International Paper announces facility closures

International Paper (IP) announced Thursday plans to permanently close four facilities in a move that will impact 674 employees.

The sites set to close include the Red River containerboard mill in Campti, Louisiana; a recycling facility in Phoenix; a box plant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania; and a sheet feeder facility in St. Louis.

"The decision to close any facility is difficult because of the impact on our team members, their families and the surrounding communities," says Tom Hamic, IP’s executive vice president and president, North American Packaging Solutions. "We greatly appreciate the contributions from our departing team members and will do all we can to support them."

All sites will cease operations by the end of April, and the Red River containerboard mill closure is expected to reduce IP’s containerboard capacity by about 800,000 tons annually.

The move is just the latest closure announcement from IP, which announced in November 2024 the shutdown of its fluff pulp mill in Georgetown, South Carolina, as well as the closures of a packaging facility in Kansas City, Missouri; container plants in Statesville, North Carolina, and Cleveland, Tennessee; and a corrugated sheet plant in San Antonio.

IP also revealed late last year plans to lay off 400 employees in its headquarters city of Memphis, Tennesee.

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In an interview The Daily Memphian from January, CEO Andy Silvernail says, “This company of 40,000 people over a decade had seen its profits cut in half, had seen its return on capital cut by two-thirds, had lost market share every single year and its stock price was flat. You ask, ‘Well, why?’ Well, you’re only there because you’re not servicing your customers, right? So, if you were servicing your customers at the right cost, that wouldn’t be true.”

In a news release announcing the latest closures, IP says it will work to minimize the impact on employees by using attrition, retirements and current vacancies at other IP locations. 

“International Paper is undergoing a transformational journey to become a stronger sustainable packaging solutions company,” the company says in the news release. “A critical step in this journey is to streamline IP's footprint to focus investments on facilities that will best serve customers and accelerate strategic initiatives to improve quality, reliability and service delivery.”