Dissolving Pulp Market Remained Bullish Supported by Three Major Factors
In January of 2021, the dissolving pulp price has continued to surge, reaching a new high since Jul 2020. The dissolving pulp price may well keep the uptrend bolstered by bullish supply, demand and paper pulp factors.
The dissolving pulp import offers have been increasing since last August, and the HW dissolving pulp import offer has reached $890/mt, up 40% from Q3 of 2020. The offer for SW dissolving pulp has risen to $910/mt, which is 33% higher than that in Q3 of 2020. As for Chinese-made dissolving pulp, the price has reached RMB 7,000/mt in late January,
Dissolving pulp price backed by tight supply and rising shipment cost
Unit turnarounds have become common amongst Chinese and overseas dissolving pulp producers. Therein, Sodra, Caima, Sappi carried out annual turnarounds. In addition, the Cosmo mill in the U.S. has been shut down since last May, and it plans to resume operations in February 2021. As for dissolving pulp producers in China, only the Zoucheng mill of Shandong Sun Paper arranged production in December 2020, and it was shut down at the end of the month and was not restarted until mid-January in 2021. SCI suggests that the supply shortage is obvious due to intensive unit turnarounds, bolstering the bullish sentiment in the market.
