531 



Last fall we had cut all of the timber that was available to us. 

 There has been a question of backlog, and to us that means timber 

 that is available and ready to harvest. Some of the timber that the 

 forester said was to be harvested was tied up in lawsuits and could 

 not be released to us, and so we just ran out of timber. There were 

 not adequate supplies. The mill should be starting up on a one-shift 

 basis and will run that way until we get an adequate timber supply 

 to operate the two shifts. The products from that plant are now 

 about 75 percent finished products that go directly into the housing 

 market and about 90 percent of those products go to Japan in the 

 form of 4 by 4s or cutting bridges for the musical instrument firms 

 primarily. 



Senator Murkowski. That represents a change in the exports ob- 

 tained from the sawmill? 



Mr. RoppEL. The export industry to Japan started in about 1965. 

 First, they did not want the finished lumber because they had a 

 large lumber industry of their own in Japan. The sawmill industry 

 there, more than 22,000 sawmills at that time, preferred to cut 

 logs. They could not get the logs and so they cut the next best 

 thing, which were switches or cants. With the change of the dollar 

 in relationship to other currencies, it is now cost effective for home 

 builders in Japan to buy finished lumber, as opposed to rough cut 

 wood, and the trend will continue that way. The Japanese yen 

 keeps getting stronger against our currency and, as a matter of 

 fact, now I think, and I saw a remark not long ago, in October, that 

 the average Japanese wage earner had surpassed that of the Amer- 

 ican wage earner. There have been a lot of changes. As far as the 

 products from Alaska Pulp, we produce basically textile rate pulp 

 that goes into the manufacture of non woven textiles, rayon, cello- 

 phane. We supply about 55 to 60 percent of that product out of this 

 plant, and it goes to Japan. We also sell significant quantities to 

 Korea, China, Mexico, Taiwan, and we have a substantial customer 

 in the United States in Virginia that uses our product to make car- 

 bonized fiber for the space industry. I think we are the only U.S. 

 supplier of the raw material for that particular plant. They do buy 

 some material from Canada. 



Senator Murkowski. That is very interesting. This pulp then, 

 rayon type pulp, lends itself to installation on the space re-entry 

 vehicles? 



Mr. RoppEL. They use it for the rocket motors as an insulative 

 material. I am not sure that information as to exactly how it is 

 used is public information. It has been used for quite some time. 

 We are told that every time a space shuttle goes up it takes about 

 20,000 pounds of pulp to make the carbonized fiber for that particu- 

 lar shot. 



Senator Murkowski. And so some of that pulp goes from Sitka to 

 Virginia? 



Mr. RoppEL. Yes. 



Senator Murkowski. It goes from Sitka to Virginia, by water 

 first to Seattle and then by rail to Virginia. 



And how much volume might that be? 



Mr. RoppEL. Right now we are shipping about 10,000 pounds. 



Senator Murkowski. Thank you. Senator Wirth and I had a 

 question that maybe you can answer. You made reference to an in- 



