France: low collection and strong demand pulls up prices for lower RCP grades

On both the French domestic and export markets there is good demand for recovered paper. Prices for lower grades and a few medium and high grades rose in November.

Recovered paper merchants in France report that they sold almost everything that could be collected in November. Not all customers within France have exceptionally full order books, but they still regularly need supplies of recovered paper. With the way business is going right now, no major inventory build-ups are occurring, according to merchants. While this was also again attributed to the chronically limited collection volumes, the export business was also said to be consuming a fair quantity of recovered paper. On the Far East export market buyers seem to be looking more towards Europe these days, thus creating demand. The Spanish market, which is also an important export destination for France, was also ordering more than usual recently.

As a result, prices for ordinary grades rose on the French market. For deinking grades, prices were also slightly higher in some transactions, i.e. in those cases where they had not already been raised in October. Prices for the other medium and higher grades either remained unchanged or rose slightly.

The price increases seen in the ordinary grades in November usually took effect at the beginning of the month. Subsequently, they either stagnated or even fell again in some cases. For December, market participants do not expect any more increases; instead, they anticipate prices will likely stabilize or even go down slightly.