Market Report

Price reductions low grades less than expected

NL-Tilburg, 8 June 2025

Monday June 9th our Dutch and Belgian depots will be closed for 2nd Whitsun day..
 

It is now clear that overseas mill buyers will not be changing their prices for low grades compared to last month. Although that was the expectation, indeed. Complaints about challenging markets in Asia and a lack of appetite for buying gave the impression that export prices would be reduced further. That has not happened (yet). And there is also a willingness now to buy here and there, apparently because long-delayed imports mean that some raw materials are now needed after all. Incidentally, prices are still being set below the European local level. This is partly because many European buyers barked loudly about June prices but did not really bite. Yes, prices have gone lower in June, but where southern Europe was still aiming for reductions of €30 per tonne for lower (packaging) grades, this ultimately turned out to be €20. Still substantial, but less than announced and therefore also less than expected. In other regions, we saw price reductions of €10 to €20 per tonne. 

This seems to indicate that the pace of price reductions has slowed considerably, and with renewed interest from Asia, we may well have reached the bottom of the low grade price cycle (for now?). Once again, we are heading for lower collected volumes in the coming months, and despite lower sales prices in Asia, more containers are being loaded again. However, there are challenges there too, because shipping is no picnic at the moment. But compared to road transport, which has also been difficult in recent weeks, it is not that dramatic. With the last public holiday in Europe for the time being coming up on Monday, road transport should return to normal after that. There are still waiting times at the main ports in Europe, less availability of containers and, of course, it is also difficult to arrange road transport of the containers to the port. But anyway, if we didn't have these problems, there would certainly be others.
In short, it seems that the market for low (packaging) grades will hold at current price levels.

As far as medium grades are concerned, it appears that, as expected, 

prices in June will remain more or less the same as in May. For lower de-inking grades, we are even seeing higher prices in some cases. This is not because graphic paper producers are eager to pay more for raw materials in what is a difficult market for them, but simply because generation has gone down. This is not surprising given a structural decline of 10% of consumption of graphic paper annually and the start of the holiday period, which also means temporarily even less generation.

Price indication

Price indication in Europe for low grades of recovered paper, sorted, baled and ex works are now between € 70 and € 100 per tonne. These prices are depending on quality, available volume, region and loaded weight.

Look here at the Price chart >> 
  
The price chart gives an indication of the price  of mixed paper, separately collected, in the Netherlands free delivered mill over the last 10 years.
Scrolling over the top of the columns gives the exact price indication in Euro's per ton.