Box Makers Demand Decreases

As reported from Purchasing Magazine
Corrugated box demand is down so linerboard sales—and prices—are down and producers are reducing production. In fact, North American containerboard downtime is now expected to be nearly 13% of industry capacity—or around 1.25 million tons— in the fourth quarter. Producers already have responded to unusually weak demand for corrugated by cutting unbleached kraft linerboard production by 2.5% through October this year.

Since more than two thirds of the downtime is expected to take place in December, the latest production tally by the PPI Pulp & Paper Week subscription newsletter suggests that containerboard mill operating rates for December could drop to the mid-70% range. Yet, that’s still somewhat of a moving target because more mills are expected to take curtailments over the period between Christmas and yearend.