Recovered Fiber Exports Recorded Largest Ever Y-o-Y Decline

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The exports of recovered fiber from the U.S. posted largest year-on-year decline in 2019. This is in accordance with the data published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The U.S. exports of recovered fiber commodities, including OCC, newsprint and mixed paper totaled 18.1 million short tons in 2019, down by almost 13% from the prior year. The exports had totaled nearly 21 million short tons in 2018. Moreover, the fiber exports in 2019 hit the lowest volume since 2006.

The drop in exports was mainly fuelled by the stricter import restrictions imposed by the Chinese administration. The intake of U.S. recovered fiber by Chinese buyers recorded substantial decline of approximately 2.5 million short tons in 2019, from the year prior to it. The non-Chinese markets in Southeast Asia too bought fewer recovered fiber from the U.S. These include India, Indonesia and South Korea. It must be noted that many of the countries in the region had announced restrictions on imports during the previous year.

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Meanwhile, China continued to be the top destination of exports, accounting for 5.8 million short tons, followed by India (3.3 million short tons), Mexico (1.5 million short tons) and Vietnam (1.2 million short tons).

OCC reported largest decline in export volume. The OCC shipments dropped by almost 1.9 million short tons in 2019.