China increases imports of hardwood chips
• With pulpmills in China continuing to have problems supplying their wood-based pulpmills with domestic wood fiber, imports of hardwood chips have increased substantially the past three years and exports have practically vanished as reported by Wood Resource Quarterly in their latest report. During the first six months of 2008, imports were 26% higher than the same period last year, reaching a total of 550,000 tons.
• Chip imports have steadily increased from practically nothing in 2002 to 1.1 million tons in 2007, and could very well reach over 1.3 million tons in 2008. During the same period, exports have fallen from almost 1.6 million tons in 2002 to only 215,000 tons in 2007. These shipments, which were destined for Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are now being consumed by the domestic industry.
Australia and Vietnam supply 90% of wood chips to China
• The two major sources of wood chips in 2008 have been Vietnam and Australia (Tasmania), together accounting for over 90% of total imports. In 2006 and 2007, there were also shipments of Acacia chips from Indonesia to APRIL’s pulpmill in Rizhao, China but these shipments, which totaled 360,000 tons in 2007, are down to only 42,000 tons for the first six months of this year.
• Practically all imports to China have been hardwood chips, with only a few shipments of softwood from the US South in 2007 and from Tasmania in 2008. Recently, there has been increased interest from Chinese importers in finding sources for additional volumes of softwood chips in North America, but the high costs for both the chips and the shipping have so far not resulted in any new contracts.
Softwood chip exports from Australia reach highest volume in three years
• Export prices for both pine and Eucalyptus wood chips have gone up substantially in 2008 in Australia as a result of increased demand in Japan and a tighter supply of wood chips throughout the Pacific Rim region. Japan continues to be the major destination for Australian chips, with occasional vessels going to South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and China. The country has been the top supplier of both softwood and hardwood chips to the Japanese pulp industry since the 1990’s and will most likely continue to be so for many years to come. The future market share will depend to a large extent on the domestic demand for wood fiber in Australia, as the pulp sector is planning to expand.
• Wood Resource Quarterly also highlighted the increasing costs for Australian softwood chips in 2007, which resulted in a reduction of market share for Australian suppliers while US suppliers increased their market presence. This changed in the 1Q/08 as chip supply was tight in the US and shipments to Japan dropped 35% from the previous quarter. Despite the preference for Douglas-fir chips from the US, Japanese pulp manufacturers may be forced to use more chips from Australia, New Zealand and Canada as availability will continue to be limited in the US in 2008 and 2009. Although Japan imported 313,000 odmt of softwood chips from Australia in the 1Q/08, which was the highest quarterly volume in three years, there are only limited opportunities to increase volumes much more.
• There are tough times ahead for Japanese pulp companies, with a declining supply of softwood chips domestically and only minimal opportunities to increase imports from the two major supplies, Australia and the US. These developments might force companies to close down pulp production capacity in Japan and instead import market pulp in the future.
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