YAORUN Wood Inc., a Chinese-owned company that leases city lands on Keith Ave. to store and sort logs, averted a freeze of its operations this week by paying outstanding stumpage fees owed to the provincial government.
On Oct.25, compliance and enforcement officers from the provincial ministry responsible for forests placed 120 seizure stickers on 800 loads of logs worth about $2.3 million, effectively suspending YaoRun's ability to ship its wood overseas to customers in China.
Yesterday, ministry official Brennan Clarke confirmed that YaoRun paid back all $586,000 in outstanding stumpage fees.
“The forfeiture was lifted and the seizure notices were removed from the company’s logs on Wednesday,” said Clarke.
This followed a period during which the government had been unable to reach an agreement with the company on a satisfactory payment plan.
Part of that plan included a five-month repayment schedule which was not being followed.
The log seizure did not prevent YaoRun employees or equipment from working on the property.
Still unresolved, as of yesterday, is YaoRun's debt owed to the city. It is now three months behind on lease payments of $10,000 a month.
The seizure of the logs last week the latest in a series of actions taken against the company for non-payment of debts since it set up shop on the city-owned land in January.
YaoRun has twice had its log yard blockaded by contractors who weren't being paid, and were also evicted from a house they were renting to use as office space on the residential McConnell Ave.
With the seizure notice lifted, the company can continue preparations to ship logs overseas which operations manager Xinchen Song said earlier this month would begin mid to late November.