Kenaf Plant May Soon Sprout
by Heidi Ernst
After two decades of research, delays, and on-and-off development, the newspaper industry may soon see the country's first kenaf-newsprint mill sprout in LaSara, Texas.
Kenaf Industries of South Texas, a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Kafus Environmental Industries, is finalizing plans for the 85,000-ton mill, now scheduled to open in 2000.
"Technologically, this mill will be no different from a regular mill. It's just a change in raw material," says Michael McCabe, president and chief executive officer of Kafus and president of Kenaf Industries of South Texas. Kenaf Industries, which also runs a fiber-separation plant in LaSara, has 2,000 acres of the kenaf plant and will have access to 15,000 acres--the amount needed to supply the mill--by opening day.
According to McCabe, construction is dependent on securing financing, but he doesn't expect finding the cash to be a problem. Houston-based Enron Corp., one of the world's largest natural-gas and electricity companies, has been "a substantial supporter" of Kenaf Industries, McCabe says, and has acquired an equity interest in Kafus. Kenaf Industries, which has been developing the LaSara mill for a decade and is now seeking permits, expects Enron to be a financial participant in the project.
A leafy, fast-growing plant, kenaf has long been used for fiber production in many other countries, but the U.S. newspaper industry first examined it in the 1970s. Longtime supporter Don Soldwedel, chairman of Western Newspapers Inc. in Yuma, Arizona, then led an industry committee charged to study the matter.
"In 1977, there was lots of discussion about alternative fibers," says Soldwedel. Two years later, "We did a full kenaf press run of The Yuma Daily Sun. I knew the stuff worked." He touts prolonged whiteness and reduced rub-off as key kenaf benefits.
Instead of embracing the new fiber, the industry "pictured all the things that could go wrong and talked themselves out of doing anything," Soldwedel says. When newsprint prices skyrocketed a few years ago, he was back on the kenaf paper trail, serving as a self-described ambassador and securing promises from about 30 newspapers to buy product from the LaSara mill.
Because of proximity, Soldwedel's paper will reserve its primary commitment for a second mill planned by Kafus for Southern California or Arizona; most papers offering major commitments to the LaSara mill are in Texas. According to a Kenaf news release, those papers have agreed to buy newsprint for as long as 20 years, but McCabe says he cannot yet name them.
Will this new mill--and a possible second one--affect the newsprint market? McCabe and Soldwedel offer different takes.
Says McCabe: "We'll make certainly less than 1 percent of the total newsprint capacity, so I don't think it will have any effect on the marketplace."
Soldwedel disagrees. "I do think it will be a pressure on supply that should be beneficial from a price standpoint," he says. "And I do think the mills are going to be profitable. It will be very positive for the publishing industry."
Heidi Ernst is a free-lance writer based in Flushing, N.Y. E-mail, heidi_ernst@time-inc.com; phone, (212) 522-7437.