Link: record global recovered fibre consumption pushing up prices
(March 2, 2017) China started to enter the market more in 1996, helping to bring those prices back up (to $67 to $88 per ton from 1996 to 2000), then we had the 2001 recession, which brought the yearly average price of OCC back down to $50. Subsequently, China and the world economy have recovered, and so has OCC pricing.
[The following article is an excerpted transcript from the presentation by Bill Moore at the 2017 Paper Recycling Conference India in February]
Extract:
China started to enter the market more in 1996, helping to bring those prices back up (to $67 to $88 per ton from 1996 to 2000), then we had the 2001 recession, which brought the yearly average price of OCC back down to $50.
Subsequently, China and the world economy have recovered, and so has OCC pricing. If you look at OCC pricing and match it against global GDP, you get a reasonable correlation. So, when we came out of that recession, that’s when China really started buying.
In 2016, prices picked back up after a three-year downturn, mostly in the second half. The first quarter of 2016 was really low-priced, but by the fourth quarter things were raging and prices have continued to rise in early 2017. It has been almost unprecedented — as high and fast of a rise for a three-month period as I’ve almost ever seen.
More recently, OCC export prices show U.S. OCC continues to have a price premium, although sometimes the spread comes together when compared with German and United Kingdom export prices.
Studying delivered prices shows that Indian mills pay quite a premium for U.S. double-sorted OCC, certainly over standard OCC delivered to China or select OCC delivered to India.
To read Bill Moore’s story Go To: Fibre-rich diet (Source: Recycling Today)
