Chile's Arauco announces July US$20/tonne bleached radiata pulp price increase for China, to US$690/tonne (net); prices remain unchanged for unbleached pulp, at $620/tonne (net), and eucalyptus pulp, at US$750/tonne (list)

Diane Keaton

LOS ANGELES , June 27, 2013 (IndustryIntel) – Chile’s Celulosa Arauco y Constitución SA (Arauco) has announced a US$20/tonne July China price increase for bleached radiata kraft pulp (BRKP), to $690/tonne (net), a company official said. The announcement was made June 25.

The company said its other China prices will be unchanged, including $620/tonne (net) for unbleached kraft pulp (UKP), which has been in place since April, and $750/tonne (list) for bleached eucalyptus kraft pulp (BEKP), which it announced for May.

For June, Arauco had announced a BRKP price of $700/tonne (net), up $10/tonne, but during the course of the month, it brought the price down to $670/tonne (net), sources said.

And for May, Arauco had announced an unchanged BRKP China price of $690/tonne (net). But later it dropped it $20/tonne, to $670/tonne, for much of its business.

(Russia’s Ilim Group has also made adjustments in recent months. It brought its April NBSK price down $20/tonne to its March level of $630/tonne DAF and $660/tonne CFR, which was its May price. And sources have said that the net price in China of commodity northern bleached softwood kraft, or NBSK, fell about $10/tonne, generally to $670/tonne, starting in mid or late May.)

Arauco has a total capacity of 3.235 million tonnes/year, including 2.885 million tonnes/year at its mills in Chile. Its Alto Paraná mill in Argentina, which has a capacity of 350,000 tonnes/year, can swing to either fluff pulp or BRKP.

The 1.3 million tonnes/year Montes Del Plata pulp mill in Punta Pereira, Uruguay, a 50-50 joint venture between Arauco and Finland’s Stora Enso Oyj, is targeted to begin operating late in the third quarter. 

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