Mixed paper and board (1.02) and old corrugated container (OCC; 1.05) prices continued on a steep downward path in the UK in August.
Experts interviewed by EUWID agreed that a lack of demand was driving the decline. Demand in the corrugated board business has plummeted in the UK as in other European markets, and stocks of both recovered paper and finished paper are high throughout the supply chain. Many packaging paper manufacturers in Continental Europe are currently taking downtime in response to high costs, subdued demand and the EU’s pressure to reduce natural gas consumption.
Things do not look any better in Asia: China’s economy was underperforming expectations, so demand for packaging was lower than projected, too. This turn of events is radiating to other countries in the region. Demand from India, in particular, was described as weak. Chinese paper manufacturers were reportedly only buying small amounts of recovered paper for their mills outside China, too. What is more, China was being downright flooded with paper from Russia at the moment. Chinese paper manufacturers were now starting to sell finished paper around the globe to control their inventories, experts told EUWID.
⇒ This is an excerpt from EUWID's report on the British recovered paper market. The complete article will be published in EUWID Packaging Markets 18/2022. Subscribers can access the August Price Watch recovered paperUK here
