With a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by city officials and state representatives, NewLife Forest Restoration and its operating entity, NewLife Forest Products, celebrated the opening of their new 425,000-square-foot sawmill and remanufacturing facility in Bellemont, Arizona.
The 35-acre high-production sawmill, which represents an $80 million capital investment in the area, will produce lumber, engineered wood products, biomass, and residuals.
When fully operational, it will have the capacity to produce up to 120 million bd. ft. of lumber and engineered wood products per year, significantly increasing the regional log processing capacity needed to restore the health of 2.4 million acres of Arizona forestland.
NewLife Forest Products manages the US Forest Service’s Phase 1 Four Forest Restoration Initiative contract, which aims to restore the state’s forests’ health, reduce wildfires, and revitalize local communities.
“This is the most exciting and important project I have been involved with in my 40-year career in the forest products industry,” said Ted Dergousoff, CEO of NewLife Forest.
The Bellemont sawmill will have multiple processing lines capable of handling any size log and producing a wide range of products such as solid lumber, engineered wood products, and bagged residuals.
Among the operations are the sawmill, planer mill, kilns, and EWP lines. It will also allow NewLife to profitably process smaller fiber and scale up to 30,000 acres of forest thinning and harvesting per year.
This magnificent 425,000-square-foot sawmill facility enables us to grow as a company and as a vital local industry.
This will enable us to collaborate with our partners to thin the forests effectively while producing world-class lumber products.” Dergousoff went on.
