Why Buckeye Shares Plummeted

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What: Shares of fiber maker Buckeye Technologies (NYS: BKI) have plummeted by as much as 12% after the company had to temporarily shut down a plant.

So what: The company's Florida wood cellulose fibers facility saw a "significant failure of a steam drum" on a paper machine that caused damage to multiple drums and structural damage to the building. Fortunately, there were no personnel injuries and the plant was shut down after the incident yesterday, with an investigation now under way to determine the root cause.

Now what: Buckeye says it's too early to determine when the plant will return to normal operations, but will have more information later in the week and will subsequently provide updates on plans for resuming production. CEO John Crowe said that Buckeye "can and will repair the damage" and is grateful that no one was injured. In the meantime, the company is working with customers, suppliers, and employees to minimize the impact of the outage to the supply chain and operations.

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