Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Shipping Ports in Finland Remain on Strike

Following up on the Coy Paper earlier releases, the stevedores that work the ports in Finland remain on strike. The Finnish Transport Workers Union has forced several of the Finnish paper makers to cease operations. The mills are not able to receive raw materials, they are unable to warehouse finished paper, and most importantly, the paper mills can not ship paper.
Of notable mention, the following mills are shut down
-UPM shut down Rauma mill, capacity 720,000MT/YR, of coated mechanical and 540,000 mtpy of supercalendered paper
-Sappi closed its Kirkniemi mill, 740,000MT/YR of coated mechanical.
-UPM closing of Kaukas (Lappeenranta), 570,000MT/YR of coated mechanical and Kaipola, with 700,000MT/YR of coated mechanical, directory and newsprint papers
-UPM at Kymi, 850,000MT/YR of coated and uncoated woodfree capacity.
-Stora Enso will begin closing mills.

Negotiations with the stevedores continue. 
Finland has 25 major ports, 10 of which handle 75% of their exports.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any idea how long this strike will continue? Are the talks progressing or at a stall? Can anyone comment on how much paper normally ships on an average day, that is no longer shipping? I have not witnessed an extended backlog as of yet for domestic mills, is it because of large inventory levels for the grades that Finland produces?

Anonymous said...

March 19 - Friday - strike is over. Ports will be operational by Monday.