South Carolina continues to attract forest-based industry, evidenced by the June announcements of two companies whose investments total $237 million and will result in the creation of 175 jobs.
Headquartered in Oregon, Hampton Lumber selected Allendale County for its first sawmill on the east coast, announcing June 25 it will construct a state-of-the-art, 375,000-square-foot facility in Fairfax. The new operation will specialize in producing quality Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) framing lumber.
Two weeks before that, Barnwell Tissue announced the purchase of an existing mill in Barnwell that will restore 50 jobs in the manufacture of tissue products from recycled paper.
These headlines come on the heels of two particularly large May announcements from Homanit and Kimberly-Clark, which will invest $250 million and $200 million in the state, respectively. These new operations will combine to create 450 new jobs.
Kimberly-Clark will be adding 1.1 million square feet to existing facility in Beech Island to produce a wide range of personal care products. Its Aiken County expansion will make the Aiken County location the company’s largest manufacturing operation in the world.
As heavily documented over the last several years, markets for fiber in South Carolina have experienced significant losses with the closures of nearly a dozen primary mills, half of them in the pulp and paper sector. This unfortunate series of events has, for now, affected previously strong markets in certain parts of the state for small-diameter wood and likewise depressed stumpage prices for landowners.
But South Carolina still has a healthy, abundant and sustainably managed forest resource that holds more timber than ever recorded, which will persist in enticing forest-based investment for generations to come.
To that end, and particularly encouraging for our pine pulpwood markets, was the Homanit announcement in May, whose new facility in Alcolu represents the largest forest products manufacturing investment in the state in more than three years. The company will use chips to produce its medium- and high-density wood fiberboards for furniture, automotive, door and coating industries worldwide.
South Carolina forests are resilient, as is its supply chain and the people who make it run. Nowhere is that more evident than in the level of investment the state has seen in 2025 alone. Since February when the year’s first announcement was made, forest products companies have invested nearly $865 million in the Palmetto State, committing to employing more than 650 people.
Forest products-based economic development projects can be found on our website at scfc.gov/development/economic-development, where updates are posted as soon as announcements are made.
For a deeper dive into forest resource statistics and mill information, check out these resources on our website as well: