Archives

The PM40 closed Friday, 13 November 2020, at 3201.

Get the latest PM40 updates by listening to the weekly Nips show and the PM40 Daily Show on Pulp & Paper Radio International.

The PM40 closed 13 November 2020 down 0.8% from the 15 November 2019 level.

In this issue of Disconnected Comparisons, we evaluate Quad and UPM Kymmene.

Reported insider trading since the last issue of PaperMoney.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first class of inductees to the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wisconsin was inducted more than two decades ago in 1995, and today, more than 140 papermaking innovators and legends have been enshrined. This month, we profile the late György Vámos, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2007.

Andritz has received an order from Bracell to supply the non-condensable gases (NCG) incineration system on EPCC basis for Bracell's pulp mill Project "STAR" in Lençóis Paulista, Brazil.

Ahlstrom-Munksjö reinforces its leading position in high performance solutions for durable applications, by launching Ahlstrom-Munksjö FibRoc®.

Amcor's premium Matrix paper-based and paraffin-free cheese packaging receives a Silver award at the 2020 Packaging Innovation Awards sponsored by Dow.

Nowadays is becoming more and more clear that consumer shopping habits drastically changed over the past months.

Cascades PRO®, the professional hygiene brand of Cascades Inc., is pleased to announce that its Tandem® family of paper dispensers just got bigger, with the market release of the Tandem Electronic Roll Towel Dispenser (C350).

Branded, wood fibre-based, easy-to-recycle cups manufactured from Kotkamills' board are now used by Bentley Suomi.

Kotkamills will continue as the main partner of the KooKoo ice hockey team also in the next league season. The partners have agreed to exercise the agreement's option year for 2021-2022. KooKoo is pursuing a completely plastic-free game event, and the agreement means a big step closer to realising that goal.

Mondi, a leading global packaging and paper manufacturer, has joined the newly created consortium CELAB (Circular Economy for Labels). This industry initiative was founded by companies in the self-adhesive label industry to create greater circularity for its products by enhancing and promoting matrix and release liner recycling around the world.

Pregis announces the North American launch of its Sharp Packaging Systems® MAX-PRO 24 continuous bagging system. This latest model in the MAX-PRO line can handle a wider range of products and bag sizes making it ideal for fulfillment operations with a broad e-commerce offering.

Quad/Graphics, Inc. announced the launch of its Quad Direct Marketing Exchange ™ (QDMX) - a platform that delivers entirely personalized direct marketing campaigns at a fraction of the cost and at greater speed to market.

Sun Chemical has signed up to the Digital Watermarks Initiative HolyGrail 2.0, facilitated by AIM, the European Brands Association.

WCP Solutions announced that their WCP Sacramento location is officially franchised for the full line of Domtar Paper products. Customers in the region can now order Domtar products through their WCP account manager or with the local customer service team. Domtar's offering was previously only available in other WCP markets.

WestRock was recognized at the Path to Purchase Design of the Times Awards with six awards for excellence in merchandising solutions, including two platinum awards, the most of any entrant.

Kotkamills, a manufacturer of fully recyclable food service board, has signed a collaboration agreement with the organisers of the alpine skiing event World Cup Levi.

Lecta will increase its prices between 3-5%, for new orders with a delivery date on and after January 4th, 2021.

Sappi North America announces a transactional price increase of 3.5% to 5% on new and unconfirmed orders that book with a confirmed delivery date on or after Monday, January 4, 2021 on the following products: • McCoy Web • Opus Web • Somerset Web • Flo Web.

Sonoco ThermoSafe, a unit of Sonoco and the leading global provider of temperature assurance packaging for life sciences and healthcare, announced that AirBridge Cargo Airlines, a unit of Volga-Dnepr Group, has signed a Master Lease Agreement (MLA) to offer ThermoSafe's new Pegasus ULD™ bulk temperature controlled container directly to its clients.

The land swap will enable the mill to construct a new loading area after the conversion is complete in 2023.

