Joe Dekker Bowater, Thunder Bay Fibreline Spt. [email protected]

Greg Strebel Cariboo Pulp, Quesnel Sr. Eng. Spclst [email protected]

Jean Pierre Veillette Donahue, St. Felicien Asst Pulp Spt.

Pierre Slusarek St. Laurent PBd, La Tuque Pulp Asst Spt.

Doug Christie Omni Continental Cons. Proc. Eng. [email protected]

Guy Stroude Weyerh. Gr. Prairie Pulp Ops. Mgr

George Despins Tolko Man. Kr. Paper Pulp Mill/Whs Spclst

Bob Ringrose Western Pulp, Squamish Prod. Manager [email protected]

Doug Barbour Harmac Pacific, Nanaimo Pr. Eng. Grp Ldr [email protected]

Glenn Fisher Beloit Canada Mgr Capital Syst. [email protected]

Dan Charron Eddy Specialty Papers Process Engineer [email protected]

Wayne Kutsche Eddy Specialty Papers Asst Pulp Spt [email protected]

Bob Mitchell NLK Consultants Sr. Proc. Spclst [email protected]

Mark Cameron Crestbrook F. Ind. Production Mgr [email protected]

Vern Johnson FCCL, Elk Falls Kr. Ops. Tm Ldr [email protected]

Percy Jantz Skeena Pulp Prod. Manager

Gord Bertin Alpac, Boyle F/L Op. Spclst [email protected]

Terry Pinkney Tembec, Sm.Rk Falls Prod. Manager

Gary Foster Irving Pulp & Paper F/L. Manager [email protected]

Randy Thomas Pacifica Papers, PowRiv Kraft Mill Spt. [email protected]

Dan Brinson Canfor, Prince George F/L Spt [email protected]

• Lost the white liquor clarifier rakes, shaft failure, three months ago. Unit was replaced just one year ago. How do people clean this vessel for access? Cariboo has very large access doors in each of the clarifiers/storages. Need to build a ramp up to the door each time. Issues related to mud handling. ODS pumps and ball checks. Used to get 6 months life, now down to 2 or 3 weeks. Body wears out. Had been using hypalon material, then nordel, now trying stainless steel. Who else is still using ODS pumps? Answer: Smooth Rock, St. Felicien, Grande Prairie, Thunder Bay, Cariboo (on green liquor dregs). David Carter: check that the air pressure is not too high.
• Who is checking for plastic? Several mills use the Paprispec system, Harmac and Skeena do manual counts.

• GL&V will be supplying an air doctor for a retrofit. Any comments? Pierre Slusarek: experienced reduction in cooling and better consistency after replacing a water doctor. The air doctor on the Canron brown decker at Intercon is working alright. Wayne: we removed an air doctor and installed a hydraulic doctor, might have been overly hasty. Bob Pedersen noted that the run-out specification on the Canron drums is not as tight as the Ingersoll Rand spec, resulting in a need for higher blower capacity. Skookumchuck is happy with the combi-doctor. Mostly use air but switch to water when sheet formation is poor, as on start-up. Smooth Rock uses air doctors on all of the washers. Troubleshooting focuses on clearance settings and the end seals.

• Alpac has a white liquor scrubber for the NCGs in the Recaust. The scrubber return goes to the suction of one of the two white liquor pumps. When that pump is down there is a back flow into the WL storage and foul odours vent off the tank. Response – it was suggested that piping and automatic valving be installed to automatically switch the scrubber return to the W.L. pump that is in service. Dave Carter adds that the white liquor flow to the scrubber should be checked to ensure it is high enough to avoid a situation where excess H2S flashes off and to ensure that the return to the W.L. storage is always submerged.
• Experiencing pitch problems due to using green aspen chips after getting behind on chipping. Have increased talc usage but now have substantial deposits throughout the Fibreline and on the fourdrinier foils. Boil-out of the fourdrinier was suggested, though this cannot be done on-the-run. Elk Falls uses "Blast-Off" on the containerboard machine. A chip treatment called Carta-Pip is used on the southern pine coming in by barge to biologically reduce the resins. This is a warm climate option that may not work at Alpac. It generates some heat and Elk Falls has some issues with the steaminess of the chips as they are being unloaded. Pitch dispersant was questioned, though it was suggested that the system will not be cleaned up but deposition on a clean system can be combated.

