Western Forest Products To Take Extended Mill Downtime in December

Duncan, British Columbia, Canada, 11 December 2006 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Western Forest Products Inc. (TSX: WEF) today announced that unusually heavy rainfall with localized flooding, followed by an early heavy snowfall in November will result in extended Christmas shutdowns at three of its sawmills due to short-term log shortages.

President and CEO Reynold Hert stated, "Although we expect and plan for some weather outages, this year's unusually severe November, and prolonged early snow ground cover into December, have resulted in harvest levels being about 50% of the approximately 1 million cubic meters we would normally expect for the November and early December period. Outside log purchases are also affected since other timber harvesting operators have been impacted by the unusual weather." The additional reduction in harvest follows a high fire hazard summer that had already reduced the log supply in the coastal region.

Western will be taking down-time during the week before Christmas at its Alberni Pacific Division, Chemainus and Somass sawmills in addition to the normal shutdown between Christmas and New Year's. Additional down-time may be required periodically in the first quarter of 2007 until the log inventory is re-established. Logging will continue through the period.

Western Forest Products

Western is an integrated Canadian forest products company and the largest coastal British Columbia woodland operator and lumber producer with an annual allowable cut of approximately 7.7 million cubic meters (before temporary AAC reductions) of timber and lumber capacity in excess of 1.5 billion board feet from nine sawmills and five remanufacturing plants.

Principal activities conducted by the company and its subsidiaries include timber harvesting, reforestation, sawmilling logs into lumber and wood chips, and value-added remanufacturing. Substantially all of Western's logging is conducted on government-owned timberlands in British Columbia. All of Western's operations, employees, and corporate facilities are located in the coastal region of British Columbia and its products are sold in over 20 countries worldwide.