$440 million OSB plant coming to Minnesota
Huber sawmill

Photo By Huber Engineered Wood

COHASSET, Minn. -  Huber Engineered Woods is building a $440 million oriented strand board manufacturing plant in Northeast Minnesota. 

Announced this week, the 750,000-square-foot plant will employ 150 workers when it opens for operation by the middle of 2024. This will be the sixth mill for Huber and its first in Minnesota. The North Carolina-based Huber primarily manufactures engineered wood for flooring, roofs, and wall construction.

The company received a $15 million forgivable loan from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board for the project. The state of Minnesota is expected to give another $20 million.

“This new chapter of growth for our company, with the development of our sixth mill, is the result of tremendous collaboration between our company, Governor (Tim) Walz and leaders within a range of entities in the State of Minnesota,” said Brian Carlson, Huber president. 

"Northern Minnesota, given the fiber basket that exists there, the long history in the industry and the quality workforce, was an ideal fit for us," he continued.

The plant will use between 800,000 and a million tons of aspen per year. OSB will the main product produced at the plant.

Employees working at the plant will receive a median pay of $31 an hour plus benefits. The plant will also create hundreds of indirect jobs. Around 150 logging trucks will be needed per day to supply the site with wood.

The Associated Contract Loggers and Truckers of Minnesota called the project the biggest development in the forest products industry in 40 years.

Find out more about Huber here.

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Robert Dalheim

Robert Dalheim is an editor at the Woodworking Network. Along with publishing online news articles, he writes feature stories for the FDMC print publication. He can be reached at [email protected].