Gord noted success with measurement of talc silo level measurement using load cells on the silo skirt.

• Opened up the chip meter but now experiencing more problems with scaling. Who is acid washing their heaters? St. Felicien and Thunder Bay (nitric acid), Crestbrook and Espanola (sulfamic acid).
• Antiscalants? Drewfax 342 has allowed digesters to run up to one year at Intercon and Cariboo by maintaining adequate cooking flows. Liquor heater life between cleaning has been extended two to four times. Thunder Bay was not successful with antiscalant, white liquor is at 200ppm plus. Espanola was free of scaling problems after going to Lo-Solids Cooking. Western Pulp acid washes every second year – came close to plugging the downcomer once.
• Any mill with high sulphidity using Aq? 32 to 35% at Skeena. Intercon is at 31%, uses Aq on an intermittent basis according to market conditions, as does PG Pulp. Convinced that there is a benefit – can see the solids load to the Recovery go down, EA application drops by 0.8%, see an improvement in the finished machine tonnes per digester chipmeter rev ratio and have also done hemicellulose measurements. Mackenzie has also seen a benefit at these sulphidity levels. Harmac reported no benefit even at their somewhat lower sulphidity levels. Interference due to higher chloride levels was postulated.
• Pin Seam felts at Skeena have relatively poor life on the first press bottom. Who is running conventional? Crestbrook uses endless in a couple of positions, non-batted felt on the first bottom and screen on the second. Weavexx products. Machine is well loaded at six daily tonnes per inch. Intercon uses conventional as well, getting 120 days instead of 60 with pin seam. Weavexx on first and PGB (?) on second.

• Picked FRP (LaValley) drum over I/R on the D2 stage but now experiencing problems with fabrics moving and twisting within hours of installation, and premature failure. Appears that the drum experiences a lot of thermal growth. Shrink temperatures are very high, just short of flashing. Have tried heavier banding and different crimping. A: At Smooth Rock the whole bleach plant is FRP drums. Had similar problems until we started using two bands at each end, one going over the seam and one under. We also shrink very hot, over 200F. Crestbrook noted that 254 SMo banding is inappropriate, behaves elastically. They modified all of the drums, eliminating banding entirely by using chine rings. Grande Prairie installed chine rings on all of the Corudeks. Espanola cut wider slots at the ends of the drums, double banding at the ends and the centre. Wire life went from weeks to two to three years. Bob Mitchell: when shrinking, don’t crawl the drum. Stop in the flooded vat, rotating in increments.
• Does anyone "buy" safety? Many do, after a fashion. Supplying refreshments for safety meetings, gifts for the achievement of safety milestones, etc. Intercon made a $50,000 donation to the Prince George Regional Hospital’s children’s ward after the mill came first in the BC Safety Council ranking. Pacifica used to have safety dinners, now use vouchers upon each 50,000-manhour accomplishment. An employee at Thunder Bay can get $200 per year when accident-free. Skeena used to have material incentives, now recognize with sticker only – have dropped to the bottom on the safety ranking. Safety training is done on-the-job at Intercon, not a dollar extra is paid for the likes of O/T training, meetings, etc. Similar at Smooth Rock, though an annual dinner with guest speaker is held for the crews – get a turnout of about 85%. Alpac, Intercon and Smooth Rock all do their basic safety training on shift by First Aid/Security or ERT members, though some things such as WHMIS are done on O/T due to longer duration. Alpac shift teams have regular monthly safety meetings, normally on shift, and once a year go off site for a dinner meeting. There is no program for safety incentives at this time, however Alpac has given out gifts for achievement of safety milestones. Espanola installed a large display case at the mill entrance, showing the progressive awards ladder and the prizes, which range from $25 to $250 for every accident-free year. The Medical Incidents have gone way down.

• Who uses blow flow as well as chip meter rate for digester chip level control? Intercon, Cariboo, St. Felicien, Alpac, Harmac, Smooth Rock Falls, Grande Prairie.
• Does anyone optimize chip supply? Most have some sort of chip quality assurance/incentive program with their suppliers. Irving has a portable Rader screen they bring to the various supplier sites.

