Forecast for the Pulp & Paper Industry: It’s a Mixed Bag

The U.S., Canada and Europe are generally well advantaged as producers of pulp because of their access to raw materials, in contrast to China, which doesn’t have a lot of forestland. And Brazil has joined the ranks of advantaged countries in terms of pulp because of its abundance of Eucalyptus trees, which grow fast and have short fibers good for the competitive industry of tissue.

China is also emerging as both a major producer and consumer of paper, Armstrong said. But although the paper market has been heavily subsidized by a subsidy that helped triple production, “China’s paper consumption is going faster than its growth in production,” he said, which presents export opportunities for other countries.

Certain segments of the paper consumption side, however, will suffer far into the future, such as newsprint and paper for printing books, which is giving way to electronic communications and tools such as electronic books. He said a market research firm recently estimated that global sales of e-readers will be 12 million units this year compared to 5 million in 2009.

Armstrong predicted that pulp demand should grow steadily as overall downstream paper demand recovers. Newsprint and paper for books and writing has a very negative long-term outlook. The outlook for containerboard is more favorable because of capacity closures, lower inventories and recoveries in developed nations.