The mayor of Stephenville says there is almost no hope that the western Newfoundland town's paper mill will ever run again after the province announced Tuesday that Abitibi-Consolidated has applied for permission to dismantle the mill.

Abitibi-Consolidated stopped making newsprint at the mill last October, and decided to close the mill permanently in December. A few weeks after that, the company began issuing severance packages to some employees.

Stephenville Mayor Tom O'Brien says it is unlikely that the town's paper mill will ever run again.
(CBC)

Former mill worker Kevin Pilgrim says that's when he started to believe the mill would never reopen.

"Abitibi-Consolidated, they were quite clear right from the start," said Pilgrim.

"They said that if the severance pay was paid out, that this mill would probably never open again. … Some union people held out hope, but I wasn't one of them."

Abitibi-Consolidated closed its paper mill in Stephenville last December.
(CBC)

Stephenville Mayor Tom O'Brien says Tuesday's announcement was not unexpected, but it was still disappointing.

"You always hold onto the hope that, by some miracle, an operator could be found and, if the operator could be found, that the mill assets could be secured for that operator," he said.

"But the announcement is just that one step closer to diminishing any hope whatsoever."

The province's minister of environment and conservation still has to approve Abitibi's application and is expected to make a decision by Sept. 21.

Abitibi says if its application is approved, work on tearing down the mill will begin this year and be completed by 2008.

In a written statement issued Wednesday, Natural Resources Minister Kathy Dunderdale said that no buyer has been found for the Abitibi-Consolidated mill in Stephenville, even though the government contacted more than 20 major companies around the world.

"If an interested buyer for the mill does come forward, government will do what it can to facilitate a negotiation with Abitibi," said Dunderdale.

"At this point, however, no one has expressed an interest given the state of the pulp and paper industry globally."

About 300 full-time and part-time employees depended on the Stephenville mill for employment.