"Affected by the rising prices of upstream raw materials, as well as other comprehensive costs such as environmental protection, our company's production and operating costs continue to rise, in order to alleviate cost pressure, continue to provide customers with stable and high-quality products, after the company's research and decision: from February 1, 2022, the order price of all cultural paper products will be raised by 200 yuan / ton on the basis of the current implementation price in January; since March 1, 2022, the order price of all cultural paper products will be raised by 200 yuan / on the basis of the current execution price in February. ton. Recently, when some paper companies have begun to enter the Spring Festival holiday mode, a number of leading paper companies have issued similar price increase letters, and the price increase period has been covered to March.
Sun Paper: From February 1, all non-coated paper products, on the basis of the existing execution price, increased by 200 yuan / ton. From March 1, on the basis of the above, the non-coated products will continue to raise the execution price at no less than 200 yuan / ton.
Chenming Group: Since February 1, 2022, the price of our white cardboard series products has increased by 200 yuan / ton.
Raw material prices have risen sharply
Industry insiders told reporters that the price increase information released by paper companies is mainly due to the sharp rise in raw material prices. According to the data of the business agency, on November 16, 2021, the price of softwood pulp was 5040 yuan / ton, and on January 19, 2022, the price of softwood pulp was 6164 yuan / ton, and in two months, the price rose by 1124 yuan / ton, an increase of 22.3%; in the same period, the price of hardwood pulp rose from 4520 yuan / ton to 5230 yuan / ton, and the price rose by 710 yuan / ton, an increase of 15.7%. In terms of pulp futures, the main 2205 contract of pulp futures rose from the closing price of 4904 yuan / ton on November 16, 2021 to the closing price of 6252 yuan / ton on January 19, 2022, and the price rose by 1348 yuan / ton, an increase of 27.5%.
"Pulp prices began to bottom out from late November 2021, and the current domestic softwood pulp spot quotation is generally above 6,000 yuan / ton, and some needles are near 6,500 yuan / ton." Tang Binghua, a researcher at Founder's medium-term soft commodities, said that the rise in pulp prices this round is mainly due to frequent disturbances in overseas supply. From the perspective of time, including the impact of heavy rainfall and flooding in British Columbia, Canada, the transportation and port evacuation, the phased suspension of cargo imports at major ports in the north due to the epidemic, and the extension of the duration of the UPM workers' strike and the overhaul of Canfor, all of which have made the arrival of softwood pulp face greater downward pressure. In December 2021, China's pulp imports fell again, falling to the year-end low, and the export of Chinese softwood pulp in November fell slightly, which exacerbated the domestic supply problem and led to the recent continuous increase in pulp prices.
Gao Linlin, senior researcher at Guotai Junan Futures Energy, believes that there are three main factors driving the rise in pulp plate prices: First, domestic pulp imports fell significantly in December 2021, falling to around 1.9 million tons. Second, affected by the rise of main and auxiliary materials and other factors, recently white cardboard scale paper enterprises have raised the price of white cardboard in February by 200 yuan / ton, and the price of raw materials and finished products has been linked to push up; third, the downward pressure on the domestic economy has not decreased, the market's expectations for macro policies to increase the bottom of the support have been enhanced, weak reality, strong expectations will run through the entire Q1 market, coupled with the collective resonance of bulk commodities represented by crude oil, pulp as a strong variety in the early stage, but also showed a trend of replenishment.
Zhang Tao, a pulp analyst at Zhongda Futures, believes that the rise in pulp prices is mainly affected by international news. Recently, the imported wood pulp outer disk has risen successively, boosting market confidence, the linkage between futures and cash has been further strengthened, and the rise in domestic and foreign pulp futures prices has driven spot pulp prices higher. In addition, outer disk pulp enterprises have successively issued pulp price increase letters, and are planned to be implemented in January and February, which indirectly encourages domestic downstream paper mills to issue price increase letters. For example, Chilean Arauco has successively released its softwood pulp, hardwood pulp and natural color paste price increase plans and implemented them in January and February 2022 respectively: softwood pulp will increase the cumulative price by 120 US dollars / ton, hardwood pulp cumulative price increase of 90 US dollars / ton, and natural color pulp cumulative price increase of 50 US dollars / ton. Brazil's Suzano, Canada's softwood pulp Kellip, Moon, Lion, Canadian pulp, etc. all have price increase plans in the first quarter of 2022.
Short-term pulp is greatly affected by supply
"Since January, the price of pulp has been maintained above 6,000 yuan / ton, and last year's highest rose to 7,000-7,500 yuan / ton, so the current price is basically in the high position of the historical median." Tang Binghua analyzed that from the perspective of the industrial chain, the current profit level of pulp mills is significantly higher than that of paper mills, and the valuation of pulp is high.
For this year's market situation, Tang Binghua believes that the new production capacity of softwood pulp is less, superimposed on the production and delivery problems since the beginning of the year, so the supply pressure is not large. On the demand side, the core is that the intention to stabilize growth is strong, the policy to boost the economy determines the performance of the commodity pulp and its downstream finished paper market, the first quarter by the epidemic and the Winter Olympics and other factors, it is expected that the recovery of demand is still resistance, after the second quarter the situation is expected to improve with the gradual landing of the policy. Affected by this, the duration of pulp prices at a high level may be extended, but throughout the year, supply and demand are difficult to say tight, and after external events, pulp may weaken again.
Zhang Tao believes that short-term pulp prices are affected by supply-side news, on the one hand, shipping logistics and international breaking news continue to ferment, on the other hand, the spot market softwood pulp can be circulated in a small source, and some pulp varieties are lower than the spot price, and the supply side news supports the pulp price. However, the demand is affected by the Spring Festival factor, some small and medium-sized paper mills have taken holidays, pulp demand has contracted, it is expected that the short-term pulp price will oscillate mainly at a high level, and the main 2205 contract price of pulp futures will oscillate in the range of 6000-6500 yuan / ton.
From the perspective of the whole year, domestic pulp supply and demand are tightly balanced. On the supply side, the new overseas pulp production capacity will be about 8 million tons from 2021 to 2022. Domestically, according to the statistics of Zhuo Chuang Information, the total new production capacity of domestic pulp is expected to be 7.5 million tons in 2022, and Nine Dragons, Chenming, Jingui, Sun, etc. are all planned to be put into production, and the domestic pulp production capacity is expected to reach 15.866 million tons. On the demand side, according to the statistics of Zhuo Chuang Information, the downstream paper mill expansion in 2022 is obvious, and the new production capacity of wood pulp paper is expected to be 16.692 million tons, of which the white cardboard production capacity is large, it is expected to be 12.712 million tons, and other wood pulp paper varieties also have new production capacity plans.
On the macro side, the gradual tightening of currencies in global countries is expected to be stronger, the expectation of a soft landing of the economy has increased, and international logistics continue to recover. Zhang Tao believes that under the normal situation of domestic pulp imports, the annual pulp price may oscillate widely around the range of 5200-6700 yuan / ton; if there is an obstacle to domestic pulp imports, the annual pulp price will shift up, oscillating widely in the range of 5700-7300 yuan / ton.
Gao Linlin said that in the first half of the year, pulp was mainly based on speculation on the supply side, industrial funds paid more attention to downstream demand, short-term pulp prices or high oscillation and finishing, and whether negative feedback would occur in the later period mainly depends on the destocking speed and terminal conduction of finished products.
This article originated from Futures Daily