Buckeye's Florida Plant Temporarily Closed by Dryer Drum Failure

Buckeye Technologies Inc., Memphis, Tenn., USA, reports that this past Sunday, June 17, its Buckeye's Florida wood cellulose fibers facility near Perry, Fla., experienced a significant failure of a steam drum on the No. 2 paper machine, causing damage to multiple drums and structural damage to the paper machine building and structure. There were no injuries to personnel working in the area.

Following the incident, which occurred about 5:20 p.m. EDT, the plant was shutdown in an orderly manner. A team at the plant, including contractor resources and structural engineers, immediately began an investigation to determine the root cause of the drum failure. While it is too early to know the extent or timing to return the plant to normal operations, Buckeye management will have more details on the incident later this week and will provide updates on plans for resuming production.

Buckeye resources are working with all stakeholders including customers, supplier, and employees to manage and minimize the impact of this outage to the supply chain and to operations.

Buckeye CEO John Crowe said that "Buckeye can and will repair the damage to the No. 2 machine and the building. The safety of people is our highest priority, and we are thankful there were no injuries in this significant incident."

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