Canadian Pulp Production Plummets

The production of market pulp at Canadian mills dropped 21 percent for September as the North American forest products industry continues to slash production schedules to bring supply and demand back into balance.

For September, production stands at 583,000 metric tons, compared to last September’s monthly figure of 742,000 metric tons.

The production total for the month pushed the nine-month production total to 5.955 million metric tons, a 14 percent drop compared to the same time last year. The operating rate also plummeted, with this September’s figure of 73 percent of capacity a far cry from last September’s figure of 93 percent of capacity. For the first nine months the average operating rate stands at 82 percent of capacity, compared to last year’s nine-month operating rate of 95 percent of capacity.

While production of market pulp dropped a staggering 21 percent for the month, the shipments of finished pulp dropped a less severe 10 percent for the month. Total shipments for September stand at 691,000 metric tons.

Declines were seen with pulp shipments to domestic sources, down 42 percent to 49,000 metric tons; shipments to the United States, down 9 percent; shipments to Western Europe, off 17 percent; and shipments to Japan, down 32 percent.

The one region that showed an improvement for the month was the shipment to regions outside the above mentioned. This region reported a 45 percent increase for the month.

Over the first nine months of the year shipments also posted a decline, with this year’s nine-month number at 6.140 million metric tons, down 12 percent from the same time last year. Broken out by individual regions, shipments to Canadian sources declined 23 percent; shipments to the United States dropped 14 percent; shipments to Western Europe dropped 10 percent; shipments to Japan, down 22 percent; and shipments to other regions, up 3 percent.