Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

IP vital part in Clark County's economy

Gurdon's International Paper plant is not a paper mill.

This is what Don Morehead, comptroller at IP, told members of the Clark County Industrial Council Thursday, March 28.

The products produced are for building and landscaping purposes, as the plant manufactures plywood and lumber, along with making chips and 4X4 landscape timbers.

Morehead said the Gurdon facility is one of five plywood plants IP has. The others are in Camden and Coniger, Texas, Springhill, La. and Chapman, Ala.

IP purchased the Gurdon plant in 1979 from Arkla Gas. At the time it was just a plywood plant.

Now, Morehead said, the plant has been expanded and improved so the entire tree is used with almost nothing going to waste. The primary waste product is wood with nails or other metal in it, which can't be used without damaging the equipment.

The plant produces plywood in thickness ranging from one-quarter inch to and inch-and-a-quarter. IP, Morehead said, makes a tongue-in-groove plywood used primarily for flooring.

He said IP does not make particle board or OSB, but a five-layer plywood.

The lumber made at IP is basically 2X4 and 2X6.

Safety, Morehead said, is the plant's top priority, as there are about 600 people involved in handling the products made, and it's a dangerous business.

Employees are routinely questioned about how the plant can be made safer for everyone, as they are the ones working with the equipment and getting the product out.

The plant, though, would be nothing without timber. Morehead said IP buys trees from a 100-mile radius, and the company doesn't expect to have to worry about its supply for a long time.

Of the supply, 55 percent comes from trees on land the company owns, with the rest being bought from landowners. This, he said, amounts to IP spending about $42 million a year to landowners for their trees.

The 100-mile radius, he said, is important because the company has learned it's not cost effective to ship trees any further.

Gurdon's plant, he said, is considered in the industry to be medium sized. Still, it does a great deal of volume, going through a truckload of trees every six minutes.

The average age of the trees is 30-years-old, though some trees are cut when they are 20. The 30-year rotation, he said, is the high end for the company.

Younger trees are used because the plant doesn't use what is considered to be "big timber". The average diameter of the small-end log is 7.7 inches.

With these trees, he said, the plant makes about 166,000 boards per week, and cuts about 700 logs per hour.

The customers are primarily in Texas and the Midwest, generally Illinois and Indiana. The product is shipped to these areas by rail, the most cost effective manner of transportation for the company.

According to Morehead, 24 percent of the lumber goes to "big box" customers, such as Lowe and other retail outlet, with much being shipped out for industrial use.

The 2X4 and 2x6 lumber is cut in 10- and 20-foot lengths.

On the plywood side, he said, when the trees come in they are literally peeled. Morehead described the process as being similar to unrolling paper towels.

The process used goes through 650 logs per hour, with the wood glued together for strength. The wood is soaked in high temperature baths for four-to-six hours so it won't be brittle. It's then dried and put on an assembly line where it's cut into sheets measuring four-feet by eight-feet.

The average diameter of trees used in making plywood, Morehead said, is 11 inches.

Customers for the plywood products are basically the same as those for lumber, with the exception of California.

He said 39 percent of the plywood is used in flooring, 30 percent in decking, 16 percent is sanded, with 15 percent being used for other purposes.

According to Morehead, 31 percent of the logs become chips. The chips are sent to the Pine Bluff plant where they are used to make paper. Or, the chips are used at the Gurdon plant to help run the steam generators.

Shavings, bark and sawdust, he said, are either sold or used for the boilers.

The Gurdon plant, he said, has an annual payroll of $26 million, including taxes. There are 545 hourly workers, 35 exempt worker, three salaries employees and 11 non-exempt salaries personnel.

These people work about 1.1 million man-hours each week, with the company paying about $300,000 in property taxes each year. IP also pays about $500,000 in sales tax, even though it has a direct-pay permit.

Additionally, Morehead said, IP pays $11 million to in-state vendors, and spends about $80 million annually in Arkansas alone.

IP recently completed a $15 million renovation process, after it first finished a $28 million upgrade on the plywood side.