US paper shipments declined marginally in March, says AF&PA report

SPOKANE (Scrap Monster): The Washington D.C.-headquartered American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) has released the shipment statistics for the month of March this year. The monthly figures suggest marginal drop in U.S printing-writer paper shipments. Also, shipments of uncoated free sheets and coated free sheets decreased during the month.

The total shipment of printing-writing paper has declined by 4% in March 2016 when matched with the same month a year before. The inventory levels of printing-writing paper dropped by 2% when compared with the previous month.

The March ‘16 coated free sheet (CFS) paper shipments decreased 8% when compared with the previous year. Uncoated free sheets (UFS) shipments declined for the first time in 2016, dropping by 1% during the month relative to shipments in March 2015. Coated mechanical (CM) shipments during March ‘15 dropped by 4% when matched with the same month in 2015. Uncoated mechanical (UM) shipments during March this year have dropped sharply by 8% when matched with Mar ‘15.

The total kraft paper shipments during March remained flat when compared with March 2015 at 147.6 thousand short tons. Out of this, bleached kraft paper shipments constituted 7.0 thousand short tons whereas the balance 140.6 thousand short tons accounted for unbleached kraft paper shipments. The shipment of bleached kraft paper had totaled 8.7 thousand short tons and those of unbleached kraft paper had totaled 131.10 thousand short tons in February this year. The overall shipments during the first quarter of the year have dropped marginally by 0.7%. The total month-end inventories decreased to 70.3 thousand short tons.

The AF&PA statistics indicate that the US containerboard production in March this year was 1% lower when compared with the same month a year before. The month-on-month average daily production too has declined by 2.6% during the month. The containerboard operating rate for March decreased to 94.4% and the year-to-date operating rate of 94.9% was 0.6 percentage points lower compared to the same period in 2015