Catalyst Paper Corporation is a pulp and paper company based in Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 million tonnes of paper and 491,000 tonnes of market pulp annually. The mills mostly produce magazine paper and newsprint. The company was established as NorskeCanada in 2000, when Norske Skog bought the majority of Fletcher Challenge Canada with Elk Falls Mill and Crofton Mill. The following year Pacifica Papers, operating Port Alberni Mill and Powell River Mill, was merged into the group. A recycling plant in Coquitlam was bought in 2003. The group took the Catalyst name in 2005 and the following year Norske Skog sold their shares. Snowflake Mill was bought in 2008. In the following two years the Elk Falls, Coquitlam and one machine at Crofton were shut down. Snowflake followed suit in 2012. The reason was falling demand for newsprint and increased cost of recycled paper. Catalyst reentered US production in 2015 with the purchase of Biron Mill and Rumford Mill. History Background Catalyst's Canadian mills date back to 1912, when Powell River Mill was established by The Powell River Paper Company. Bloedel, Stewart and Welch established Port Alberni Mill in 1946, merging to create MacMillan Bloedel in 1951. They merged with The Powell River Paper Company in 1960. The mill assets were spun off to create Pacifica Papers in 1998. Crown Zellerbach Canada established Elk Falls Mill in 1951. British Columbia Forest Products (BCFP), founded in 1946, established Crofton Mill in 1957. New Zealand's Fletcher Challenge acquired Crown Zellerbach Canada in 1981, changing its name to Crown Forest Industries. Six years later it also bought BCFP, changing the Canadian division's name to Fletcher Challenge Canada. NorskeCanada NorskeCanada had its origins in the 2000 purchase of Fletcher Challenge Pulp and Paper by Norske Skog. The latter was not interested in entering the North American market, but Fletcher Challenge had offered its assets as an all or nothing deal. This included its 50.8 percent share in Fletcher Challenge Canada, which owned Elk Falls Mill and Crofton Mill. The annual meeting in Fletcher Challenge Canada approved with 99.97 percent of the votes on 26 October 2000 to take the name Norske Skog Canada Ltd. At the time the company had NOK 8 billion in cash which it paid in dividends to the owners. Norske Skog considered both selling its shares in NorskeCanada or