While domestic paper and paperboard mills continue to struggle, the export of recovered fiber from the U.S. continues to explode.
Recent figures from the U.S. Commerce Department point out the sharp increase in exports. For August, the most recently reported month exports stand at 1.128 million tons with a value of slightly more than $100 million.
The figure for the month pushed bring the annual rate, year to date, to 13.334 million tons. The total for the first eight months of the year is a jump of more than 21 percent from export figures last year.
As previously noted, exports continue to be fueled by the surging demand for recovered fiber from mills in Asia, especially China. With a host of new capacity coming on line there is expected to be strong buying by Asian mills to build up inventories.
While China continues to be the biggest consumer of U.S. recovered fiber from the United States, other regions of the world also have been more aggressive in recovered fiber buying. Canada, long the largest importer of U.S. recovered fiber, imported 214,808 tons of recovered fiber from the United States. While the figure is down slightly from the previous month, the figures so far this year point to a 6.7 percent increase from the same time last year.
As the U.S. paper industry continues to cut capacity and attempt to bring supply and demand back into balance, there is a sense that the offshore market will continue to play a growing role in overall demand.