CFI is very pleased with the new ownership (Tembec). It has generated a lot of enthusiasm

• How many mills have replaced their digester blow line due to wear or corrosion? E.B. Eddy has a 1983 vintage continuous digester and replaced the blow line in 1998. It was checked every four years but this year it was found to be worn out when a hole developed. Smooth Rock Falls had to replace theirs as an upgrade was required due to the increased distance to the new blow tank. Elk Falls does annual NDT on sawdust and batch lines due to high sand/debris load.
• The batch digesters are being re-lined. Had lost 24 thou in one year. Will use 25% chrome stainless. Tolko reported having previously used di-arc spray Inconel and now looking at replacing the digester in duplex stainless steel. Weyerhaeuser, Grande Prairie did some overlaying in horizontal bands. Dan Brinson mentioned that he would soon be issuing a survey on batch digesters that will include questions on lining and overlays. Bob Ringrose mentioned overlay with 309ss after the continuous digester lost 12 tonnes of carbon steel. Also reported one batch digester that had lost thickness over one large patch.

• Experiencing air entrainment problems with one CB washer. Who is using air removal pumps? These can evidently remove 40 to 50% of the entrained air using a system similar to that on MC pumps. Hinton and Crestbrook have some experience with the Ahlstrom ART (air removal technology) pumps. CFI has also encountered problems with air entrainment. Found it necessary to make sure crumb sluice circuit is correct, level control etc.

• Harmac is trying to reduce steam consumption to allow the shutdown of two small (50,000-pph) maintenance intensive hog boilers. Can anybody report on experience with waterless packings on weak black liquor pumps? Northwood is reported to have experience. Intercon has had success with the pumpable type of waterless packing on steam mixers. Tolko Manitoba did not have success with the pumpable variety on its blow tank pumps. Smooth Rock Falls tried the same without success in several applications. FCCL Mackenzie is reported to have some success. Cariboo uses grease/packing system on the steaming vessel with some success, continue to use water in the cooling jacket. Alpac has had good results with double mechanical seals installed where excess unwanted seal water was getting into the process.
• One of the bleach lines at Nanaimo is trying to run with only 200 tpd across 20-foot face washers. Results in very high dilution factors in order to run. How can we get good turndown to this rate? Pierre suggested that smaller nozzles should be available for the LaValley showers. Bob Mitchell suggested feeding the shower bars from both ends to keep distribution reasonable at the low flows.
• Harmac is experiencing higher sulphidity, 33/34 vs previous 29/30. Is recovery corrosion going to be a concern? Doug Christie said yes. David Carter stated that there is a concentration band where corrosion will be higher. Percy Jantz noted that sulphidity at Skeena has also risen since tightening up the operation.

• Reported that one of the double diffusers in the bleach plant was found absolutely chock full of lignin deposits. Headers were completely full. Believes it resulted from re-use of EO filtrate, got precipitation of lignin. Found cracked header plates, difficult to repair the titanium material. Had to cut all kinds of windows to get access for hydroblasting. Caustic cleaning did a good job of getting rid of the residue after hydroblasting.

• On the batch blow heat recovery system Tolko is getting scaling that is making it difficult to run for a year. Have used a "Scalewatcher" with success in the recaust and are going to try the same in the blow heat recovery system. Has anybody got any experience in this application? Espanola has also had good success with magnets (from Hydrodynamics, $16 - $18,000 for the 8" size). Wayne said to ensure that there is a bypass around the magnet. Alpac reported good results from a Scalewatcher on the white liquor to the digester. It can be leased for a six-month trial with 50% of the lease applicable to the purchase price.

• Mill capital spending reductions are making business slow and affecting the whole supply chain. It is actually reducing availability and increasing delivery times of some components, especially in 254SMo stainless steel.

