Successful First Year for Twin Rivers Paper Company

South Portland, ME (April 29, 2011) – Twin Rivers Paper Company celebrated its first year of operation on Thursday, achieving accomplishments in the areas of energy reduction, productivity improvements, product innovation and environmental sustainability.

“When the company was launched, our vision was to become a strong and viable specialty paper supplier. Our strategy is paying off,” said Jeff Dutton, President and CEO of Twin Rivers. “Despite rising pulp costs and an extremely strong Canadian dollar, our financial performance is solid with positive free cash flow and a low debt to equity ratio. Our integration model and focused operational footprint allow us to concentrate our resources on making highly engineered papers targeted to the specialty publishing, packaging and label markets. We have been able to reinvest in our operations by optimizing our productivity and enhancing the overall quality and consistency of our paper.”

Twin Rivers, which manufactures 380,000 tons of freesheet and hybrid-groundwood papers, performed well in its first year by optimizing its cost platform and its overall market position, capitalizing on the company’s coating knowledge and unique lightweight paper manufacturing capabilities and by utilizing its product development expertise and focus.
Highlights of Twin Rivers’ first year include:

• Production records set at the Edmundston Pulp Mill and increased machine productivity at the Madawaska Paper Mill;
• Execution of energy conservation and waste, water and electricity reduction projects at the Edmundston pulp mill as a result of the CAD$23 million allocation from the Canadian Green Transformation Program;
• Implementation of heat recovery projects to capture and reuse waste steam and lower electrical consumption at the Madawaska paper mill;
• Record low oil usage at the cogeneration and recovery plants, enabling the pulp and paper mill to operate oil-free during normal production;
• Increased usage of carbon neutral energy, deriving 83% of energy requirements from renewable sources including biomass and liquor;
• Cross-qualification of papers across the machines to enhance flexibility and support our willingness for co-development of products with customers;
• Expansion of our capability to utilize post-consumer content levels up to 100%;
• Successful product development: launch of Border Brite, a new generation of high-bright hybrid publishing papers; enhancement of Alliance Thermal Transfer product, extension of lightweight packaging offering with Acadia and commercialization of Alliance Wet Strength Label.

“The Twin Rivers team worked hard over the last year to successfully execute our strategic plan. We are building a sustainable specialty paper business that takes advantage of our focus and scale. Not only can we be more responsive in servicing our customers, we have the flexibility and willingness to customize products to meet dynamic market needs,” added Jim Gehrman, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Twin Rivers. “We thank our customers and suppliers for their loyalty and support and look forward to a productive and collaborative year.”

Over the upcoming twelve months, the company plans to aggressively grow in select target markets, execute additional strategic environmental and energy driven initiatives, seek opportunities to enhance its cost position and continue to invest in product development.

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Contact:
Dave Deger
Director of Marketing
207-523-2355