Temple to resume operations

Temple-Inland Inc. operations affected by Hurricane Ike include a containerboard mill in Orange; lumber mills in Diboll, Pineland, and Buna, as well as Dequincy, La.; and a particleboard facility and fiberboard plant in Diboll.

Curtailments began at the affected facilities on Sept. 11, to prepare for the storm. No employees were injured in the storm, and none of the facilities sustained any signifi cant damage. Many of the facilities are without power.

Temple-Inland anticipates all of the facilities will resume normal operations within the next few days upon restoration of power. The anticipated downtime at the Orange mill is expected to be approximately 16,000 tons. Each of the affected building products facilities was expected to experi- ence approximately two days of lost production.

Doyle R. Simons, chairman and chief executive officer of Temple-Inland said, "We were pleased that no employees were injured due to the hurricane and that the facilities did not sustain any damage. Our employees did an outstanding job preparing for this storm and are working diligently to resume normal production at our facilities. Temple-Inland is deeply concerned for the communities where we operate, as damage was widespread in the East Texas area, especially Orange, Texas. We are committed to helping employees and the community recover from Hurricane Ike."

Earlier, the company announced it will operate on reduced 5-day per week schedule at the Fiber Products facility in Diboll in response to continued slow market conditions. The reduced schedule will be in place until further notice.

Employees were notified Tuesday, Sept. 9, of the reduced schedule.

In announcing the reduced schedule, Southern Region Operations Manager Mark Avery said the housing industry has not yet bottomed. "We are making every effort to position the facility for recovery of the housing market."

The products made at the Fiber Products plant are heavily influenced by single family housing starts which remain at the lowest rate since the 1980s.

Temple-Inland Inc. is a manufacturing company focused on corrugated packaging and building products. The fully integrated corrugated packaging operation consists of 7 mills and 64 converting facilities. The building products operation manufactures a diverse line of building products for new home construction, commercial and repair and remodeling markets. Temple-Inland's address on the World Wide Web is www. templeinland.com.