• Why are some of you reporting higher sulphidity? Harmac due to capturing foul gases. Bob Mitchell noted the move to 100% ECF. Skeena says that they are having to sewer some precipitator catch and make-up with caustic to control the sulphidity. (Though this doesn’t help the chloride problem unless the make-up is the more expensive low chloride caustic.)
• Is anyone seeing higher viscosities with the sulphidity increase? Several affirmative responses. Strength increase did not clearly result from higher sulphidity.
• Is chloride more of a factor than sulphidity with respect to corrosion? David Carter and Bob Mitchell replied that both are issues, especially for coastal mills.
• Has anyone noted a difference in plug movement after relining the digester? Wayne reported metall spraying half of the digester, now considering weld overlay and trying to establish whether the application should be horizontal or vertical, consulting with Angela Wensley. Bob Mitchell reported that Mackenzie saw some differences after relining. Wayne noted that Domtar, Windsor is overlaying right now and report that smoothness is the same whether vertical or horizontal. Crestbrook overlaid with Inconel about eight years ago, did not see a problem with plug movement.
• Does anyone do a daily check on their digester rate? Intercon does a monthly check of the daily numbers. The rpm appears to be accurate within 2 to 3%. Also do a bi-annual aerial survey of the chip pile, results are close. Smooth Rock Falls measures the bleached tonnes per chipmeter revolution. This appears to vary only about 1 percent. Cariboo also tracks the daily machine production against total chipmeter revolutions, compensating for inventory changes. The variation is usually within 2 to 3%. It is usually possible to see step changes result when shutting off or restarting SAq. The fill factor variation with different wood bulk densities can have a significant effect. Espanola meters in the pins.
• Grande Prairie is now feeding approximately 25% chips from fire salvage. Double ring barkers are doing a good job keeping out the carbon but Furans in the final pulp have gone from nondetect to low levels. Alpac will also be running some fire-killed aspen soon. Average moisture of this wood is 30 to 35% compared to 45 to 50% normally. Concerned about adequacy of presteaming, etc., but have not yet seen an increase in the percentage of rejects. Crestbrook has run beetle killed wood of 70% dryness. Currently have a large bin with good presteaming but can’t recollect problems with similar dry wood prior to the feed system upgrade. La Tuque hasn’t encountered problems with wood that is up to 85% bone dry. Grande Prairie’s white liquor usage is up a bit.

• Regarding corrosion, I will refer you to the Sandwell specification 3435 developed by Brian Blackwell. David Carter noted that low polysulphide concentration is a problem, but deliberate high concentrations are OK.
• Regarding aspen pitch – PPRIC has published a lot of information. Need to age these chips.
• Recalled that Temiskaping went 2 years with no Time Loss accident in the ‘60s. This resulted from meetings with all employees where the basic message was 1) 1 person incident = 10 equipment incidents, and 2) Safety is not the "safety guy’s" problem, you must handle your concerns by working with your supervisor.

• It appears that superheated steam may be the cause of problems with some of the digester feed system components. The low pressure feeder doesn’t run smoothly, has a short life, the problem is worse in winter. Percy Jantz noted that Skeena doesn’t desuperheat the steam to the jackets of the LPF and gets3 to 4 years life. Terry Pinkney and Mark Cameron felt that superheating might indeed cause some of the problems they have experienced. It was noted that Ahlstrom recommends that steam used to blowback the steaming vessel relief screens should not be superheated. Evidently it can bake the fines/ pins onto the screen. A hard mass was reported built up on the endbells of the LPFs of a couple of the mills. Joe Dekker reported that Thunder Bay gets a short life out of their LPF and that the steam is quite hot.
• Who is using something other than a chain drive on the LPF? Skeena recommended a hydraulic drive. It was reported incorrectly that Hinton and Celgar have shaft mounted reducers on their LPFs. These operations have shaft mounted reducers on their chip meters.
• Who has experience with the Chinese cook (upper and lower at same temperature, white liquor added to upper)? Smooth Rock Falls has tried a version of this.

• Donahue has a Kvaerner FTIR analyzer. The sampling screen plugs very frequently, it is necessary to clean it every shift. Thunder Bay reports that it is only necessary to clean theirs monthly. Alpac reports monthly cleaning as well.
• We are interested in measuring the weight and moisture of the chips going to the chip bin. Any recommendations? Tolko has an Acrowood system that works quite well, in winter too. Grande Prairie has an Ohmart. It can drift 2 to 3%. They make manual charge adjustments based on this measurement. Espanola had problems with their system, drifted out of calibration within ½ hour of adjusting. Cariboo stops the belt to take a full belt width sample every week day. The moisture content is entered into the control system to update the liquor to wood ratio.
• What happens when you are on Lo-Solids cooking and you lose the liquor filter? Espanola bypasses the filter and cooler. Haven’t noted problems at the evaporators with bypasses of durations up to 24 hours. Alpac and Cariboo can easily bypass the fine (.008") filter for the time required for a belt or element change. Haven’t yet encountered the need to bypass the coarse filter ahead of the cooler.

