AF&PA publishes US paper reports for Nov '14

SPOKANE (Scrap Monster): The Washington D.C.-headquartered American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) has released the production statistics for the month of November last year.

According to the statistics, the containerboard production has declined by 4.8% in Nov ’14 when compared with the production during the previous month. However, the total containerboard production has increased by 5.9% when compared with Nov ’13. The year-to-date output of containerboards by the country was marginally higher by 1.4% over the previous year. However, the operating rate for containerboard declined from 96.9% in Oct ’14 to 94.3% in Nov ’14.

The total kraft paper shipments during November ’14 have dropped considerably by 7.7% over the previous month to 115.50 thousand tonnes. Out of this, bleached kraft paper shipments constituted 8.6 thousand tonnes whereas the balance 106.8 thousand tons accounted for unbleached kraft paper shipments.

AF&PA notes that bleached paper kraft shipments dropped significantly by nearly 24% over the previous month while unbleached paper craft shipments improved by 1.04% in October ‘14. The cumulative kraft paper shipments during the initial eleven-month period in 2014 were 2.8% lower than the corresponding period in 2013. The month-end inventories increased to 71.5 thousand short tons in Nov ’14.

The total shipment of printing-writing paper declined 8% in November last year. The Nov ’14 coated free sheet (CFS) paper shipments too decreased 3%. Uncoated free sheets (UFS) shipment dropped 14% during the month. Coated mechanical (CM) shipments during Nov ’14 declined almost 4% when matched with the same month in 2013.

On the other hand, the total boxboard production increased 0.9% from those during Nov ’13 and by 2.1% over Oct ’14. The production of Recycled Boxboard increased compared to November 2013 but increased when compared to October.