UPM Pulp Matters 1/2023

IN FOCUS

THE DEMAND FOR MARKET PULP IS ESTIMATED TO INCREASE BY ABOUT 3% ANNUALLY.

mature economies. In the Asian region, that increase in consumption of tissue or hygiene papers is mainly linked to affordability and the growing middle class.” The growing purchasing power of the middle classes, especially in the developing economies, increasing urbanisation, and concerns about the negative impact of climate change, is driving the global demand for renewable wood-based materials like pulp. The demand for market pulp is estimated to increase by about 3% annually. Pulp can be utilised to create various hygiene products, packaging products, specialty papers, textiles and more. With carefully developed plantation-based eucalyptus UPM has proven it can consistently provide its customers with the optimal characteristics for their products – qualities related to processing, like runnability, and end-uses like strength, printability, surface smoothness and opacity of the paper. UPM foresees that it will be providing pulp to entirely new products going to the market but does not currently believe that it is going to be in significant volumes, or indeed that will happen anytime soon. “I think it is rather about other things such as replacing plastics with paper packaging material. Consumer preferences see that plastic or other fossil-based products aren’t that good for the environment, despite their practical use – and that is where we will see a bigger growth in consumption demand for fibre and paper products. We will likely see new applications for our pulp appearing as well, but it will take a while,” posits Wiklund.

in Europe but also new customers in North America. “In some cases, companies in Europe and Asia have been asking for more pulp. Particularly in China, they have been building new paper machines every year that they need to feed with pulp. Now with our new pulp capacity, we can increase our supply to meet their demand,” explains Wiklund. “During the construction of the mill we strengthened our global sales organisation and now have our own sales team for North America. We have been gradually developing the organisation and our competences, furthering digitalisation in logistics and technical customer service, for example. In addition, the company’s global sales organisation has been strengthened.” “There is definitely a global market for us. We are committed to the market and our customers and we are confident about the future. While it is going to be a learning curve in 2023, this is a potentially 50-year project, so time is very much on our side.” END-USE APPLICATIONS In terms of the end-use applications, the company is confident that the quality of the pulp from the new mill will be industry leading and optimal for what the market requires to be able to convert it into the desired end products – such as tissue papers, printing papers or renewable fibre-based packaging materials. “Tissue papers is the end-use area where we see increasing demand globally and consumption is growing even in the

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PUL P MAT TERS 01/2023