POS thermal prices drop 2% following 14% runup

摘要

After thermal POS paper pricing jumped up by 14% over four months through first quarter 2013 in the USA, levels for 55-and 48-g POS non top coated paper are down 2.3% this month vs a year ago, contacts said. The drop occurred chiefly in the first quarter from softer demand, contacts said. The string of increases ran through February last year. It was in February when Koehler Paper of Germany exited the US market because of high dumping duties on its imported lightweight thermal paper. Koehler's share of the US demand was an estimated 40% or about 90,000 tons/yr. With Koehler out, converters pushed for replacement tons.