At the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) Awards of Excellence proceedings held last year, LMG Chipping, of Listuguj, Quebec, was awarded the prestigious Indigenous Business Leadership Award.

In nominating LMG Chipping, Stephane Laflamme, Project Superintendent at New Brunswick pulp mill AV Cell, commented on LMG Chipping’s unsurpassed attention to quality control practices which deliver consistent high quality fibre for the AV Cell pulping process.

He also pointed out LMG’s focus on health and safety in the workplace, and their attention to environmental practices. Laflamme added that he has watched the LMG operation grow over nearly 20 years, and he was confident that the relationship between LMG and AV Cell would remain strong and productive into the future.

Listuguj Mi’gmaq Government (LMG) Chipping became a business partner with the AV Group’s Atholville, New Brunswick mill in 2003, when they entered into a memorandum of understanding to chip 120,000 cubic metres of hardwood to supply Atholville’s dissolving pulp operation.

The Listuguj First Nation Community is located in Quebec, just across the estuary of the Restigouche River from the AV Cell Atholville mill.

The Listuguj First Nation is located in the region of Gespégewági, the seventh and largest district of Mígmági, which includes the area known as the Gaspe, areas of mainland Quebec, Maine and northeast New Brunswick. The First Nation group counts more than 4,000 members living both on and off the reserve.

In 2008, after five years of successful production, the chipping contract grew to 200,000 cubic metres of maple and softwood, and in 2014, LMG assumed woodyard supervisory responsibilities, handling biomass (generated through debarking) to the AV Group mill. In 2023, the contract increased to 240,000 cubic metres.

Through its operating history, LMG Chipping has employed 38 Listuguj community members. The LMG Chipping business has generated some $2.2 million for the First Nations group, which has supported community development and community activities.

Tim Dedam, general manager with LMG Chipping and a member of the Listuguj First Nation, started out working as a labourer in 2019, and progressed to production supervisor in 2020, and currently serves as general manager, in addition to being responsible for Economic Development Leadership with the Listuguj community.

Dedam explained that when he took the position of production supervisor, the operation was seeing a significant amount of downtime due to equipment failure.

“Our production was suffering because of equipment failures, and in large part that was because there was not a systematic service or maintenance program for the equipment,” he said. “We have since instituted a preventative service schedule to ensure equipment has routine service and maintenance, and replacement at the end of its life.”

The chipping plant operation is wholly owned by the Listuguj government and consists of two Fuchs 350 F HD material handlers/log loaders hauling triaxle trailers, three Liebherr handler/loaders with tandem trailers, two tractor/chip trailers (biomass), three Fuji King Carmanah debarking modules (two 20-foot modules, one 30-foot module), three sea containers that are used for supplies and power units, and two pickup trucks and one administration building round out the operation.

The Fuji King Carmanah debarking equipment is from B.C.-based Kadant Carmanah Design. The two Fuchs log handlers/loaders were supplied through ALPA Equipment, in 2023. ALPA’s headquarters are in Balmoral, only a half-hour away from the Atholville mill.

“ALPA maintains a comprehensive parts supply for Fuchs products and their service technicians are very knowledgeable,” says Dedam. “They have been very supportive of our operation. The triaxle trailers were built by AL Fabrication, a sister company of ALPA, and they have proved reliable and much more efficient than the tandem units we worked with previously. ALFAB has been manufacturing trailers since 1987. The trailer can support a full truck load of wood. The three axles combined with a Ridewell suspension deliver a smoother ride for the operator, and the trailer is well balanced to prevent excessive tongue weight on the machine.

“We also have a very good working relationship with local machine shops, which have provided great repair and fabrication services,” added Dedam. “We look to local businesses first for parts and supplies.”

The Fuchs/trailers haul wood from the pile down the yard, on an oldest-stock -consumed-first basis. The Fuchs transfer the loads onto the debarker infeed. Once the load is on the infeed, the empty Fuchs travels to reload, and a second Fuchs moves into position to load onto the infeed.

LMG Chipping began production in 2003 with a Fuji King Carmanah 20-foot debarker unit on the infeed side, and a 20-foot unit on the outfeed. Since then, an additional 30-foot Fuji King Carmanah unit has been added to the system.

The rollers on the Fuji King debarkers are powered by electric/hydraulic pumps, powering Hagglunds hydraulic motors (from Bosch Rexroth) attached to the rollers. LMG has recently upgraded the debarking blocks (on two sets of rollers), which were formerly bolted directly to the rollers. The new system has holders welded to the rollers and the blocks bolted to the holders.

The debarking process is controlled from an operator’s cab, which also controls a Serco loader which can be employed to straighten logs as they drop on a belt, which feeds the debarked logs to the chipper.

