Southland -based Niagara Sawmilling Company has begun a $115 million expansion of its timber processing operations, marking the largest growth phase in the company\u2019s 91-year history.<\/p>\n
The investment includes construction of a new state-of-the-art sawmill at Niagara\u2019s Kennington site, on the outskirts of Invercargill.<\/p>\n
The sawmill is being built in Canada and is expected to be installed and operational by late 2027.<\/p>\n
Alongside the South Island expansion, Niagara is also\u00a0expanding in the North Island through the acquisition of O \u00af torohanga Timber Company (OTC), a 94-year-old timber processor based in the Waikato.<\/p>\n
Niagara managing director Ross Richardson said the expansion was the next step in the company\u2019s long-term strategy and would significantly lift processing capacity.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018These investments support Niagara\u2019s long-term strategy of growing and strengthening our remanufacturing business,\u2019\u2019 Mr Richardson said.<\/p>\n
In the timber industry, remanufacturing means turning basic\u00a0sawn timber into ready-to-use building products, such as smooth finished boards and engineered wood.<\/p>\n
Once complete, the new sawmill will allow Niagara to more than double its current output, increasing log intake to over 500,000 tonnes a year.<\/p>\n
The increased capacity is aimed at allowing more timber to be processed locally, rather than being exported offshore in raw form.<\/p>\n
Mr Richardson said that would enable Niagara to \u2018\u2018remanufacture more premium timber products in Southland\u00a0and add value to logs locally, rather than seeing them exported and processed overseas\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Over the past decade, Niagara has invested heavily in its Kennington operations, building what it describes as world-class remanufacturing facilities.<\/p>\n
Group sales manager Jamie Barton said the combination of Niagara and the newly acquired O \u00af torohanga Timber Company would strengthen Niagara\u2019s market position in New Zealand and Australia.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018With OTC\u2019s product mix complementing that of Niagara\u2019s, we are now able to offer an even\u00a0wider range of quality timber products to both our domestic and export customers.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The expansion is also expected to deliver broader economic benefits to the Southland region.<\/p>\n
Niagara employs nearly 400 people at present, and Mr Richardson said the increased production capacity would support continued growth, giving more job security to its employees.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2018Niagara has long-standing roots in Southland and has an ongoing commitment to the region and its workforce,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southland -based Niagara Sawmilling Company has begun a $115 million expansion of its timber processing operations, marking the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-389740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}