Declining prices cause considerable profit losses for pulp producers in 2019

摘要

In contrast to the successful year of 2018, 2019 will not be a year that most players in the global pulp industry will remember as a profitable one. Apart from a few exceptions, producers of softwood and hardwood pulp across the board had to accept losses of both sales and profits. In some cases, the declines suffered as a consequence of falling pulp prices were substantial. However, individual companies report that they had a successful year characterised by rising sales volumes. Many a pulp manufacturer wrote in its annual report that "2019 was a challenging year". Key factors impacting the industry's balance sheet were the global economic slowdown, uncertainty surrounding Brexit and trade conflicts between the USA and China. The few instances in which sales revenues were reported to grow by individual producers were attributable to higher production due to expanded pulp mills (as was the case for for Swedish SCA), or to the integration of acquired plants (such as that of Canadian pulp group Mercer, which integrated Mercer Peace River (MPR) acquired from Daishowa Marubeni International in 2018).