• In implementing Lo-Solids cooking we have solved a number of problems, reported at the last meeting. Most recent problems have been excess vibration of the TC lines and releases of NCGs. These problems are related. We reduced the amount of flash steam sent to the steaming vessel to a minimum and this reduced NCGs in the steaming vessel and quieted down the TC line vibration. We found that this vibration was not TC temperature related. However we do not have an adequate supply of fresh 60 psi steam to maintain steaming vessel pressure, and found it difficult to put just a small amount of flash steam in with any control. We had V9 throttled and experienced some situations during feeding upsets when the steaming vessel safety valve released odorous gases to the relief cyclone. We will upgrade the fresh steam supply at our annual shutdown this month. At the same time we will install provision for side to side switching on the extraction zone. Large temperature differences had been noted on the various wash extraction nozzles, indicating non-uniform flows. The washers have been struggling and the defoamer application has been high.
• We had serious consequences from failure of a minimum flow valve on a desuperheating pump. The pump was off line for an extended period and the desuperheating and attemperation was done with regular treated boiler feed water. Failure of tubes in the secondary superheater of the recovery boiler in January and failure of the steam turbine due to phosphate deposits on the 6^th stage in March were attributed to this issue. Over a million dollars in costs stemming from the lack of a spare valve.
• We have had an unusual rash of problems with our make up liquor pumps over the past nine months. Much of the problem has been attributed to non-OEM replacement parts due to lack of adequate specifications and inspection.
• It is recognized that most mills are no longer blowing chips, but does anyone have any knowledge of a noise-based system to correlate the sounds of rocks in the blowpiping with chip deliveries to identify contaminated shipments? No, however Irving has used a sensitive infrared camera system (Flowscan) to look at the pipes. It was possible to see the flow of chips, impact zones, etc. based on very small temperature differences.

• Frequency of Top Separator change-outs? Pacifica and Crestbrook every 3 years. Skeena every four year. Most of the others every two years. Espanola and Smooth Rock Falls change theirs annually. St Felicien is using a basket with 6-mm openings. Smooth Rock Falls has 4 ½ mm profile bars, finding these more difficult to flush when plugged.
• Thunder Bay installed a new carbon steel #1 flash tank in Oct. ’95 and reports excessive wear and corrosion – 25% thickness loss. Crestbrook reports a high rate of metal loss as well. Vern Johnson suggested that the current metallurgy is a bit different in spite of having the same specification.
• Thunder Bay is tying to track down leaks of methyl mercaptans around the chip bin. Dan Brinson suggested contacting Dave Young, at Intercon, who has worked on the same problem.

• Installed a new CLO2 generator system in 1991. Testing of FRP components has shown up unexpected deterioration. Replaced the absorber last year, now relining the storage tanks. Piping is down to 1/8" thickness in places. Guy Stroude said that they have done a lot of work on FRP specifications. Smooth Rock Falls, Alpac and others report having to reline tanks after about 5 years. Irving Pulp installed FRP tanks in 1989. They were found to be in good condition upon inspection this year. However, FRP piping around the CLO2 heat exchanger, which sees temperatures of 120F, had to be replaced – titanium was used.
• Had a problem with loss of MUL flows. Found that the weld on the top of the element in the inline drainer had failed, allowing wood to pass and this plugged up the pumps.

• It was reported that diagonally slotted cooking screens are to be installed at Harmac and La Tucque.
• Randy asked about cooking flows, doesn’t believe the 2800 gpm indication he is seeing at Pacifica. Most mills run somewhat lower but Cariboo runs near this range in the first months after acid cleaning. Pierre noted that La Tucque sees a rise in extraction temperature variation to about 3C when the cooking circulation is too low, compared to about 1/2C when the flow is adequate.

• Training has been completed and now one shift supervisor is responsible for the entire kraft and recovery area. This is a steam ticketed man, reports to the steam chief. This transition was quite a challenge as these people had no digester experience and at the same time all of the senior digester operators have left. Current challenge is to improve log-keeping for recording and transfer of information.

