The federal and Ontario governments have awarded 3M (NYSE:MMM) a contract to produce N95 masks at its manufacturing plant in Brockville, Ontario.
Ottawa and the province will each contribute $23.3 million to help increase capacity at the Brockville plant, allowing it to produce up to 100 million N95 mask a year. The masks made at the expanded facility will be used to meet private sector, provincial and North American market demand throughout the pandemic and beyond, 3M said in a written statement.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has repeatedly said that the province needs to ramp up production of personal protective equipment in light of the pandemic. He has also been publicly critical of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to limit the export of N95 masks from American plants.
This will be the second domestic contract to produce N95 masks, after Quebec-based Medicom signed a 10-year agreement to supply N95 and surgical masks to the federal government in April. Medicom's combined contracts are worth more than $113 million, and include providing 24 million surgical masks and 20 million N95 respirators each year.
Health Canada regulations require approval of the masks and each shipment must be inspected by the Public Health Agency of Canada for quality control. Canada has contracts for 154.5 million N95 and KN95 masks, and, so far, all have been imported from outside the country. As of August 3, more than 54 million N95 and KN95 respirators have been delivered.
KN95 masks are the Chinese equivalent of the N95 respirators that are certified by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United States.
MMM shares closed trading Thursday in New York at $161.50 U.S., down a dollar from the day before.
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