Trouble at mill

摘要

Across the Far East, Latin America and Central Europe, new pulp mills are springing up and existing mills are being extended. But these projects may carry a much bigger financial risk than investors have realised. Many schemes have exaggerated how much timber they can fell and crack downs on illegal logging threaten to make their new mills unprofitable. Pulp mills are expensive. Building even a modest one from scratch can cost more than $1 billion. Small pulp mills tend to be financed by banks in their home markets.