• Annual outage next month: replacing the dissolving tank and changing out a couple of washer drums in the bleach plant.
• Safety incentives: recognize annual milestones by area. Just recently introduced an observation program that rewards people for doing things correctly. Uses tickets that are available to all. The observer and the observed each get a ticket that is then entered into a draw for an item of value $25 to $50, every week. After some initial frivolity it seems to be working well.
• Completed 4 days of training for all operations personnel "Duran Quality Improvement Program". This is an SPC initiative with Pareto charts etc. to show operators and supervisors how to use data. Doing run charts and centre-lining. Getting standard deviation on the batch K#s of 1.2 to 1.0.
• The Sunds disc knotter installed three years ago is still an issue. A big 400 tpd barrier screen, installed in the machine room to remove sclereids for one particular customer, is working well. The rejects from this screen go to another machine for nonsensitive customers. Screen gives a 60% reduction by Irving’s method of counting.
• On April 2^nd the woodroom will be shutdown permanently. Supplier and woods generated (flail) chips will supply 100% of the mill’s needs.
• Currently in negotiations with their two locals. Main issue is desire to switch from a defined benefit pension plan to an RRSP plan based on defined contributions. Also working on O/T costs.
• The Sunds OxyTrac start-up has been terrific. Can get over 70% delignification, but run at 63% with no strength loss, no penalty for additional chemicals (caustic/WL or O2). This efficiency is measured from blown pulp to bleach plant feed.
• Averted a disaster by detecting cracking and twisting in the legs of #4 batch digester (which has an old bottom, rest was rebuilt) before a failure occurred.
• Continuing to work on BOD reduction without the benefit of a secondary treatment system.

• Annual shutdown is in May. Will be replacing the D100 drum.
• Started up a Lundberg incinerator for NCGs and methanol 3 weeks ago. Non-heat recovery system. Kiln is the back up. Some modifications are in progress.
• Ahlstrom pressure diffuser is to start up 3^rd week of May.
• Next year: expect to install a new precipitator, low odour. Work is required to increase kiln capacity ( eight feet diameter by 250 ft long, original capacity 90 tpd, now pushing 140 tpd) David Carter suggested installation of a predryer after removing the balance of the chains.
• Foresee mostly environmental compliance mandated projects in the near future.

• The major shutdown will be June 22 –29 after running 8 months. Focus is on cost reduction. Will be replacing the outlet device scraper arms, won’t be scaffolding the digester.
• Last year installed Liwells, with 6X6mm slotted mats followed by 5X5 mm mats on the lower part of the screen, to replace the original secondary chip screens.
• Completed a full year with no Lost Time Accidents, then 2 weeks later had one. Normally experience 15 to 20 first aids per month. People are encouraged to report all first aids, no matter how small.
• Initiated B.O.P. (Business Optimization Program) to encourage all areas bring forward cost reduction ideas. Need to trim $10 million annually, half from the mill and half from Woodlands. Have identified $1 million projected savings in the mill so far.
• Will trial a modest "high heat acid stage" on the post oxygen brown stock. Target pH 2.5 to 3. Expect CLO2 application reduction. Will use the unused DN tower if the trial works out.
• Looking at bypassing the Turpentine system. See very low turpentine production when on aspen. Would run directly to stripper tank.
• Production records: December ’98 1726 tpd for the month, greater than 1800 tpd for a week

• Continue one mill operation. Recovery limited, which allows for some small kraft outages and getting good runnability.
• Start up of second line and capital projects is ‘wait and see’.
• Cross-functional "Up-teams" working quite well, dealing with all equipment outage incidents.

• Since the settlement of the strike Pulpco has been busy with flex training for operators (1 week) and maintenance (2 weeks). Should be complete in June. Using the local college. 10% of work force is away training at any one time. Training materials are evidently available to the rest of the industry.
• Projects: Hog unloading via the Colby crane is inadequate, have been supplementing with trucking at a cost of $1 million per year. Have designed a jump conveyor system to allow hog unloading using the sawdust handling system. The $450,000 project will see payback in nine months.
• Lost customers during the strike. Have established a marketing and a production team to re-establish customer base for white top liner.
• Working on changes to the lines of progression of the containerboard and pulp dryer machines.. Have contracted a Training Co-ordinator to help implement changes.

