Current situation and Prospect of the hottest pulp

Current situation and Prospect of China's pulp and paper market

in recent 20 years, with the development of China's reform and opening up and economic construction, the domestic demand for pulp and paper products has increased significantly. At the same time, China's pulp and paper industry has maintained rapid development, with annual output growth of about 10%. In 1999, the total output of paper and paperboard in China has reached 29million

tons, ranking third in the world. The continuous expansion of production capacity made China's pulp and paper industry meet the growing domestic demand to a certain extent in the mid-1990s. China's pulp and paper market has shifted from full supply to large supply. The supply of most products meets the demand. Paper has gradually formed a relatively stable pattern: commercial wood pulp, High grade paper (high-grade paper, strong and tough corrugated packaging paper, high-grade white paperboard, white cardboard, special paper, etc.)

is occupied by imported products; Medium grade paper, including kraft paper, vermicelli cardboard, and some printing

brush writing paper containing wood pulp, is the main position of domestic large and medium-sized manufacturers (paper mills with an annual output of more than 10000 tons, whose products can compete in the national or regional city

market); Local markets in large and small towns and villages are provided by local small factories. However, the domestic production of wood pulp and the supply of waste paper did not keep up with the paper production demand, and the import volume continued to increase by a large margin

since the mid-1990s, new changes have taken place in the continuous development of China's pulp and paper market. The main manifestations are as follows:

first, the state vigorously advocates the development of papermaking using wood fiber, but due to the shortage of raw materials, the imported commodity wood pulp still occupies a dominant position in the near future. China's commercial pulp market fluctuates with the international market, and has a direct impact on the international market

in 1999, the apparent consumption of wood pulp in China was estimated to be about 4.8 million tons. Domestic wood pulp is 1.7 million

tons, including about 500000 tons of commercial pulp. The number of imported commercial pulp has increased year by year, making China an important part of the world

commercial pulp market. How to use the steel strand relaxation testing machine imported in 1995? There are 800000 tons, an increase of 3.1 million

tons by 1999. It is estimated that the import volume in 2000 will slightly exceed that of the previous year, reaching about 3.2 million tons

in Chinese history, grass fiber has been used as the main raw material for papermaking for a long time. In recent years, people of insight have strongly called for accelerating the use of wood fiber for pulping and papermaking, which has received the attention of the government. However, Qiaofu

cannot make bricks without straw. The lack of forest resources suitable for papermaking and the poor production capacity of wood pulp make domestic papermaking

manufacturers rely heavily on imported commercial pulp

due to the rapid growth of imports, China's commercial pulp market has received great attention in the world. On the one hand, the market situation in China began to directly affect the price trend of commodity pulp in Asia and even the world. On the other hand, most of China's imported commodity pulp appears in the form of spot, which exacerbates the factor of market fluctuation. In this price cycle, the Chinese market has always been in the forefront of the world market

since the pulp market quietly started in the summer of 1999, the prices of European and American sellers in the Chinese market have been higher than the listing prices in the European market in the same period. Take June 2000 as an example. At that time, the NBSK price in the European and American markets was

US dollars, while the trading price in China reached US $720, which has been led by China

since July, the spot price in the Chinese market has actually begun to fall. By October, the quotation of Canada's

nbsk was $700, but almost no one paid attention to it, forcing the spot price to fall to $0. At the end of October, the transaction price of some NBSK was lower than $600. The price of coniferous wood pulp in Russia fell below $550

, and the price of some Indonesian hardwood pulp was close to $500, and the price of natural color pulp fell to nearly $400

yuan. At this time, in the European and American markets, suppliers' plans to increase prices in October failed, and there was a call for price reduction in the world market. Merchants began to talk about the possibility of pulp price decline, and there was a view that the price of

pulp in the first quarter of next year would fall to $600. The Chinese market has become the leader in the decline

this round of rising prices of commodity pulp in the world market has come to an end, and the decline of spot prices in the Chinese market is also close to the bottom. It should be said that there are inherent inevitable factors in the rise and fall of commodity pulp prices, while human speculation has contributed to price fluctuations. This is especially true in the Chinese market. From the end of 1998 to the beginning of 1999, commercial pulp in the international market was at a low ebb, and the market price of bleached softwood pulp in China was

US dollars. In the domestic market, the low price of imported pulp has stimulated consumption on the one hand, and seriously restricted the production capacity of commercial wood pulp in China

however, after the summer of 1999, with the compression of commercial pulp production capacity in North America, the improvement of Asian economy and the production of new mass production paper machines in Asia, the demand for wood pulp in the international market increased sharply, and the pulp price rose rapidly. The all-round popularity of the pulp market has prompted Chinese manufacturers and dealers to import in large batches, while some multinational companies with paper mills in China also send a large number of products to China in order to increase inventory, and the sellers regard China as a place where they can change hands at a high price. Therefore, a breakthrough has been made in the technology of powder recycling of waste plastics (it will not change the situation that China led the rise in chemical composition as mentioned above.

but the rise in commodity pulp prices is not endless. The continuous rise in prices first stimulated new production capacity and expanded market supply. In the world market, there are not few new large-scale production lines, but the reasons for the increase in production are various.

