Lengthy downtime taken by corrugated case material manufacturers in Italy has sent demand and prices for ordinary recovered paper grades plummeting. Market participants had certainly anticipated substantial price declines for these grades. Yet, many merchants were caught off guard by the scale of the drops.
Corrugated case material manufacturers, in particular, throttled production significantly in August. Companies were using the summer holidays, when they traditionally schedule maintenance, for extended stoppages lasting one to three weeks. The moves were prompted by recent slow demand in the packaging sector and hefty energy costs. As a result of the downtimes, merchants encountered significant difficulties finding buyers for mixed paper and board and for old corrugated containers (OCC)....
