Box, boards market is feeble

By Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 3/21/2007 8:37:00 AM

Producer shipments of corrugated boxes have declined by 2.6% in the first two months of this year. The sluggish box demand remains a major shadow over attempts by various containerboard and boxboard groups to boost prices of virgin and recycled box board.

Prices for paperboard have been sliding this quarter and proposed increases of $40/ton for various linerboard grades have been pushed back yet again, this time to mid-April. Also, various boxboard groups want to raise North American prices for coated recycled board by $50/short ton in April since earlier attempts to boost prices in March faded.

Latest subscriber-only statistics from the Fibre Box Association shows that two-month shipments were 62.35 billion square feet. A report by subscriber-only forest products news service RISI says that containerboard inventories at box plants and mills have showed more than their normal seasonal decline. Still, U.S. containerboard mills may be overproducing since they have ran at 96% of capacity in the first two months, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. "We view all this data as weak, consistent with a slowing economy," analyst Peter Ruschmeier of Lehman Brothers tells the RISI news service.