The German recovered paper market remains relatively calm. After the rollover in prices for supermarket corrugated paper and board and mixed paper seen at the beginning of the year, only minor adjustments are expected in February. Supply and demand continue to be quite low, but balanced.
Recovered paper arisings were still very weak, market insiders told EUWID. The scale of the typical increase in collection volumes at the beginning of the year has also been significantly smaller this year. As a result, the amount of recovered paper available on the market has been significantly lower than usual since the second half of January, and in some cases even earlier.
While arisings were weak, demand from the paper industry has at least stabilised again. Insiders said that mills were now mostly purchasing the contractual quantities as agreed.
The number of paper machine shutdowns is also currently low. At the same time, however, mills are said to be still producing at well below capacity. Order intake in the industry has not really improved, so that new paper is sometimes being produced to inventory, according to EUWID sources.
Against this backdrop, the price cuts which paper manufacturers had been hoping to see for the mass grades supermarket corrugated paper and board (1.04) and mixed paper (1.02) appear unlikely in February. Market insiders report little to no change in the price of these grades at the moment.
In individual cases, there were reports of modest hikes, which for some mixed paper sales were justified with the recent increases in deinking grade prices.
The price changes on the German waste paper market for the individual grades in January can be found here:
