Rayonier Advanced Materials Provides Update on the Fire at Its Jesup, GA, Facility

On Monday, Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. (RYAM) provided an update on an isolated fire that occurred at its Jesup, Georgia, pulp mill on Friday, October 11th. The fire took place during planned maintenance activity and 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 RYAM’s largest facility, with a production capacity of 330,000 metric tons of cellulose specialties, which is produced on its A and B lines and an additional 270,000 metric tons of fluff pulp, which is produced on its C line.

RYAM is reporting that operations on the C line have resumed. However, the A and B lines will remain offline for repairs with a target start date the week of October 28th. 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 RYAM continues to assess the financial cost of the incident, the EBITDA impact is currently expected to be in the range of $15–20 million, subject to any potential insurance recovery. The company will provide further updates on its Q3 earnings call scheduled for early November.