Russia’s Recycled Containerboard Production Surging

Recycled containerboard production in Russia is outpacing virgin production despite a limited supply of recovered paper in that nation, according to a new report from the Brussels office of RISI.

Recycled containerboard production in Russia has grown by an average of 11.3 percent per year during each of the past three years while production of virgin containerboard has grown just 3.7 percent annually.

“Double-digit production growth has resulted in Russian domestic Testliner 2 prices reaching 1.7 times their variable costs in the 2010-2012 period,” says Orifjon Abidov, senior economist for packaging papers at RISI. “This is much higher than the 1.25 ratio experienced by the Western European recycled containerboard industry.”

Details of the Russian containerboard market as observed by RISI are available in its new report “The Outlook for Russian Paper Packaging Markets,” available through RISI’s website at www.risi.com/russianpackaging.

According to RISI, the report provides “an independent and thorough analysis of the sub-segments of the Russian packaging paper markets. It includes coverage of containerboard, cartonboard, wrapping and specialty papers from 2002-2012 with forecasts through 2018.”

Among the topics examined in “The Outlook for Russian Paper Packaging Markets” are:
•    An overview of paper packaging demand by region in Russia;
•    analysis of real and gross market share of producers in Russian containerboard, cartonboard and sack and wrapping paper grades;
•    technical comparison of containerboard machines with corrugator specifications;
•    analysis of brown testliner and brown kraftliner manufacturing costs;
•    containerboard price development in Russian regions; and
•    forecasts of demand, supply, exports and imports, for the Russian containerboard, cartonboard and wrapping papers industries.

More than 40 paper and board production companies are covered in the report, including nearly three dozen firms based in Russia and global firms active in Russia such as Stora Enso, Smurfit Kappa, Mondi Packaging and International Paper.

RISI is an information provider for the global forest products industry that works with clients in the pulp and paper, wood products, timber, biomass, tissue, nonwovens, printing and publishing industries. The firm’s global headquarters is the United States in Bedford, Mass.