Demand for recovered paper from Italian and other European paper manufacturers remained lacklustre in Italy over the summer. After a very quiet August, September did not bring the hoped-for recovery in demand. But prices for ordinary recovered paper grades still did not fall, something merchants primarily put down to the decent opportunities to export to Asia.
There were very early signs of a market reversal for the deinking grades, and the market for the higher grades stabilised somewhat in the past two months, although there have still been some downward adjustments here and there.
All things considered, not much recovered paper had been delivered to Italian mills in the past couple of months. Mills making corrugated case material, cartonboard or coreboard had taken longer than usual downtimes in August. In September, too, shorter shutdowns had reportedly been taken time and again as the month did not start off as strong as had been hoped.
The export business was more lucrative for merchants over the summer. Demand was good thanks to factors including very low freight costs, so many merchants shipped the majority of their material to Asia. India was often named as a main destination.
Read the full monthly report on the recovered paper market in Italy and access price tables and graphing tools here:
