AV Group timberland up for sale as Nackawic mill layoffs loom

Over 100,000 acres of land is up for sale in western New Brunswick. According to Natural Resources Minister John Heron, the land belongs to A.V. Group, the company shutting down its Nackawic Mill. The listing says the land is managed in conjunction with the A.V. Nackawic Pulp Mill, and Heron says it's all the land associated with the mill. It features around 4.5 million cubic meters of standing timber inventory, and bids on the land are due on December 17th. It's a significant amount of land, it's 44. Heron says the province has placed its own bid as it tries to revive the mill and keep jobs in Nackawic. We have submitted an offer for that land. We are under a non-disclosure agreement for commercial reasons. That is the amount of information that I can suggest with respect to the offer. Heron says he wants to keep the land tied to the Nackawic mill so that there could be a future for production or another owner. PC MLA Chris Austin supports the province's plan. We can't lose that to an unknown buyer, right? What happens if someone buys that privately and decides to do nothing with it? Then that's a lot of wood that can't have value added to our forestry sector in New Brunswick. so. AV Group announced last month it would be putting its Nackawic mill operations on idle at the end of October, putting roughly 350 people out of work. The union representing workers says this latest development is dashing any hopes that this shutdown is temporary. Well, this signals that this company certainly has no intention of continuing to operate in the future. You know, they call it a temporary idling, but if you're selling off your assets like woodland, that doesn't really signal to us that it's temporary. Charlton says AV Group still has no intention to heat the mill through the winter. Cold weather could cause damage to the mill, which Heron says is already in need of repair. The idea of actually having that mill heated does provide additional optionality you know that we do not own the asset okay so it's not necessary it's not our decision what happens there Heron says if the mill does go cold it would trigger an environmental impact assessment which he thinks will be more expensive for the AV group to conduct than keeping the heat on