Clearwater Paper lost $25.8 million in April, May and June, its 2024 second quarter, leaving the company with a loss of $8.6 million for the first half of its 2024 fiscal year.

Lewiston, the home of Clearwater Paper’s largest manufacturing complex, played a significant role in the results, according to a Tuesday news release from Clearwater Paper.

The business experienced a decrease in operating income and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for pulp and paperboard (EBITDA) compared with the same time last year, according to the news release.

Pulp and paperboard had an operating loss of $12 million for the second quarter of this year compared with an operating income of $42 million in the second quarter of 2023, according to the news release.

Adjusted EBITDA was $11 million in the 2024 second quarter, compared with $51 million in the 2023 second quarter.  

The declines were driven by a scheduled major maintenance outage in Lewiston and lower sale prices, which were “partially offset by lower wood costs and an insurance recovery” related to cold weather in Lewiston last winter, according to the news release.

Clearwater Paper invested more than $70 million at its Lewiston site this year, with the largest share of the money going to rebuild one of two recovery boilers used in a process that converts wood chips into pulp for tissue and paperboard.

The 15-story-tall recovery boiler was originally constructed in 1988 and is where the expensive chemicals required for pulp making are recovered so they can be reused.

The recovery boilers and a wood waste boiler create steam, which runs equipment and is channeled through turbines that generate electricity.

Sales volumes in paperboard rose by 46% to 272,585 tons compared with the same time last year, according to the news release.

But average net sale prices in paperboard decreased 14% to $1,216 per ton for the second quarter of 2024, compared with $1,413 per ton for the same time last year, according to the news release.

Clearwater Paper previously reported it would work with its insurance provider after frigid weather in January in Lewiston damaged equipment and resulted in a temporary discontinuation of operations.

The paperboard Clearwater Paper manufactures is used for paper dishes and packaging. The company is expanding that section of the company with a $700 million acquisition of a Graphic Packaging Holding Company in Augusta, Ga., that closed in its second quarter.

At the same time, it’s exiting its tissue business with a sale of those operations to Sofidel, a company headquartered in Lucca, Italy, for $1.06 billion in a transaction expected to close by the end of this year.

Retail tissue sales increased 3% to 81,196 tons in the second quarter of 2024, compared with the same time last year, according to the news release.

Average net selling prices for retail tissue decreased 3% to $3,104 per ton, compared with $3,214 per ton for the same time last year, according to the news release.

The tissue Clearwater Paper makes is for store brand toilet paper, paper towels, paper napkins and facial tissue.

Clearwater Paper employs about 1,300 people in Lewiston, the only place where it makes pulp, tissue and paperboard. About 500 work in the tissue operations that are being sold.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.