In 2023, LMG Chipping replaced the original chipper which had done 30,000 hours of service with a new 96-inch Morbark unit. The new chipper had some start-up tweaks, but the LMG team worked through those issues. The chipper is powered by two 500 hp electric motors. The infeed on the Morbark has a 29” opening and 24” exit.

Chips from the chipper are delivered to a cyclone, which drops chips on a belt delivering chips to a stockpile. A bulldozer pushes a mixture of LMG (hardwood) chips, and softwood chips procured from regional sawmills, in to a hopper which delivers the mix to a screening building, which produces properly spec’ed chips for the AV Cell dissolving pulp process.

LMG Chipping receives a detailed chip quality report from AV Cell on a weekly basis. Dedam explained that the debarker/chipper operator will get immediate verbal notification from AV Cell staff if the chip size gets abnormally large.

Dedam was recently mentoring Travis Isaac to the position of production supervisor. Isaac comes to the position with red seal qualification as a Heavy Equipment and Heavy Truck mechanic.

Dedam pointed out that one of the current challenges for LMG Chipping is recruiting skilled workers. LMG employs workers from Listuguj as well as workers from outside the community. It operates two daily work shifts, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., and 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“It’s been difficult to find workers either from Listuguj or outside the community,” he says. “Recently, we find that we rely a lot on overtime work from our employees in order to operate with a full complement of workers and meet our production goals.”

Operating crew on each shift consists of one lead hand with heavy equipment and log loader qualifications, two log loader operators, and one heavy equipment operator/truck driver. Additional shift or on-call personnel include the general manger, the production supervisor/mechanic, one millwright/welder and one administrative assistant.

The summer of 2023 had delivered record-breaking rainfall for New Brunswick, leaving the LMG operation yard with more than a comfortable amount of mud, not unlike many operations across the province. In an effort to improve the yard operation, AV Cell staff brought in geotextile and shotrock to control mud and provide a cleaner work environment for the LMG operation.

“Our woodyard borders on the Restigouche River since in the early years a good deal of the wood supply for the mill came by river drive,” explained Stephane LaFlamme, of AV Cell. “Essentially, the woodyard is at sea level and we are challenged by drainage issues.

“A development project not far from the mill is blasting rock, so we have arranged to get some of that material and build a better and more efficient yard for the chipping operation yard.”

In terms of upcoming changes, Dedam is looking forward to replacing a mobile trailer unit, which served for years as the onsite headquarters, with a permanent well-equipped building for administration, lunch room and parts supplies.

“The new building will provide greater comfort for our workers, compared to the old trailer which was on blocks and subject to heaving and settling through the seasons, which caused many problems including plumbing.

“The trailer was very cold in winter and very hot in summer, and lacked space for our crew of 10 people. The new building will be a big morale booster for our employees, and it will certainly raise the image of LMG Chipping when we bring visitors to our production site,” he said.

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New Brunswick mill made successful transition to pulp used in making fashion fibres

The Atholville, New Brunswick pulp mill site—now home to the AV Cell division of the Aditya Birla Group—has a long forest industry history.

It was the site of a lumber, lath and shingle mill owned by Gilmour Shives in the 1880s. The lumber and shingle mills were purchased by the Fraser Companies Limited in 1920, and in 1928, it became Restigouche Company, a subsidiary of the Fraser Companies.

In 1928. Fraser announced they would build a bleached sulphite pulp mill on the site, which would require 100,000 cords of softwood pulpwood and produce 45,000 tons of sulphite pulp annually. Power for the mill was transmitted on Fraser’s own power line from the hydro electric generating station in Grand Falls, a distance of 160 kilometres.

The modern mill included two settling ponds which allowed the oxidization of sulphite from the mill effluent before it entered the Restigouche River, which continues to be famous for its Atlantic Salmon population.

Production began in 1930, and included sulphite pulp and dissolving pulp, which was used in the manufacture of rayon and cellophane.

In the 1980s, Fraser invested $170 million in the mill to convert the process to a magnesium bisulphite process, similar to the process in the Fraser pulp mill in Edmundston, NB.

In 1987, Fraser created Atholville Pulp. There was a subsequent decline in pulp markets and the operation closed in 1991, and was sold to Repap in 1994. Repap resurrected the operation, but closed it down in 1996.

In 1998, Tembec proposed a partnership with their client Aditya Birla Group to purchase and resurrect the operation. In 1998, the mill began producing magnesium bisulphite pulp and shortly thereafter converted the process to dissolving pulp. The mill was renamed AV Cell.

The operation’s current owners, the India-based Aditya Birla Group, are the world’s largest producer of viscose staple fiber, which is used to manufacture rayon, which in turn are used for
fashion fibre and other fibre products.