Celgar shutdown promises economic spinoff for community
By Castlegar Source
Celgar’s annual 10-day shut down is now under way, according to communications coordinator Sandy Hinter.
“At the peak of our shutdown, we will have an additional 500 people at Celgar (mostly contractors and equipment specialists from across the continent), many of whom are staying in the local hotels, eating in the local restaurants, and a significant amount of material and services required for the maintenance work has been procured from local businesses and contractors – so it has quite an economic impact on our community,” she said, adding the shutdown started May 31, when they stopped feeding chips to the digester.
“ As with all maintenance shutdowns, there is a “Critical Path” job that sets the schedule for all of the other work. This is the job that has the longest duration of work. The Critical Path job for this shutdown is the inspection and repair of the Recovery Boiler. The Recovery Boiler recovers spent cooking liquor converting it to green liquor, which is then converted into white liquor by the addition of lime..
Hinter said it takes roughly 36 hours to shut down the mill process so the majority of maintenance in most areas of the mill officially started Monday. Some areas, like the recovery boiler, can take up to 60 hours be taken offline and the maintenance work there wasn’t begun until Tuesday.
“Once the maintenance work in all areas has been completed we will begin the start-up procedure using detailed safety and operational check sheets,” she said. “It generally takes about one-and-a-half days to bring the mill back up to full running rates.
“The expected date to begin startup is June 10.”
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