Tissue World Magazine
Alexandra Stuthridge, Technical Business Manager, BioProducts Institute (BPI)

Clearwater Paper has announced it will permanently close its Oklahoma City tissue converting facility and shut down two of its tissue machines at its Neenah, Wisconsin mill.

All 131 of the Oklahoma City staff will be impacted until the site’s eventual shut down on 31 March 2017.

The facility converts large parent rolls of tissue into packaged products.

Group president Pat Burke said: “As an integral step in our overall strategy to optimise our operations through better asset utilisation, we will be taking these difficult but necessary actions while delivering on our growth objectives.”

The company said that because of significant productivity gains from its cost and optimisation programmes across the company, it expects the site’s production to be absorbed and supplied by other Clearwater Paper facilities.

The shutdown of two of the Neenah location’s highest-cost tissue machines will affect some 85 of the facility’s 400 staff and removing a total production capacity of 32,000tpy.

Three remaining tissue machines will continue to manufacture private label and AfH tissue products.

Clearwater Paper manufactures quality consumer tissue, AfH tissue, parent roll tissue, bleached paperboard and pulp at manufacturing facilities across the nation.

It is a premier supplier of private label tissue to major retailers and wholesale distributors, including grocery, drug, mass merchants and discount stores.