Hunt Forest Products and Tolko Industries Ltd. will build a $240 million, state-of-the-art sawmill in Bienville Parish, in Northwest Louisiana. Construction is expected to start in early 2022, and the new facility will employ approximately 60 people when operations begin in the first half of 2023. The sawmill will employ approximately 130 people when it is operating at full capacity.
The mill will prioritize buying timber locally, and it is estimated that the mill will require approximately 1.3 million tons of wood annually to produce approximately 320 million board feet of lumber annually. The facility will be located on approximately 255 acres of land including the existing Taylor sawmill site and some adjacent timber land.
The new sawmill project is a joint venture between Hunt Forest Products and Tolko, a 60-year-old family-owned Canadian forestry industry company that produces a wide range of forest products for customers around the world. Tolko, based in Vernon, British Columbia, partnered with Hunt Forest Products to build a modern sawmill in Urania, LA, that began operations in 2018.
Similar to the Urania sawmill, Tolko will own a 50% share, and the mill will be managed and operated by Hunt on a day-to-day basis.
Tolko is a leading manufacturer of a wide range of forest products for customers around the world, including lumber, plywood and veneer oriented strand board co-products, biomass power and a growing number of specialty wood products.
