Pulp Inventories Continue Downward Trend

World pulp inventories were reported to be 26 days in September - down substantially from 44 days in September of 2008. As released in earlier Coy Paper articles, pulp producers curtailed production in the first half of this year because of limited demand, but, today, China continues to purchase large shipments. Therefore, the second half of 2009 appears to witness strong shipments. Worldwide shipments increased nearly 11% in September (vs September of 2008) to 3.5Million metric tons; meanwhile, North American market pulp producers shipped 628,000 market pulp tons, down 3% (vs September 2008). Note, shipments to China doubled to 638,000 metric tons.