International Paper Inverurie closure ‘will not impact packaging’

The company announced that the Scottish mill would close by the end of March after a three-month consultation process failed to find a financially viable alternative for the uncoated freesheet mill.

“This closure is specific to market conditions in the uncoated freesheet market in Europe,” said a company spokesman. “It is a specific response to over supply in Europe.”

The closure will remove 250,000 tonnes of uncoated freesheet capacity from the International Paper’s European output and lead to the loss of 371 jobs.

Mary Laschinger, president of International Paper Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia, said the company had acted “in order to match our machine capacity to the paper volumes demanded by our customers”.

Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke said the union had worked behind the scenes to try to find a buyer for the business.

“There were a number of potential purchasers and we were in discussions with them, but as International Paper has said, the proposals were not viable,” he said.

Unite is now focusing on getting “the best” severance packages for the mill workers.

The Memphis, Tennessee-headquartered paper and packaging company employs 61,500 people across 20 countries. It has operations in North America, Europe, Latin America, Russia, Asia and North Africa.

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