World-20 pulp shipments rose 4.2% year-to-year in March to 3.586 million tonnes, while softwood inventories also increased, the Pulp and Paper Products Council reported Thursday.
At a 92% shipment rate overall, shipments to China rose 15.8% and they gained 15.2% to Asia/Africa outside China and Japan. The rise to Western Europe, by contrast, was 1.0%, and it dropped 5.1% to North America, PPPC said.
Shipments of bleached softwood kraft pulp increrased by just 0.2% overall while the ever-increasing hardwood market added 160,000 tonnes, or 10.6% from March 2007.
Producer pulp inventories, meantime, remained at 34 days' worth of supply, estimated by Pulpandpaper.net at 3.90 million tonnes, up 75,000 tonnes in the month. They stood at 31 days, or 3.33 million tonnes, the previous year.
The numbers, said Chip Dillon of Citigroup Investment Research today, "point to a summer correction."
He added, "If inventories continue to rise, a correction could ensue, though it should be limited by the weak dollar."
The firm estimated that producer inventories fell 20,000 tonnes, or 0.6%, to about 3.16 million tonnes, but it may not be aware that they stood at 3.76 million tonnes at the end of January and 3.83 million at the end of February, according to the PPPC.
Citigroup's official NBSK forecast "calls for pulp prices (delivered to Europe) to correct from $900/tonne in April to $800/tonne in October, with prices resuming a climb in 2009-2010. If inventories continue to rise, a correction could ensue, though it should be limited by the weak dollar," it said.
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