The International Paper Bogalusa Containerboard Mill kicked off its annual outage on April 10. Because this year’s outage is an extended four-week outage — twice as long as a typical year — only half the mill went down on April 10. The full mill went down on Monday, April 20.

“This may be the largest outage this mill has seen since the No. 8 Paper Machine went in 25 years ago,” said Mill Manager Bernie Chascin.

“At the peak of the outage, we’ll have more than 1,200 contractors out here,” he added.

Because of that, the city can expect to see increased traffic, as well as an increase in overnight guests and restaurant patrons.

Some of the major capital improvements going on during this year’s outage include replacing much of the lower half of the No. 20 Recovery Boiler, transitioning the final boiler to natural gas, and a new diffuser screen replacement that required an 600-ton crane to lift and position.

Chascin says there is no need to worry if there’s no steam coming from the mill stacks.

“This is our regular outage that we undertake every year to do maintenance, cleaning and capital projects,” Chascin said. “Our goal is to have the mill back up and running by Sunday, May 10.”