The idled Old Town Mill has a new buyer. ND Paper LLC says it's purchasing the paper mill, which has had several owners in recent years. It's currently owned by OTM Holdings LLC. ND paper, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China-based Nine Dragons Paper, also owns a paper mill in Rumford. The company says it plans several changes to the Old Town operation it expects to substantially lower manufacturing costs.
Among them is a plan to produce just softwood kraft pulp and drip a hardwood kraft line. ND Paper spokesman Brian Boland says the company also plans to eliminate bleaching operations.
"The end use that we intend to put that pulp into, it doesn't require bleaching," he says. "So we're actually going to really change the mix to exclusively brown pulp instead of white pulp," which will be used to make boxes.
The Old Town mill will also share several management and administrative functions with ND's Rumford division.
ND Paper officials say that after a series of capital investments the Old Town facility is expected to restart in the first quarter of next year with more than 100 workers.
The purchase price is not being disclosed. On Tuesday ND Paper announced it plans to invest $111 million in the Rumford Mill over the next two years.
OTM Holdings, a Maine-based group of companies, purchased the mill earlier this year from a liquidation company that had planned to demolish it. OTM had said it wanted to redevelop the site into a wood-fiber based complex with multiple tenants.
