Thursday, July 02, 2009

Newsprint Market in Confusion

As reported in our past releases, newsprint prices have fallen around $195/ton or 28% so far this year. Demand has also steadily declined, but, Kruger, Catalyst, Tembec, and White Birch announced a $50/ton increase for August shipments, despite the weak market.
Newsprint demand in North America fell nearly 29% in May – vs. 2008 and 31.7% so far this year vs at this time in 2008. Furthermore, consumption at US dailies fell 26% and paper mills only are operated at 67% of capacity (vs. 94% in May 08).
Note: we continue to report producers continue to take downtime (693, 000tons or 27% of North America quarterly capacity during 2Q2009), the reality is that more permanent closures are
inevitable.

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