Port Wentworth Pulp Mill, Georgia

The Port Wentworth Pulp Mill is one of more than a dozen large paper mills owned and operated by International Paper Company in the USA. The company, which operates many smaller facilities as well, is the nation’s largest paper producer, and often cited as the largest in the world. International Paper, now based in Memphis, has been around since 1898, when 17 mills in the northeast joined forces to form the company. Today it supplies 20% of the US market for paper, and has a major presence around the world, and more than $20 billion in annual sales. Its purchase of Hammermill Paper and other companies between 1986 and 2000 made it the largest producer of office paper, and the US government its largest customer. Over the years it has sold off its coated paper and its beverage and consumer packaging businesses, while expanding its pulp and containerboard production by purchasing these divisions from Weyerhaeuser, including the Port Wentworth plant, one of five pulp mills acquired by International Paper from Weyerhaeuser in 2016. The plant primarily makes fluff pulp, an absorbent paper material which is used to make diapers and feminine products.