Leipa is set to increase its LWC paper price in order to improve the profitability in the coated magazine paper business.
Germany's magazine and packaging paper manufacturer Leipa has announced a price increase of €30/t for LWC paper. The price hike is to come into effect as from 1 January 2018 and is valid for all grades and markets.
The company said that its coated magazine paper business was "unsustainable at current price levels" and that "continuously rising input costs and consequently declining margins" were making the price hike inevitable.
Leipa runs two coated mechanical paper machines at its site in Schwedt, Germany. The company puts the total production capacity at 520,000 tpy.
Paper producers prepare the ground for price hikes in the newsprint and SC paper segment
At this year's Ifra World Publishing Expo - the event was held between 10 and 12 October in Berlin - several publication paper producers had took the opportunity to inform their customers about their future price plans ahead of the forthcoming negotiations on terms and conditions for deliveries in 2018. In talks with publishers and printers, paper suppliers expressed the urgent need to markedly hike prices for certain paper grades in order to offset higher production costs.
Talking to EUWID newsprint manufacturers explained that they were asking for an increase of more than 10% for deliveries as of 1 January 2018. Higher prices are also in the offing for magazine and catalogue paper with the planned price increase for SC paper amounting to €30-40/t.
The industry's pricing strategy for LWC and other coated mechanical paper grades was less clear at the time of the Ifra Expo, but observers were expecting higher prices to be announced in this segment as well.
This is an excerpt from our latest coverage on the newsprint and magazine paper markets in Europe.
Subscribe now to our Premium products to get full online access to EUWID Pulp and Paper or start a three-week free trial, free of charge and without any obligation, by clicking here.
