Rayonier Advanced Materials provides update on Jesup plant fire

Rayonier Advanced Materials reported that an isolated fire occurred at its Jesup, Georgia facility on October 11 at approximately 6 p.m. during planned maintenance activity. The fire was quickly contained with no injuries to employees or contractors and no risk to the surrounding community. The company is thoroughly investigating the event’s causes in close collaboration with relevant experts and authorities. The Jesup plant is the company’s largest facility, with a production capacity of 330,000 metric tons of cellulose specialties and an additional 270,000 metric tons of fluff pulp. While the plant’s C line operations have resumed, the A and B lines will remain offline for repairs with a target start date the week of October 28. The majority of the repairs will be focused on instrumentation and electrical cabling systems in the isolated area near the fire. The company is working closely with affected customers to address potential impacts during the outage. While the company continues to assess the financial cost of the incident, the EBITDA impact is currently expected to be in the range of $15M to $20M, subject to any potential insurance recovery. The company will provide further updates on its third quarter earnings call in early November.