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Brink mulling value-added facility for Terrace
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by Jeff Nagel
A MAJOR value-added producer in Prince George will consider building a wood products plant in Terrace. John Brink, of Brink Forest Products, told a business luncheon here last Thursday this area is attractive, especially with the expected completion of a container port in Prince Rupert. “We are a growing company,” Brink said. “We will be looking closely at Terrace. There is no question about it.”
The arrival of containerization on the north coast will open up all of northern B.C. to new opportunities, he said. “I believe Prince Rupert will play a major, major role allowing us to expand in the interior part of the province,” Brink said. “Northern B.C. is the best location to take advantage of that.”
Brink Forest Products and its subsidiaries already employ around 175 people in Prince George, primarily in operations to make finger-jointing lumber. “We can’t make enough of it,” he said, adding his companies aim to expand their present production level of 80 million board feet per year to as much as 200 million board feet per year.
“Every year we want to build another finger-joint plant somewhere,” he said.
His firm is expanding into Houston, adding a remanufacturing plant there. And he says he’s investing money in marketing and other research now as a first stage of his plan to build a value-added furniture factory in Prince George.
Brink said his firm is also making a proposal to use beetle-killed timber in the interior.
He said it now appears up to 80 per cent of pine stands will be wiped out as far west as Houston. Probably close to 250 million cubic metres is dead or dying now, he said, adding that’s four times the total annual cut of the entire province.
He said there are big opportunities to create unique products using beetle wood that doesn’t compete with traditional lumber.
Brink also told the business audience changes to B.C. forest policy are the most sweeping in decades – and he’s not sure they’re entirely for the better. “[Because of] major mergers, for all intents and purchases, two major companies control 50 per cent of the allowable annual cut in one particular region,” he said.. “That’s not necessarily healthy.”
He said that raises the danger that supermills run by huge companies will increasingly consume more volume but employ fewer people.
Brink said he’d like to see policy reforms that require at least 20 per cent of lower grade timber be processed by independent or value-added processors. He said such a move could add tens of thousands of jobs. “I’m not anti-big company,” he added. “I just think it needs to be diversified.” He also argued incentives are possible to make that happen without creating business subsidies.
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