Pulp
Market, Supplier, Risk and
Competitive Intelligence

Industry Outlook & Drivers

Global Pulp Market Overview

• Pulp finds utilization in several industries such as paper, textiles, automobiles, and food and beverages. 
• The usage of wood pulp in furniture manufacturing and for developing soft pieces utilized in the residential segment is likely to favor the pulp market outlook. 
• Several industries are undergoing chemical research, with the production of usable pulp being one of the outcomes.  
• The global pulp market price is expected to improve over the next decade owing to a better revenue index.
• Several suppliers such as Kemira have announced capacity expansions to meet the long-term demand. Tissue demand was expected to grow by 6% from 2010 through 2020 in the emerging markets, while developed markets will witness a growth rate of 1.4% in the same period.
• The hardwood market is expected to be firmer compared to softwood during the forecast period owing to significant capacity additions in the latter and diminishing demand.
• Both hardwood pulp and softwood pulp have seen considerable changes in pricing with a strong upward trend.

Drivers

• The personal care and hygiene industry that is using increasing quantities of pulp and paper for the products is a major driver. Some of the products are wipes, toilet paper, and paper towels.
• The increasing use of packaging using corrugated pulp-based materials is a major consumer of paper & pulp.
• The paper & pulp market is also encouraging research & development (R&D) to be more sustainable by trimming energy usage and improving the yield of production units.
• Rising environmental concerns are compelling manufacturers and consumers to replace plastic products with pulp-based biodegradable options.
• Rising consumption of off-premise food consumption has boded well for the quick-service restaurants (QSR), which is among end-users of paper products.
• Rapid urbanization and growth of the FMCG sector and other industries that use paper packaging as raw materials are major drivers of the industry.
• The growing popularity of e-commerce has witnessed demand in transport packaging materials.

Constraints

• The industry demand is rapidly outpacing production.
• Graphic papers such as newsprint are facing a severe fall in demand.
• Some industries are replacing paper-based packaging with reusable plastic containers to be more sustainable.
• The resources for softwood pulp dictate the prices and therefore demand.
• Lighter packaging materials that are not pulp-based are being developed.
• Paper industries require a significant amount of forest wood. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has revealed that during 2000-2015, there was a net decline in the forest cover of 3.3 million hectares. As such, local authorities have enacted stringent norms on deriving wood from the forests.
• Pulp is among the largest water-consuming products. Producing an A4-size paper sheet consumes nearly 20L of water. As such, rising deforestation and water scarcity, and managing consistent resource supply and raw material will hinder the market growth.

Global Pulp Market Overview

• Many suppliers like Kemira announced capacity expansions to meet the long-term demand. Tissue demand was expected to grow by 6 percent between 2010 and 2020 in the emerging markets, while developed markets are to witness a growth rate of 1.4 percent in the same period.
• The hardwood market is expected to be firmer than softwood during the forecast period. Due to significant capacity additions in the latter and a diminishing demand, hardwood is expected to gain a lot of traction in the coming years.
• Both hardwood pulp and softwood pulp have seen great changes in pricing with a strong upward trend

Downstream Demand Analysis

• Global pulp demand increased by 2 percent in 2017, on the back of accelerating consumption of tissue and packaging paper, offsetting declining demand for printing and writing grades.
• The world's demand for all tissue paper hit 37.1 million tons in 2017, with growth in premium and ultra-premium grades, the ones that use 100 percent market pulp. Bathroom tissue is the biggest growth area, with China using so much more of it than before, along with its growing demand for other items, such as paper towels, wipes, facial tissue, and diapers.
• Demand is also strong in some other emerging markets, like Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, and Mexico, and these products use virgin fiber and is more than compensating for the reduced demand for printing and writing grade pulp.
• The Asian demand is also strong for Old Corrugated Cardboard (OCC). Global pulp demand is also receiving a boost because paper recycling is about to peak, with developed economies in North America, Europe, and Japan, Consuming less printed paper than in the past.

Non-wood Pulp Production

• Non-wood pulp produced using sustainable and environment-friendly methods will also become a fiber source for pulp in North America and Europe.
• Forestry regulations and faster growth of non-wood fibers, compared to wood trees, will drive the technology development in the non-wood fiber pulping process.
• The non-wood portion of paper typically varies from 20 percent to 90 percent and can be up to 100 percent, depending on the grade of paper and required quality.
• There are many possible combinations and they can be adjusted to meet the market requirements.

Pulp Market Overview

Raw Material Availability

• There are abundant plantations, predominantly softwood fibers. There are enough mills with the superior technology in the region to convert fiber into pulp.

International Trade

• North American players primarily export their softwood fiber to China and European regions. The export of pulp to China is expected to decrease in the future due to high inventory levels and lower domestic prices.

Major Suppliers

• GP Cellulose, Paper Excellence, Weyerhaeuser, Domtar, West Fraser, Resolute Products, and Canfor Pulp are the major pulp suppliers in North America.

Industrial Structure

• The North American pulp industry is highly competitive with a high degree of backward integration and less differentiation, in terms of products. Currently, it operates with excess capacity.

Future Outlook

• The domestic demand might not be as promising as the export market. The US market majorly depends on the economic and industrial conditions in China.

Why You Should Buy This Report

The pulp market report provides information about the global and regional industry trends including a regional market snapshot of Europe, North America, and Asia. It lists out the market drivers and constraints, pulp prices overview and trends, and offers Porter’s five forces analysis of the pulp market. Important facts and figures both regionally and globally of the paper & pulp, fluff pulp, kraft pulp, wood pulp, hardwood pulp, and softwood pulp aspects of the pulp markets have been discussed in detail. The report includes the historic as well as projected pulp market price facts and figures for the near future with the underlying reasons. So, learn all about pulp market outlook 2021. The report does a cost structure and pricing analysis and provides information about best practices and provides a profile of the key market players. Further, it presents the innovations and new research and developments that will potentially have a significant effect on the pulp industry.