At the beginning of every year, the US President delivers a "state of the union" address, so I thought it might be of interest to readers of this blog to read about the current state of the paper industry.
An article which appears in this month's
Print Business magazine has an excellent summary of the industry, which with their kind permission, I have reproduced here...
Paper producers strive for balance
While it is less necessary than in the past, paper remains the key substrate for all manner of printers and UK consumption is falling and has been falling for a number of years. This does not automatically equate to a similar decline in print jobs: shorter print runs and so on will have a greater impact on consumption of paper. Take newspapers for example. Newspaper volumes are dropping, but this is not matched by the disappearance of titles.
Across Europe, Euro-graph, and association of paper producing mills, reckons that demand for newsprint had after ten months fallen 6.4% in 2019.
The British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) referring to to figures from the
Confederation of Paper Industries, reckons newsprint demand in the UK is down 6.3%. However there is divergence with other types of paper, reflecting the relative popularity of certain paper types in different countries.
According to Euro-graph demand for all types of printing grades of paper is 7.9% down. This excludes boards and packaging grades and specialist papers used for all manner of purposes, filters, wadding, insulation, batteries and more.
The BPIF puts the total decline for graphic papers at 3.5%, 2.4% if newsprint is excluded. The UK figures may also have been distorted by stockpiling ahead of the planned brexit deadlines, in the spring and at the end of October.
Across Europe demand for coated woodfree papers was down 9.7% and demand for uncoated woodfree papers was 3.9% lower. This is a significant difference to the UK equivalents where coated woodfree (CWF) exhibited a growth in the second quarter of 2019 compared to 2018.
This, however, is not likely to prevent the closure of paper production capacity. In coated woodfree, the looming closure of
StoraEnso's Oulu mill to CWF production in September this year will remove 1.3 million tonnes from the European market, roughly equivalent to the current excess of supply over demand.
This also explains the difficulties that some mills have had in emerging from liquidation under new financial backers. Demand has continued to slide:
Sappi reckons that overall demand is down 13% a year and is looking for a way to match capacity to demand. Others are doing the same and if they succeed will allow paper suppliers to strengthen prices later in the year.
The above article is an extract from the full article, which you can read here:
https://printbusiness.co.uk/news/The-shape-of-the-UK-printing-industry-is-still-changing/123220
Reproduced with kind permission from Print Business magazine. With thanks to Gareth Ward, Editor.
https://printbusiness.co.uk/
Posted by Justin Hobson 20.02.2020
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