The Point Tupper mill, which was once believed to be heading for permanent closure, has started production of paper once again.

The Port Hawkesbury Paper LLC, which was earlier known as NewPage Port Hawkesbury paper mill, is now owned by Pacific West Commercial Corp. The mill was shut by its former owners, NewPage Corp during the previous and the Nova Scotia government stepped in and extended an aid package of $124.5-million to Pacific West for reviving the mill. Pacific West is associated with the Stern Partners Inc. of Vancouver.

The deal to purchase the mill by Pacific West was officially finalized on Friday bringing relief to the people of the region, who are dependent on the region's largest employment source. The company has been involved in negotiations for more than a year relating to the mill and its purchase.

"We're very, very happy we did because we have customers with orders that want to run that paper on Monday. So we needed to get production started, and obviously we had some small items that stopped us, but once production started, we ran the first 12 hours without a paper break," said the mill's restructuring manager, Marc Dube.

Dube also said that there is a determination to make sure that mill is a success.