Forestweb North American Pulp Index holds gains in December

Dec 28, 2009 — Forestweb

LOS ANGELES, December 28, 2009 (Forestweb) — The Forestweb North American Pulp Index stayed level at 128.10 in December, ending seven consecutive month-to-month increases.

For the year, the pulp index rose 14.73%, moving up from a 17.91% decline as of April 1.

With no December pricing announcements from Latin American hardwood producers and no softwood pulp price changes, producers worked to lower their discounts and prepare customers for more price hikes in the first quarter.

Northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) and eucalyptus pulp prices added US$30 per tonne list moves in November and most producers have now announced $20-$30/tonne hikes for world markets in January.

The Forestweb Pulp Index represents North American demand and prices for the five principal chemical paper-grade market pulps.

Forestweb’s price indices are Laspeyres indices that represent a statistical measure of a weighted average of printing and writing paper, pulp and paperboard prices and which summarize the relative changes in price levels over time using an arbitrarily chosen base period. All Forestweb indices use the base year 2000 except for pulp, which uses 2001 as the base year.

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