Close×

Norske Skog is closing its Albury newsprint mill business, with the assets including the mill itself to be sold to Visy, Australia’s largest paperboard manufacturer.

Visy plans to undertake feasibility studies into options for use on the Albury site, with the intention to manufacture paperboard The sale price of the assets is $85m.

The mill produces 265,000 tonnes of newsprint each year, but has fallen victim to the plummeting demand for newspapers, with national, suburban and regional papers all seeing pagination and circulation shrinkage.

All 185 workers at the site are being made redundant by Norske Skog. Its closure is not a surprise to the workers. Paper industry website IndustryEdge reports that the leadership of the regional company (Norske Skog Australasia) examined all of the available options to continue operating the thirty-eight year old mill.

Eventually, it came down to just two options: a closure with no potential for future employment and regional economic activity, or a sale with opportunities for a different future. It chose the latter path.

The papermaking machine at Albury is the largest in the region, Norske Skog has two others with smaller capacity, one each in Tasmania and New Zealand. Tim Woods at IndustryEdge says such was the drop in demand for newsprint that the larger machine had to go.

Food & Drink Business

Food Frontier’s AltProteins 25 is taking place 14 October at Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to discuss the future of the Australian and global food systems – with half price tickets up for grabs for F&DB readers!

For the food and beverage manufacturing sector, the pace of innovation is matched by the level of scrutiny it faces. For food safety solutions company, Neogen, that creates opportunities to bring science, technology, and practical expertise together to help manufacturers manage risk and build consumer trust.

PepsiCo has acquired South Australian based seed potato business, Dowling AgriTech (DAT), aiming to strengthen seed supply security and drive innovation.