MARKET ANALYSIS
OCC LEADS FALL IN US
FIBRE EXPORTS
Latest export data from official US sources
shows a 7.2% decline, the vast proportion of
which is OCC. In Europe, markets have flat-
lined.
76
The biggest news from the US in
recent weeks is the release of the num-
bers for recycled paper exports for
2022. As we expected, it’s not a posi-
tive picture. According to official trade
data, recovered paper exports
decreased by 7.2% in 2022 versus 2021
to less than 15.5 million tonnes. While
some recovered paper grades showed
growth, such as high grade de-inking,
bleached chemical pulp and recycled
brown pulp, they are niche grades and
even when combined make up only
about 15% of recovered paper exports.
They don’t really ‘move the needle’.
In total, the 15.467 million tonnes
exported of recovered paper is down
by over two million tonnes in total
compared to 2021. The biggest
declines in tonnage came from those
grades that are the bread-and-butter
of recovered fibre collections and
exports: OCC, newsprint and mixed
paper, with each showing falls versus
2021 of 1.2 million tonnes, 128 000
tonnes, and 75 000 tonnes respective-
ly. As can be seen in these numbers,
it’s all about the OCC tonnage, which
represents over 60% of recovered fibre
exports. The sources of the data here
are the US Census Bureau, the US
International Trade Commission and
ISRI.
US EXPORTS
As for exports to individual countries,
India is still the largest country import-
ing recovered fibre from the US, fol-
lowed by Mexico, Thailand, and
Vietnam. Those four countries repre-
sent 60% of the total recovered fibre
exports from the US. However, India
was down 5% from 2021, and Vietnam
was down nearly 17%. While Mexico
and Thailand’s volumes from the US
were up, the rises were small at less
than 3% for both countries. While
China used to be the biggest country
importing from the USA, it now repre-
sents a paltry 5% of the tonnes export-
ed.
While pricing and demand domestical-
ly show some slight shifts by region,
the fact remains that the market
domestically has not changed much
over the past few months, so it is sim-
ply more of the same. Demand is soft
due to a slowing economy, which
results in mill slowdowns so that the
manufacturing volume of new paper
matches the slowing demand. While
there are ups and downs in pricing
month-to-month, these are simply
A U T H O R Robin Latchem
76-77_mapaper.indd 76 15-03-2023 11:51
