A financing snag isn’t expected to derail an American wood products firm from buying the Louisiana Pacific plant on U.S. 441 at Center.
The company, whose name has not been released, hopes to use the plant to produce wood pellets used for fuel that would be shipped by rail to the port at Brunswick from which they would be shipped to Europe.
Speaking to the Commerce Area Business Association last Wednesday, Scott Martin, chairman of the Jackson County Industrial Development Authority, indicated that the proposed buyer encountered a financial obstacle.
“The company has always done this with or for someone else,” Martin said. “This time they’re doing it by themselves and I think they ran into some financing problems.”
Martin said the problems are not seen as insurmountable.
“It’s not a deal-breaker,” he said. “I’m still hopeful. Not by any stretch of the imagination are we going to lose them to anyone else.”
Chamber of commerce president Shane Short said the company would make a good fit for the building.
“Apparently, the people who use that product really like it,” he said. “It is real common in Europe. My understanding is that their competing company is from Switzerland. We can grow pine trees much more quickly in the south and in Georgia than they can, about a third faster.”
What makes the fit especially good, says Short, is that the new company could utilize LP’s existing supplier network.
“A lot of the equipment is the same,” he added.
