Smurfit-Stone Container shuts down four U.S. mills, two pulp operations.

Almost immediately after its formation as the fourth largest company in the U.S. paper industry, Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. (SSC), Chicago, identified four of its U.S. containerboard mills and two North American market pulp operations to be closed indefinitely. The idling will remove about 1.1 million annual tons of containerboard and 325,000 tons of market pulp.

The U.S. mills slated for closure are the former Stone Savannah River linerboard and hardwood market pulp mill in Port Wentworth, Ga.; the former Jefferson Smurfit liner mill in Jacksonville, Fla., and former JSC recycled medium mills in Alton, Ill., and Circleville, Ohio.

Those four mills had …