What's Happening in the Paper Market in 2022? 7 key factors below....

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The paper industry is going through challenging times this year, with several factors contributing to shortage in availability and price increases.

We understand that the current situation will present challenges to many of our customers, but trust you can appreciate that price changes are necessary to ensure you have a reliable supply line.

 Shipping to the UK

Manufacturers are having to pay around 7 times the typical cost to ship goods to the UK, with predicted costs still rising. This has prevented some Asian paper mills from being able to compete in the UK market, substantially reducing availability of ‘white box’ paper grades

  Huge Increase in Power Costs

The cost to power production at the mills is now 5 times as much as the 5 year average, with further increases continuing to be applied.

 Lost Production Capacity

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 2 large paper mills in Russia have ceased production, removing 1 billion reams capacity from the European market annually.

 PEFC and FSC Certified

Both the PEFC and FSC certification bodies have classified all timber from Russia and Belarus as ‘conflict timber’, immediately ceasing to use these timber sources. 

 Further Loss of Production

A key European mill, supplying 12% of European paper demand, has had an outage since January 2022, resulting in zero production.

 Pulp Price Increases

Pulp, the main ingredient for paper production, has also been affected by substantial price increases in 2022

 No Prior Warning

While paper mills have traditionally advised merchants of pending increases 1-2 months ahead of implementing them, the current situation has changed to extremely short notice, if any at all. 

We hope this brief summary helps shed some light on the current situation and assure clients that we continue to monitor the market very closely.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss this further.

sales@polycopy.co.uk

01509 610077

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