UK's Exports of Recovered Paper Declined by 4%

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The latest statistics published by the Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) and HM Revenue & Customs indicate that recovered paper exports by the UK declined sharply during the opening two months of the current year. The shipments of mixed paper declined the most during this period. Meantime, domestic usage reported significant jump over the previous year.

According to CPI data, overseas shipments of mixed paper has registered decline by 13.1% during Jan-Feb ’18. The shipments totaled 229,425 tonnes during the first two months of 2018, as compared with the exports of 264,049 tonnes during the comparable two-month period in 2017. The new set of import restrictions put in place by Chinese administration has played a significant role in the huge drop in export volume. Meantime, the domestic consumption of mixed paper by the UK mills increased by 5.4% from 64,904 tonnes last year to 68,403 tonnes in the first two months of this year.

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The exports of OCC by the UK have declined marginally by 0.6% year-on-year to total 420,682 tonnes. At the same time, domestic OCC consumption surged higher by 3.3% over the previous year to 198,721 tonnes. The shipments of woodfree grades climbed higher by 3.6% to 37,992 tonnes. The exports of all grades of recovered fibre by the UK were down by 3.6% in the first two months of 2018 at 747,024 tonnes.

The overall consumption of all grades of recovered fibre by the UK mills edged higher by almost 4% to 517,140 tonnes in Jan-Feb ’18. The collections dropped slightly by less than 1% to 1.249 million tonnes over the first two-month period in 2017. At the same time, the UK paper and board production dipped by 0.9% to 620,143 tonnes.