East Millinocket, Maine, USA 27 January 2014 -- Great Northern Paper announced a temporary stop in manufacturing due to the current high production costs combined with lower market prices for its products.

US paper manufacturer Great Northern Paper (GNP) has temporarily stopped production at its East Millinocket newsprint mill in Maine. The company announced that the site's two machines would remain offline for up to 16 weeks. During the downtime, GNP intends to restructure the company and implement a business improvement plan. This should help the paper manufacturer to be viable over the long term.

The paper industry was more competitive than ever, driving paper prices down, GNP explained. At the same time, costs for wood, pulp and energy were rising, it said, adding that the company was working on measures to lower production costs.

GNP had been preparing a conversion to heating the mill with natural gas so that its biomass boiler could be dedicated to powering two paper machines. However, extremely volatile natural gas prices rendered this option unfeasible, the company said.

GNP produces newsprint, directory paper as well as groundwood specialty papers such as paper for catalogues or inserts and flyers at its East Millinocket mill. The site has 257 employees.