Roseburg closing Montana particleboard plant

Roseburg announced today that it plans to permanently end operations at its Missoula, Montana particleboard plant on May 22. 

The closure is the final step in the company’s strategic plan to exit the particleboard manufacturing business and focus resources on other product segments, including MDF, engineered wood, plywood, and lumber, Roeburg said.

Roseburg acquired the Missoula particleboard plant from Louisiana-Pacific in 2003 in an expansion of the company’s composite panel business. 

“The decision to permanently close a plant is always difficult. It is especially difficult with our Missoula operation as we complete our exit from the particleboard marketplace,” said Roseburg President and CEO Stuart Gray said. “Unfortunately, Missoula’s older platform and technology is simply not competitive from a cost structure perspective in a marketplace with many new, modern particleboard facilities.”

Built in 1969, the age of the manufacturing platform created challenges as the mill competed with more modern plants.

Roseburg is heavily invested in the composites industry, with manufacturing across North America. The company recently announced a $700 million investment in manufacturing in Oregon, including a new plant, Dillard MDF, which will make both medium- and high-density fiberboard, and Dillard Components, which will produce exterior trim. 

“We know this closure will have a significant impact on our team members there, and thus, our primary objective with this closure is to assist them through this transition as smoothly as possible,” Gray said. 

The plant currently employs approximately 150 team members. Roseburg will work closely with local resources to assist affected team members as the closure date approaches.

Additionally, construction of its Roanoke Valley Lumber mill in Weldon, North Carolina, is nearing completion, with sales of dimensional lumber underway.

Based in Springfield, Oregon, Roseburg is privately held and was founded in 1936.

The company is a leading producer of medium-density fiberboard, softwood and hardwood plywood, lumber, LVL, and I-joists. 

Roseburg also owns and sustainably manages more than 600,000 acres of timberland in Oregon, North Carolina, and Virginia, as well as an export wood chip terminal facility in Coos Bay, Oregon.