Recovered Fiber: Netherlands, Europe

In December, prices officially dropped again by €10-€20. European paper mills on the newsprint side are fighting against overcapacity. That means less production of finished product and less demand for recovered material. There is over capacity of deinking grades and overissued magazines. That means we sell more into export. It is always good to have more and different markets. In the beginning of October, export was very slow as well to the Far East. From the middle of October on, they started buying again.

We also saw price reductions in the last weeks of October and the beginning of November, and from the middle of November on, there has been more demand and better demand for all the grades. And we had the luck that the dollar became stronger and sea freight is low.

The Europeans have all recommended the stocks for the coming weeks, not only newsprint mills but packaging mills and commercial stocks from now on until the first week of January. I think mills will be buying beginning in February.

Intake of material is a little bit lower because the consumption is lower, but it is still on a good level. There is no winter weather at the moment, so collections are good. If you look at last year, we had snow from the middle of November through to Christmas, so collections were bad and dropped about 25-30 percent.

Mills aren’t fulfilling contracts from their suppliers.

We are looking forward to 2012. It is an interesting time. Although the economy and growth is at a lower level, we still see capacity coming on line in Asia and in Europe.

John van den Heuvel of Peute Papier Recycling can be contacted at john@peute.nl.