans to build a $150 million plant just outside the town, about 80 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

Doug Hathaway, Alta Goldboard’s vice-president of sales and marketing, said the company already has signed a contract to supply 120,000 cubic metres – one-third of the plant’s yearly production – to one customer when it starts operating in the spring of 1999.

“It will be a state-of-the-art facility with the most advanced technology in the business and among the lowest costs of panel board producers, which will make us competitive with wood-based panel board producers,” Hathaway said.

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Worldwide demand for the straw-based product – a particle panel board used to make furniture, cabinets, mouldings and fixtures – has created a need for suppliers, Hathaway said.

“By year 2010, another 150 new plants of our size will be required worldwide according to a report by the United Nations,” Hathaway said.

“Major furniture companies and cabinetmakers recognize that consumption is increasing dramatically. That, against the backdrop of increasing wood shortage, they want to ensure their supply.”

The plant will create 125 jobs and inject about $15 million into the local economy.

The Golden Stem Co-op has been set up to supply 300,000 tonnes of straw each year for the plant. Hathaway said Alta Goldboard will sign 12-year contracts with co-op members, who will own shares in the Thorhild facility.

“The benefits to the farm community are huge. We’ll buy about $10 million a year of straw. Our straw needs are about 15 to 20 percent of what is currently surplus in the area,” he said.

Local support sought

Monica Stadnick, a Golden Stem Co-op official, said her group has canvassed farmers within a 100 kilometre radius of the plant.

“We’ve received a tremendous amount of interest from producers in the area,” Stadnick said. “We have had great reaction from farmers. We’ve been attending grain meetings and the interest is always there.”

On March 4, the co-op will start signing production contracts with farmers in the counties of Thorhild, Smoky Lake, Strathcoma, Barrhead, Athabasca and the municipal districts of Westlock and Sturgeon.

Last month, another company announced it would build a strawboard plant about two-thirds of the Thorhild plant’s size in Manitoba.

Hathaway, who spent 40 years in the forestry industry before signing on with Alta Goldboard, predicts more large strawboard plants will spring up across the Prairies in the next decade.

He predicted forestry giants, tired of strict government regulation, wrangling with environmentalists and bad press, will move into the strawboard industry.

“Clear cutting of our forests runs into all kinds of opposition whereas clear cutting of farm fields is something we do annually,” Hathaway said.

“Every year, there’s a new crop whereas it takes 60 to 100 years to grow a new forest. Environmentally, we bring a whole bunch of pluses to the world economy.”

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Will Gibson

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