Lumber stocks have taken a beating so far this year amid falling prices for the key construction commodity, but some investors see it as a buying opportunity, betting the U.S. housing market will bounce back and growth in Asia will remain steady. Lumber prices are down about 20 per cent since late last year amid…

A startup that is using carbon nanotubes to increase the conductivity of aluminum and a lignin recovery project at an Alberta pulp mill owned by forestry giant West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. (TSX:WTF) are among the 10 B.C. companies or demonstration projects receiving $27 million in funding through Sustainable Development Canada (SDTC). The funding was…

Chad Wasilenkoff grew up in Calgary. The pulp and paper mills his company owns are in Switzerland and Quebec. His office is in Vancouver. His wife Laura and two boys, aged six and eight, “recently relocated,” to La Quinta, a suburb of Palm Springs, Calif. — good for the kind of riding Laura does, which…

B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong offered tax breaks and other support for the province’s natural gas and mining sectors on Tuesday, but little for the forest industry, the single largest contributor to the province’s natural-resource revenues. The B.C. budget forecasts that natural-resource revenues will slide by nearly 7 per cent this year, thanks to…