first, the operating rate of the original suppliers remains high, such as that of the United States in the summer of 2000 The operating rate

reaches more than 100%

second, because the paper market is weaker than the commercial pulp market, some paper mills shut down their paper machines and sold their own

pulp instead of commercial pulp. Mead alone added 90000 tons of commercial pulp

third, the world's discontinued pulp mills have restarted and expanded production, especially in the United States and Russia. For example, the pulp mill of SSCC that has stopped production was purchased by willimite and put into production again. Russia's Solomon unbleached kraft pulp plant stopped production until 1998, and its output recovered to 130000 tons in 1999. The production capacity of Bratsk pulp plant expanded by about 40% in 2000, and the international market supply increased significantly. The growth of China's imports in the first half of 2000 was extraordinary. By the month of 2000, the growth rate of imports had slowed down, and by the end of the year, the growth rate of imports would continue to decline, even lower than that of the same period last year in the fourth quarter

statistics of China's main imported commercial pulp (unit: ton)

(Note: the data is from China Customs)

varieties increased in September, 2000 and September, 1999/% increased in September, 2000/%

bleached softwood pulp 75142 100739 -25.4 947218 774706 22.3

bleached hardwood pulp 109031 139604 -21.9 967683 653114 48.2

unbleached wood pulp 31827 26941 18.1 194003 187636 3.4

mechanical wood pulp 9638 5726 68.3 129486 176618 -26.7

total 225638 273010 -17.4 24.9

total 276566 325751 -15.1 24.8

statistics Compared with the same period last year, the largest increase in major imported varieties was from Indonesia's

bleached hardwood pulp and Russia's bleached softwood pulp, with an increase of 132% and 65% respectively. The large import of Indonesian hardwood pulp is the result of the internal adjustment of multinational companies, while the large influx of Russian softwood pulp is due to the expansion of production capacity. With the increase of imports, the production capacity of domestic wood pulp and non wood fiber has also expanded rapidly with the rise of pulp prices. The bleached wood pulp plants represented by Nanning Fenghuang, Guangxi He county, Yunnan Simao and Fujian Shaowu and the unbleached wood pulp plants represented by Fujian Qingzhou and Heilongjiang Fuyu are all operating at full capacity. Their products are relatively low in price, and the quality can meet some needs, and

is popular. Commodity wheat straw pulp and bagasse pulp were once in short supply

in terms of demand, although the launch of large paper machines has increased the demand for pulp, many small and medium-sized

paper mills have turned to non wood fibers and waste paper because of the heavy price burden. For example, there are many small and medium-sized toilet paper factories in many regions of China, with annual output ranging from 2000 tons to 20000 tons, such as the Pearl River Delta, Fuyang, Zhejiang and Baoding, Hebei. When the pulp price is $400 -

500, most of them use fully bleached wood pulp for papermaking. After the pulp price rises by more than $600, these

paper mills have greatly reduced the use of imported wood pulp, and a considerable number of paper mills have even completely abandoned the use of

imported wood pulp

secondly, a large part of the imported wood pulp in 1999 has been hoarded as a spare stock in 2000, and there is no real consumption. It is difficult to count the number of these figures. For reference, in the second quarter, a senior leader of a multinational company with a large paper mill in China pointed out that the company had stored wood pulp inventory for 6-8 months at the beginning of 2000. Some domestic importers saw that the price rise of wood pulp was beneficial, and there were many phenomena of hoarding, which led to exaggerated demand for imported wood pulp in China

third, it is also very important that the users who mainly use imported commodity pulp in China are medium and high-end

paper manufacturers, and many medium and high-end paper varieties in China have recently seen a transitional oversupply of spear

shield, with slow or little price rise, making the paper mills subject to the dual pressure of raw material price rise and product sales difficulties, which is unsustainable. It is estimated that the pulp paper ratio of Chinese paper mills (i.e. the price ratio of bleached coniferous pulp

to whole wood pulp offset paper UWF) has been% since this year, and it is generally considered that 70% is reasonable

the quietly changing supply-demand relationship in the international and domestic markets and the pressure of the paper market have seriously affected the balance of the commodity

pulp market. In the summer of 2000, the market was in a low season, and the purchase of domestic users decreased rapidly. Russian suppliers were forced to reduce prices because of the expanded production, nowhere to sell, and they were unwilling to stop production, causing domestic economic sellers to sell in the spot market, reversing the market situation

Russian wood pulp is a hot topic in the Chinese market and even the world market recently. In recent years, with the recovery of Russian economy, pulp and paper production has also begun to improve. In 1999, taking advantage of the recovery of the international market, Russia exported 1.22 million tons of kraft commercial pulp, an increase of about 50% over 870000 tons in 1997. Asia, especially China, became the main market. Before 1994, the proportion of Russian pulp exported to Europe was

58%, and Asia was only 12%; By 199, the proportion of exports to Europe had fallen to 24%, while that to Asia had risen to

46%. China imported about 466000 tons of chemical wood pulp, accounting for 38% of its total exports. In the month of

2000, the export of kraft pulp from Russia to China reached 318000 tons, accounting for 43% of the total export volume, which mainly includes bleached softwood pulp, bleached hardwood pulp and unbleached softwood pulp

the only bleached softwood commercial pulp production in Russia