Roseburg Forest Products said Friday that it plans to build two new factories in southern Oregon and upgrade other facilities, spending $700 million over four years and adding 120 jobs in a major expansion.
“Roseburg is embracing advanced manufacturing and leveraging new technology and methods to make our current products and develop new ones, with the goal of ensuring we remain competitive in the global market,” Roseburg CEO Grady Mulbery said in a written statement.
The privately held company said it will build a fiberboard panel factory and wood trim plant at its Dillard site south of Roseburg. It will also upgrade existing plants in Douglas and Coos County.
The medium-density fiberboard plant will be the biggest of the new projects, costing $450 million. Roseburg said it will meet demand for panels used in cabinets, doors and other products. The other, $50 million Dillard plant will convert panels that Roseburg makes in Medford into trim for homes and sheds.
Roseburg said it will spend another $200 million upgrading a plywood plant in Riddle with two new lathe lines and a hardwood plywood line, and adding a dryer at a plywood plant in Coquille.
“Our use of robotics, computer programming, and other advanced manufacturing tools aligns Roseburg with the high-tech evolution of manufacturing in this state,” Mulbery said.
Roseburg didn’t immediately respond to questions about how many people it already employs or whether it received public incentives to help finance the expansion. The company had 1,800 workers in Douglas County in 2015, when it was the region’s largest private employer.
Founded in 1936, Roseburg owns 600,000 acres of timberland in Oregon, North Carolina and Virginia. It also has an export terminal in Coos Bay.
Oregon’s forest products industry sector years of decline beginning in the 1990s but grew steadily in the years after the Great Recession. The state’s wood products manufacturers employ about 23,000, according to the latest state data.
— Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com |
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