• Major shutdown is June 14 – 22. Will be replacing #1 flash tank and associated piping in 2205 duplex stainless steel.
• Set a new monthly production record with a daily average of 715 madtpd in February.
• Remain the only PPWC mill not to have settled on a new contract. The issue appears to be flexibility, but there is also a desire to "size-up" Tembec.
• General enthusiasm with the new ownership. Tembec has set some very challenging goals, eg taking the budget production from 650 tpd to 800 tpd.
• Incurred an LTA due to an incident involving the outlet nip roll, in spite of the drive being guarded. In another case, had a worker develop a sore shoulder after shoveling chips. He refused alternate work. The WCB has denied the claim.
• Getting 43% delignification with one oxygen stage and blow line K#=22. Canfor gets the same but this drops to 34 or 35% when running at 25 K#.

• The organization is pretty steady. Presently engineering a new CTMP mill for Papiere Masson in Quebec. Also providing engineering support for Pacifica and doing small projects for several other clients.
• Randy Schroeder (previously with NLK) is working on start-up of a new mill in western China. Looking for a Kraft, Recovery and Chem Plant start-up team for one year. Call 425-334-4595 in Seattle if you know someone who might be interested.

• Domtar is the new owner and things are settling down after this change.
• Rebuilt the #2 line, hardwood, completed last September. Knotters, CB washers running well. Reverse cleaners ahead of the machine are giving perfect numbers on the final pulp. Sending less than 1 tpd rejects to sewer. Have no plastic problem – aggressive plastic management.
• Recaust is now a Steam Plant responsibility, the shift engineer is now a staff position.
• Over the next three years the walls of all batch digesters will be overlaid
• Will be installing a twin roll press ahead of the oxygen delig on #2 fibreline.
• This September will upgrade the outlet device to the 80" dia. Cone and 15 deg raised arms to improve channeling and compaction situation.
• Will also start up a Beloit BMH Stacker-Reclaimer system, two units each 450 feet diameter, by the end of the year. Includes 6000 feet of conveyor. Looking at hardwood chip screening next year. Deal with 7 species/blends, changes every three days.
• Automating chip truck dumper with new scale, this summer.

• Working on environment and cost reduction projects. Last Fall, modernized the batch blow heat recovery system, Ahlstrom. The woodroom chipper was shut down November 1^st, running with upgraded barge unloading.
• Installing DCS in the steam plant. Two old hog boilers to be shut down next month to reduce manning and maintenance costs (there are currently 3 recovery and 3 power boilers).
• Just received approval to install Sting Ray screens on the chemiwasher line, and to make improvements on the chemiwasher.
• Will be installing side to side switching on the extraction and both cooking zones. Looking for improved plug movement. Diagonal slot cooking screens to go in in Fall. Designing a level control scheme and planning on DCS for the Kamyr.
• Planning for NCG scrubbing – regulations are going toward zero venting of NCG streams. On one washing line whistle showers were replaced with Beloit spoon showers. The TRS emissions from this shower have been greatly reduced – less agitation of the condensate wash water.
• Debottlenecking B bleach plant so that it can handle the entire Kamyr production. Needed for production and grade flexibility.

• Annual shutdown is June 1 – 12^th
• Passed the ISO 14000 certification audit March 25^th.
• Monthly, quarterly and annual production records were set in 1998.

• No LTAs since the second quarter of 1998.
• Production was pretty good but had to take a market shutdown over Christmas/New Years. Had a challenge in maintaining "bug" activity in the treatment system during the cold weather. Added hot water and nutrients.
• Former Repap Manitoba has been divided into two business units: Solid Wood and Kraft Paper.
• Installed a new winder. New secondary air systems on the power boiler and recovery are working well. Green liquor reduction is at 92.5%, up from 86%.
• A winder back stand is to be installed at the Spring ’99 shutdown, also dryer bars to solve an edge problem. Headbox work is to be done as well.
• Cogeneration is planned for the year 2000. Neutral sizing for the paper machine is planned as well.
• Negotiations proceeding. Flex is settled but there are some outstanding monetary items.

