A statement on progress at James Jones & Sons to restore production following the fire at its brand new Lockerbie III sawmill on June 16 is expected tomorrow.
Earlier the company said that the mill’s second saw group, the site of the fire, had been disassembled and returned to the manufacturer Söderhamn Eriksson in Sweden for forensic analysis. After assessing the extent of the damage, the Swedish engineers had started repair work and ordered the necessary new parts.
James Jones was also looking into ways of making up Lockerbie III’s output from its other facilties. The second sawline at the site had introduced two-shift working. Its Aboyne mill was due to do the same and the Mosstodloch plant was “optimising carcassing volumes”.
Another possible option being explored was the restart of production at the mothballed Dumfries site which was shut down when Lockerbie III started full-scale output last November.
Lockerbie III cost £22.5m and had a target single shift annual capacity of 140,000m³.
