Mississippi River Flooding Could Further Tighten Containerboard Supplies
 Print this article | Send to Colleague
Flooding on the lower Mississippi River may help to further tighten U.S. containerboard supplies, reports Mark Wilde, senior analyst with Deutsche Bank. IP's Vicksburg, Miss., 1,600 tpd linerboard mill is likely to be out longer than expected, he notes. When coupled with high second quarter maintenance downtime and stronger box shipments, this could produce a greater-than-expected draw in containerboard inventories, setting the stage for a third quarter price hike, he points out, adding that April containerboard prices were reported to be flat. "As we have noted earlier, it appears that trade paper price estimates have increasingly diverged from real activity in the containerboard and box markets," Wilde says.
Domestic old corrugated containers (OCC) prices in the U.S. were essentially flat in May, down $1/ton to $155/ton, Wilde continues. Key drivers, he says, are lower OCC generation in April, strong domestic and export demand, and expectation of higher OCC demand from the startup of several new machines in China in the coming months. Export OCC to China was down slightly in May.
|
|
