Latin America remains dominant, with plans for four new mills
BREAKBULK & BAGGING
Pulp industry
Patrick Knight than the eucalyptus varieties used to make the short fibred variety. This price difference has encouraged many end users to switch from using long fibre, to shortfibred pulp, giving a further boost to demand. As numerous elderly, high-cost mills in Europe and North America close down each year, about 2mt of new pulp-making capacity is needed worldwide each year. A large proportion of this will come from Brazil, as well as neighbouring countries, such as Paraguay and Uruguay. Although an international court has decided that Paper Excellence, owned by the Indonesian Asian Pulp and Paper Company, should take over the Eldorado mill, where an expansion of 2.3mt is planned, the previous leading shareholder, the JBS meat company, is still
AUGUST 2021
leader Suzano, having now digested its merger with Votorantim’s Fibria, a move which has already brought annual savings of about $1.3 billion, is going ahead with building its latest mill in Mato Grosso state. When complete, in about 30 months time, the new mill will add 2.3mt (million tonnes) to the output of a company which made almost 13mt of pulp last year. Suzano’s new mill is expected to cost about $2.3 billion to complete. The export of about 11mt of market pulp, together with various other forest products, notably plywood, earned Brazil about $12 billion in 2020. Brazil’s short-fibred pulp can be made more cheaply than the long-fibred variety, which is made from types of pine. Pine trees take significantly longer to mature
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Encouraged by high pulp prices, and strong demand from China, four large new pulp mills are planned for the Southern Cone of Latin America, while strong demand for packaging is also boosting Brazil’s forest products industry. With four brand new mills to make market pulp from eucalyptus planned for Brazil and neighbouring Paraguay in the next few years, it seems as if nothing can stop the advance of this industry in this part of the world. The relative advantages of making market pulp in the Southern Cone of Latin America, coupled with the apparently insatiable demand from China, and other countries in Asia — at a time when numerous elderly mills in Europe and North America are shutting down — seems likely to persist as well. Market
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