• Good operation in ’98 however poor markets forced a 10% curtailment to May ’98 for inventory control.
• $110 million in projects needed, eg colour reduction, nutrient and manganese control, however Weyerhaeuser has only 1/3 of the capital budget it had 5 years ago.
• Working with Paprican – focus on maintaining customer desired pulp qualities in the face of other changes. Seeing some conflicting data following the ’97 chip screening project, unexpected increase in solids to the recovery boiler.
• Converted a swing surge tank to a green liquor storage, getting better use out of this vessel.
• Spring shutdown is 12 days in April. Will see the final part of the three-year controls upgrade. Getting good runs out of the recovery boiler with respect to the need for water washing. Next run is expected to be 200 days, then 150 days to next Spring. After that should get to annual outages.
• Will reach 1 million accident free man-hours May 13^th. Two weeks afterward will be one year. Have a rigorous Safety Audit Team (corporate), a Best Practices type of group. Each site has members, they look at procedures and documentation and performance. Safety performance is part of gain sharing. Program targets "individuals at risk" for focussed discussion of expected behaviour. It has a beneficial effect on the entire peer group when you deal with unsafe individuals. System generally stresses individual accountability. Extend to off-the-job behaviour. Each worker makes a signed commitment. Doing "paired audits" looking at JSAs, work plans, etc. Emphasis is on forward planning. Have relationships between injuries and other parameters, eg. Environmental incidents. Incidents are seven times as likely during upset conditions. Goal for Weyco is less than one LTA annually across the whole corporation.
• Reorganization. Weyerhaeuser feels it is top heavy and is taking steps to address this, especially at Tacoma head office, with respect to centralized functions. Leadership redesign at the mill. The whole leadership group is engaged in "Full Participation Fast Cycle" redesign to reduce their size by 15 to 20%.

• Modernizing both paper machines: on-line coating for #1, re-engineering dryer section to improve quality on #2.
• Installing sawdust screening. Will switch from pneumatic to belt conveying of sawdust to the digester.
• Replacing section of the 12-kilometer mill water supply piping.
• Installing diagonally slotted screens on the Kamyr.
• Moving to higher Kappa target on the sawdust Kamyr to reduce white liquor use.

• Lo-Solids Cooking later this year, also a bigger chipmeter.
• Modifying the end folder, will be tying in only one direction. Looking at 3M repulpable tape.
• Installing DCS in Bleach and Steam plants.
• Targeting December for ISO 14000 certification.

• Completing the installation of a #3 white liquor clarifier.
• Barrier screen project due to be completed in May.
• Still completing unforeseen items required to implement Lo-Solids Cooking.
• Upgrading motors on chip blowing system.
• Looking at second reactor for increasing oxygen delignification.
• Looking at proposals for glued bales.
• Had an interesting proposal from Air Liquide for low consistency ozone bleaching in the first bleach stage.
• Implementing the terms of the new labour agreement (Flex) very methodically.
• Working hard to reduce costs in all areas. As part of this, all BC mills are asked to make appropriate representations to the CLRA (Construction Labour Relation Association) which is currently negotiating with the Building Trades unions. It is absolutely essential that the fat fringe benefits be trimmed back. If these Trade Unions continue to insist on costly transportation and overtime benefits we will be forced to do less work and/or look to alternative suppliers of these skills.

• There is some capital spending planned. Increasing recycle plant throughput and improving the acid plant, $22 million.
• pH control and automation of pitch control are in progress.
• Y2K contingency plans and process equipment checks, etc. for each department are due end of May, site plan by August.
• Converted from kite to tape threading system last year, still having commissioning issues – sheet movement problem.
• Record production in ’98 and Feb. ’99 saw new records on all paper machines and one pulp line.
• ‘99 projects include 30 day outage to redo the lower furnace and install tertiary air on B Recovery. Doing site visits in preparation for A-line pulp press upgrade. The Valmet unit at Leaf River looks like a good alternative to the Lamb-Grays Harbor unit which we have some complaints with on B-line.

• Times are lean. Doing some salvage projects, eg digester and evaporators from Ketchikan to Port Alice, Oxygen delignification plant from Ketchikan to a U.S. operation.
• Offshore there are some small optimization projects in Argentina and Chile. The Stora-Veracell project in Brazil has been stalled by the current economic conditions.

• 1998 was the best year ever (again) in terms of production and quality.
• The Howe Sound Pulp operation has been taken off of Canfor’s books.
• Will be upgrading PG pulp and the sawmills. $50 million is to be used to enhance wood recovery at the sawmills.
• New chip unloading facilities: automated truck unloading at PG Pulp and automated car dumping at Intercon. Intercon will get chips "hot" from the unloading system to the reclaim Monday through Friday. Will move to rubber tired equipment to feed the reclaims. Expect to see the amount of soap in the system increase with fresher chips.