Christmas volumes have started to hit the paper sector which has reported an increase in supply over the past few weeks – although these volumes are lower than expected.
However, the sector has bucked the usual January trend of price decreases, with some of our contacts describing the months as “much better than expected”.
OCC has seen the highest increase since about the 5th of January, although this remains modest.
This has contributed to a modest increase in prices for some grades and a stable month for others.
Amongst other factors, US mills have ramped up demand domestically which has meant Southeast Asia has begun to look elsewhere for feedstock. With many European mills still experiencing downtime, the UK has been expected to meet some of this demand. Europe has additionally shown demand in UK paper.
The Essity mill has also now started to buy which has seen increased demand domestically.
SOW continues to struggle with low demand both domestically and from export markets.
Ramadan will also see markets slowing down as Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries stop accepting shipments for about three weeks from early/mid to late March. This will impact orders being processed now due to shipping times.
‘Cost of living’ crisis
Many of our contacts have pointed to the cost of living crisis as a continuing factor across the grades.
Christmas volumes continue to be down on previous years as people are simply not buying as much as they used to.
View our more detailed paper price index here.
NB: From January 2026, Letsrecycle will introduce a new paper grade between Mixed Paper and OCC called “1.04”. This will refer to a 70/30 OCC with a mix of up to 80/20. This category will be introduced to better define and separate the current OCC and mixed paper grades.
Under export pricing, the “standard quality” and “high grade” OCC categories will also be removed. The full range will remain.
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