The lockout at Resolute Forest Products' Alma paper mill has ended. The approximately 240 workers of the factory accepted on Friday afternoon by 81.3% the solution hypothesis presented to both parties by the conciliator of the case in the general assembly. The company also accepted this proposal.

A couple of truckload carriers said the bottom of the cycle has likely occurred but acknowledged that any material positive inflection in fundamentals won’t happen until sometime in 2024. That likely means a “muted peak season” again this year.

The South Carolina-headquartered forest products company announced Sept. 6 that the pulp mill will shut down in early October with the paper machines switched off in early November. Domtar said the shuttering of operations will be for a period greater than one year.

Billerud said it is opting to idle its Escanaba Mill’s paper machines during this outage due to a low demand for paper and inventory destocking. The company said it intends to take an additional week of market-related downtime following the maintenance to balance production with customer needs.