Canfor to permanently close Northwood pulp mill, removing 300,000 tonnes of annual capacity

Northwood scheduled to close in late Q4 2026

Canfor Corporation will permanently close its Northwood pulp mill in Prince George, British Columbia, removing about 300,000 tonnes of annual Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft pulp capacity from the Canadian market. The company announced the decision on July 14, 2026, and said the facility would follow an orderly wind-down process before its expected closure in late Q4 2026.

Approximately 300 employees in Prince George are directly affected. Canfor President and CEO Susan Yurkovich said the company would provide severance and explore opportunities to redeploy affected employees to other operating locations where possible. She also said the closure was not a reflection of the Northwood workforce, which had worked to improve the mill’s performance under difficult conditions.

The announcement provides no details about current production levels, customer contracts or the destinations served by Northwood. Its stated capacity reduction nevertheless gives pulp buyers and market analysts a clear measure of the supply being permanently withdrawn: about 300,000 tonnes per year of NBSK, a grade commonly produced from Canadian softwood fibre and traded internationally.

Global oversupply weighs on pulp prices

Canfor attributed the closure partly to substantial additional pulp production capacity entering service globally. According to the company, this expansion has created oversupply and placed downward pressure on global pulp prices. For importers, the closure therefore comes against a market backdrop in which worldwide supply growth has been stronger than demand can absorb at sustainable prices for some producers.

The removal of Northwood’s capacity may tighten availability from this particular Canadian source, but Canfor’s explanation indicates that the broader global market remains well supplied. Buyers that depend on NBSK will need to assess whether Northwood volumes can be replaced by other Canadian mills or overseas suppliers. Exporters competing with Canadian pulp may gain access to customers previously served by the Prince George facility, although weak global pricing remains a constraint across the sector.

The closure also illustrates the uneven impact of global capacity additions. New production can reduce costs or increase supply for import markets, while older or fibre-constrained facilities face greater pressure when benchmark prices decline. Canfor said it saw no foreseeable improvement in the outlook sufficient to restore Northwood to sustainable financial performance.

Fibre access compounds losses

Alongside low pulp prices, Canfor cited persistent difficulty accessing fibre as a central reason for the decision. Fibre is the mill’s essential raw material, making its availability and cost important to both production economics and the reliability of export supply. Canfor said the combination of constrained fibre access and global oversupply had produced a prolonged period of unsustainable financial losses for Canfor Pulp.

The effects will extend beyond pulp shipments. Canfor warned of consequences for employees, their families, businesses supporting the operation and the communities where it operates. Prince George will lose a large industrial buyer of forest fibre as well as approximately 300 direct jobs when the wind-down is completed.

Canfor remains a diversified forest-products manufacturer with more than 50 facilities across Canada, the United States and Europe. Its portfolio includes lumber, engineered wood products, pulp and paper, wood pellets and green energy. The Northwood closure narrows its Canadian pulp footprint, however, and underscores the pressure facing mills caught between restricted raw-material access and excess production capacity in international pulp markets.