French prices for publication paper and fine paper rise substantially in July

摘要

The market for corrugated case material is experiencing a continual upward price trend, too. Prices for recycled grades rose once more in July. Price hikes for kraftliner have been announced or already agreed for August. On the recovered paper market, prices were mostly stable for the grades used to produce packaging, while deinking grades became slightly more expensive. Because the costs of recovered paper, pulp and wood remain high, producers of cartonboard are looking to raise their sales prices again after the summer, even though prices have risen in several steps this year, most recently in July. Prices continue to be high on the recovered paper market in France. While quotes for the ordinary grades remained stable, rather than falling as some buyers had hoped, the deinking grades and some of the higher-quality grades even saw additional price hikes. In general, demand is good in all segments. Although prices for mixed paper and board (1.02), supermarket corrugated paper and board (1.04) and old corrugated containers (OCC, 1.05) are quite high, the trading conditions were not leading to price reductions and quotes remained stable compared to June. Market participants point to the generally robust demand from the paper industry. Packaging paper and cartonboard producers have a consistently good order backlog. For this reason in particular, the manufacturers were looking to build up sufficient paper stocks for the summer and the holiday month of August, especially since not all corrugated case material producers will carry out maintenance downtime. The high prices were accepted and recovered paper stocks were replenished to a good to very good level, said respondents in the second-last week of July.