NewPage profits and closures

Submitted by Kevin Saisi

NewPage Taking 25,000 Tons Of Market-Related Downtime And Shutting Down Niagara, Wisconsin Paper Machines July 2008MIAMISBURG, Ohio. – June 5, 2008 – NewPage Corporation today announced that it will be taking approximately 25,000 tons of coated paper market-related downtime in June and July throughout its mill system. Several machines will be involved, and each will take advantage of specific times to complete planned maintenance and capital work. Moreover, NewPage had announced in March that it would continue running Nos. 43 and 44 paper machines at its Niagara, Wisconsin facility until the fall of 2008 (previously scheduled to close in April) due to unusually high market demand earlier this year. However, based on changing market conditions, the Niagara facility will permanently close the paper machines on July 12, 2008. This will reduce production by an additional 50,000 tons. The Niagara machines produce lightweight coated groundwood papers used in magazines and catalogs. “We have been observing an increase in coated paper inventories at a number of printers, along with a slowdown in demand as advertisers deal with an uncertain economy,“ said Rick Willett, president and chief operating officer. “Since we are committed to balance our production to consumption, we are diligently taking steps to reduce our production over the next two months.” This downtime and closure of the Niagara, Wisconsin paper machines are in addition to the permanent closure of two paper machines announced as a part of the company's integration plans (approximately 230,000 total annual tons of capacity): The No. 11 paper machine in Rumford, Maine was closed at the end of February 2008. No. 11 machine produced coated freesheet and groundwood papers for magazines and catalogs. The No. 95 paper machine in Kimberly, Wisconsin was permanently closed at the end of May 2008. The No. 95 machine produced coated freesheet papers for publication printing, and specialty papers for pressure-sensitive or glue-applied labels.“We remain committed to our customers and will continue to offer a broad portfolio of printing papers to meet a wide variety of needs,” said Barry Nelson, senior vice president of sales. “Products produced on the closed machines have been transitioned to more efficient paper machines within our integrated mill system. Customers were notified of our plans at the time of our integration restructuring announcement January 16. At that time, we began diligently working with individual customers to transition their business to other machines through a product qualification and trial process. With our announcement of market-related downtime, it is clear that our recent price increase is not supply and demand driven; rather solely to offset increased inflationary costs from energy, raw materials and transportation.” To learn more about NewPage Corporation, visit www.NewPageCorp.com. About NewPage CorporationHeadquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio, NewPage Corporation is the largest coated paper manufacturer in North America, based on production capacity, with $4.7 billion in pro forma net sales for the year ended December 31, 2007. The company's product portfolio is the broadest in North America and includes coated freesheet, coated groundwood, supercalendered, newsprint and specialty papers. These papers are used for corporate collateral, commercial printing, magazines, catalogs, books, coupons, inserts, newspapers, packaging applications and direct mail advertising. NewPage owns paper mills in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nova Scotia, and Wisconsin. These mills currently have a total annual production capacity of approximately 5.5 million tons of paper, including approximately 4.3 million tons of coated paper, approximately 920,000 tons of uncoated paper and approximately 300,000 tons of specialty paper, as well as approximately 3.2 million tons of pulp.