I never thought it would happen, but as of December 16, more than 700 employees walked off the job at the UPM-Kymmene Corporation's Miramichi mill in Canada. The Miramichi mill produces LWC (light weight coated) or groundwood stock. Over the past three months, I have been monitoring the situation with UPM to assess any possible risk to Lane Press customers. At the same time, UPM has been actively monitoring the demand for paper produced at the Miramichi mill to minimize any risk to its customers. In fact, I have been told that UPM began turning back business over the past two months in preparation for the strike. Yet, they continue to assure me that they are taking care of their customers on allocation—meaning those customers for whom they have allocated a supply based on previous usage in prior years. UPM is prepared to meet the allocation demand through production at their European mills.

On the same subject, here is what Lane Press wrote to its customers on UPM stock:

“UPM will honor the Lane Press allocation. UPM has asked us to project orders out through early     April 2005 so that they can produce an adequate supply. Because we are one of UPM’s large     customers (annually, we use nearly 6 million lbs. of LWC from UPM) our allocation is being     managed within their contract customer group. Based on our current information, we have been assured that we should have an adequate supply of this paper and will be able to meet our projected needs.

“While the impact of the UPM strike is significant, we have several suppliers for the groundwood stock—International Paper, MeadWestvaco, and StoraEnso The strength of our relationships with these mills helps protect you in the event that one supplier is unable to meet the demand for their products.”

It looks like Lane Press is in good shape with groundwood supplies.   The Paper Prophet expects nothing else!