June 2021

Pulp Capacity & Price Changes

• Good demand helped pulp producers push through full price increases in Europe in May: NBSK and BEK closed the month at $1300/t (+80) and $1090/t (+80) respectively. In North America, NBSK closed May at $1615/t (+50) and BEK at $1320/t (+80). (RISI, Jun 2021)
• Bracell to start-up first new pulp line in Brazil in mid-August, second to start two weeks later. The two lines have the flexibility to switch between DP and KP and a relevant portion of production will be allocated to RGE’s viscose and paper factories in Asia. (Valor, Jun 2021)
• APP announced that it will produce UKP to tackle shortage of recovered paper imports for furnishing finished products at its Indonesian mills - this change in pulp furnish is expected to result in 110 to 150kt reduction in its market BHKP availability. (RISI, Jun 2021)
• Brazilian BEK exports marginally down 0.7% MoM in May (-3.8% YoY) to 1.38 million tonnes; Brazilian BEK export has been consistently between 1.38 to 1.39 million tonnes in the past 3 months. (Comex Stat, Jun 2021)
• PPPC: May global pulp shipments totalled 4.271 million tons, flat MoM, down 4.2% YoY. Producer inventories for both BSK and BHK increased by two days-of-supply to 38 days in May. (PPPC, Jun 2021)
• Pulp and paper suppliers are closely monitoring and getting ready for the new drought period in Brazil; National monitoring agency Cemaden reported that Brazil remains in conditions of moderate to severe drought in most parts of the country. (RISI, Jun 2021)
• Pulp inventories at European ports increased 8.6% MoM in May to 1.224 million tons. This is 17.4% lower than the level recorded a year ago in May’20. (Europulp, Jun 2021)
• Arauco resumed operations at its 355,000 tonnes/yr UKP Constitución pulp mill on Jun. 24, following a workers’ strike that halted operations for 10 days. (RISI, Jun 2021)
• Fibre Excellence’s 290,000 tonnes/year NBSK/NBHK Saint-Gaudens mill has restarted production following a two-week shutdown which began on Jun 7. (RISI, Jun 2021)

Paper Capacity & Price Changes

• Mondi to increase prices for its uncoated fine paper grades produced in Austria and Slovakia by 8-15%, effective July 5, 2021. (RISI, Jun. 2021)
• Germany's Drewsen Spezialpapiere will be increasing paper prices significantly for their uncoated woodfree paper grades, effective for deliveries made from July 1st 2021. (RISI, Jun 2021)
• Russia’s APPM to shutter UWF PM 3 and PM 4 by end of September. Each of the two machines has a production capacity of some 30,000 tonnes/yr. APPM stopped production of school notebooks, which it had been producing since 1963, on May 25. The production was halted due to insufficient profitability. (RISI, Jun. 2021)
• Sappi Europe announces a price increase for Transjet, Basejet and Inkjet grades by 8-15 % valid for deliveries from 1 July 2021. (RISI, Jun. 2021)
• Agfa announced today that it will globally increase the prices by 10% of its offset printing plates. (RISI, Jun 2021)
• Stora Enso has completed the co-determination negotiations concerning the closure of pulp and paper production at its Veitsiluoto site in Finland. The mill will cease operating in Q3. The Veitsiluoto mill can manufacture a total of 790,000 tonnes/yr of paper on three machines. Two of them produce UWF paper (570,000 tonnes/yr) (RISI, Jun. 2021)