Repap hopes Orenda
will buffer wood loss

TAKING OVER Orenda Forest Products is
going to help but not completely replace
wood Repsp is losing as a result of the
tentative Nisga’a land claims deal, Says a
company official.

That's because Repap already has a sales
agreement to buy pulp and saw logs from
Orenda, Pat Ogawa said last week.

Ogawa made the comment after Repap
announced it was prepared to pay up to $25
million to buy Orenda and its forest licence
in the Meziadin area,

“This is consistent with our strategy from
Day One to enhance our fibre security,’’
said Ogawa,

Secure fibre supplies is the name of the
game among B.C. forest products com-
panies who try to be as self sufficient as

possible to protect themselves from
diminishing supplies and, at times, rising
prices.

The tentative deal with Orenda would
give Repap control over an additional
342,000 cubic metres of wood.

That would help buffer the loss of as
much as 170,000 cubic metres of wood to
he Nisga’a as part of its proposed land
Jaims deal with the provincial and federal
zovernments,

But since Repap already has a sales
igreement to buy up to 240,000 cubic
netres of saw and pulp wood a year from
Jrenda, not much will be added to its. in-
ventory, said Ogawa.

“What we're really doing bere is secur-
ing our supply,’’ he added,

The buy deal with Orenda is for 10 years
ind runs out in the next two years,

Making a bid for Orenda locks up the

And while Repap is making a play for
Orenda, it is also looking to set up a long
term relationship with the Nisga’a by offer-
ing them the chance to oblain 49 per cent of
Orenda,

“We've been working pretty hard to set
up good working relations with the
Nisga’a,”’ said Ogawa.

“‘We don’t intend on leaving the (Nass)
Valley and they don’t intend on leaving the
valley so it makes sense to work together,”
he added.

The deal to buy Orenda is subject to ap-
proval by Repap’s board of directors and a
formal share purchase offering is expected
by May 1.

Repap says it wants to buy at least 75 per
cent of Orenda’s 8,2 million shares and will
pay $3 each.

The great majority of Orenda’s shares are
held by its senior managers and they’ve al-
ready agreed to the deal,

The proposed sales deal is also subject to
the approval of forests minister Dennis
Streifel because it involves an ownership
change in the forest licence held by Orenda,

He’s promised a series of meetings
around the northwest to gather public
opinion before making a decision.

Forest licence ownership changes are
evaluated as to whether or not they will
contributed to the economic development
and stability of communities.

Ogawa said Repap has been talking to
Orenda for some time but wouldn't com-
nent on suggestions the company turned
down a Repap offer of $4 a share last fall.

Repap already carries significant debt but
it does want $80 million from the provin-

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supply and doesn’t place Repap in the posi-
tion of having to outbid other potential
buyers,

cial government to compensate for the loss
of wood to the Nisga’a and that might help
finance the Orenda buy.

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-a thick granite wall, with

Company tries again

REPAP’S $25 million bid for Orenda
Forest Products is the second time ina year
the company has had a buyer.

Barly last year a New York-based group
formed OFP Acquisition Corp to buy the
company and ship its wood south to a pulp
and paper plant at Gold River on Van-
couver Island,

Back then the bid price was $5.50, sig-
nificantly higher than the $3 a share Repap
is now offering.

The deal ultimately fell through when

OFP decided it wouldn’t get the approval of
then-forests minister Andrew Petter.
: There was stretiuous opposition to the
proposed OFP deal by northwestern
politicians who didn’t want to sce the ex-
port of wood from the area.

That opposition was based on Orenda’s
long standing plan to use its wood from the
Meziadin arca to supply a pulp and paper
mill it wanted to build,

Orenda received its forest licence in 1985
on the provision it construct a wood pro-
cessing facility.

The company did spend millions of dol-
lars in developing plans but never did find
the necessary backing to go ahead.

It also moved its planned mill location
from near Meziadin, north of Kitwanga on
Hwy37, to a location between Terrace and
Kitimat.

Columbarium
going ahead

Criticism of Orenda’s lack of progress
grew in the carly 1990s and intensified
when the tentative OFP deal was announc-
ed in early 1995,

“] said they were playing silly bugger
then and J drew a lot of flack for it but who
tumed out to be right??? commented
Stewart mayor Andy Burton last week on
the proposed deal between Orenda and
Repap.

Burton and other Stewart and area resi-
dents had been counting on Orenda’s plans
to add jobs to the area. ‘“‘There’s still a
chance of something happening. We'll have
1o wail and see,”’ said Burton.

Should the Orenda-Repap deal go
through, itll mark the end of a plan stretch.
ing back to the 1980s for a more diversified
forest indusiry and processing base in the
northwest.

The Orenda forest licence of 1985 was
one of three granted in the Meziadin-Bell
Irving area.

Tay-M’s licence has since been bought up
by West Fraser (which operates Skeena
Sawmills in Terrace) and Repap has al-
ready taken over Buffalo Head Forest Pro-
ducts, the second company granted one of
the licences.

The one benefit, said Stewart mayor
Burton, is that existing northwest process-
ing facilitics have gained supply security,

="

ee
‘os
:

TERRACE RESIDENTS
will soon have a new option
when it comes to burying
their loved ones.

MacKay’s Funcral Service
plans to erect a colum-
barium in the graveyard on
Kalum Lake Rd.

A columbarium looks like

compartments to hold the
remains of people who’ve

are

been cremated -—~ or
cremains,
Maggie MacKay, a funeral

service provider, hopes the

paperwork will be finished in lime to install the colum-

barium this spring or summer.

*'There’s becn a lot of interest expressed in it,”’ says

MacKay.

The one which the funeral home plans to install will be
made from gray and black granite and will have roses
etched on the side, [t will hold somewhere between 40-48

niches.

Right now there are only two options for disposing of
cremains, They can be discreetly scattered, or buried in a

cremation plot in the graveyard.

If the columbarium proves a popular alternative, MacK-
ay says they’li be looking at installing a second one next
year in the Kitsumkalum Pioneer Cemetery, down the

road,

That cemetery is full, so putting a columbarium there
would provide a way for familics to buried close lo each

other,

MacKay isn’t sure whether that columbarium would go
in the cemetery or in the memorial garden planned ad-

jacent to the graveyard.

That garden is Terrace Beautification Society project and
will feature a memorial wall. It probably won't be started

for another year or two.

Maggie MacKay

—

~~

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