After announcements reached the market about some producer’s plans to hike prices for corrugated case material in February, the first announcements have now also been made on the market for coreboard in Italy.
The Paper Board Alliance, which encompasses the coreboard producers Cartiera dell’ Adda and Industria Cartaria Pieretti (IcP), has announced that it wants to hike coreboard prices by around €60/t from 1 February. It attributes this step to significant cost increases overall, e.g. for recovered paper, energy and chemicals.
Cartiera dell’Adda produces coreboard that is mainly used for industrial cores while IcP specialises in coreboard for the tissue industry. The two mills have a combined capacity of around 300,000 tpy.
Cartiera Merati, another coreboard producer in Italy with capacities of around150,00 tpy, has also announced a price increase. The company plans to hike prices for its coreboard and greyboard products by 16 per cent from 3 February, both in the European and overseas markets.
According to the company, the decision has been driven by the rise in energy and raw material costs. “While we have absorbed these financial challenges so far, the recent escalation in costs makes this price adjustment essential to restore a sustainable level of profitability,” it commented.
Demand has been quite weak on the coreboard market for some time, as has demand for other paper and board products. Coreboard producers in Italy got used to take production downtime from time to time to adjust supply to actual demand. However, some of them had been complaining about lower margins for some time and the recent rise in gas and recovered paper prices has probably worsened their situation