Mars, Incorporated has announced it will incorporate recycled polypropylene plastic into the primary packaging for some of its popular pet food brands. For Mars, this marks an important step in its efforts to reduce virgin plastics use across its packaging portfolio, to do its part to build a circular economy where no packaging becomes waste.

Sappi Dissolving Pulp has partnered with Birla Cellulose, one of the leading viscose manufacturers in the textile value chain, to provide a forest-to-garment traceability solution for brand owners.

Stora Enso and Tetra Pak are joining forces to explore the possibility of building a new recycling line to significantly increase the recycling of used beverage cartons in Central and Eastern Europe.

UFP Industries announced that its affiliate, UFP Global Holdings, has completed an equity investment in Enwrap Logistic & Packaging S.r.l. (Enwrap).

Resolute Forest Products is seeking $100 million in damages from Canada, alleging $124 million in assistance from Nova Scotia's then-NDP government in 2012 transformed a failed operation into a market leader at Resolute's expense.

Gorham Paper & Tissue has filed for Chapter 11 reorganization at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

The Mayr-Melnhof Group invests in its Neupack folding carton production plant at Hirschwang in Austria.

Weyerhaeuser will make a $16.1 million capital investment in its Natchitoches mill over the next several years, state and company officials announced. The project will provide major equipment upgrades at the site, including modernization of manufacturing presses and machinery.

The facility will be approximately 150,000 square feet of production and warehouse space and house two fully automatic high-speed protective packaging and tube and core lines from TCM Solutions, as well as a new high speed "SheetRunner" paperboard sheeter from BW Paper Systems.

ePost Global LLC, a tech-enabled global shipping solutions provider, has completed its acquisition of the International Mail and Parcel Logistics Business ("International Logistics") from R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company.

Pregis, a leading manufacturer of protective packaging, has acquired Technical Machinery Solutions (TMS), Elk Grove Village, Illinois from its privately-held owners. The acquisition also includes the Graphic Innovators business.

Quad/Graphics, Inc. announced that it has sold its two remaining Book manufacturing facilities in Fairfield, Penn., and Martinsburg, W.Va., to Berryville Graphics, a division of Bertelsmann Printing Group USA, a leader in hard cover, mass market, trade and digest books, components and specialty finishing.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company announced that it has closed on the previously announced sale of its DLS Worldwide Logistics business to TFI International Inc.

PotlatchDeltic Corporation's board of directors today announced that Eric J. Cremers, currently the company's president and chief operating officer, has been appointed president and chief executive officer of the company, effective January 1, 2021.

Resolute Forest Products chief executive Yves Laflamme will retire next year and be replaced by chief financial officer Remi Lalonde, the company announced.

The feasibility study will evaluate a possible upgrade and expansion of existing integrated pulp capacity from 370 000 tonnes to 780 000 tonnes annually and a possible increase of 120 000 tonnes in board capacity.

The company closed printing plants in Taunton, Massachusetts; Charlotte, North Carolina; Portland, Oregon, and Riverside, California. The company previously ran two plants in Riverside and consolidated them into one facility, said spokeswoman Claire Ho.

After more than 100 years spent looking out over the town of Fort Frances, the old mill is coming down.

Georgia-Pacific LLC will seek another Green Bay area site to build a 1.1-million-square-foot warehouse after withdrawing its request to the town of Lawrence.

A company spokesperson confirmed there will be layoffs at the Rumford mill as it refocuses production to expand into packaging grades of paper as sales of other paper grades declined steeply due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The MISSION ZERO™ products are designed to enable transformation, innovation, and optimization in the paper packaging value chain, and provide for a closed loop system and circular economy for consumer packaging, food service, industrial packaging and communication papers.

Georgia Pacific's Leaf River Cellulose facility in New Augusta, MS is the first paper pulp mill in the United States to receive EPA's ENERGY STAR certification.

In the midst of a record wildfire season, an extremely active hurricane season and a global pandemic that has shifted consumer habits online, a heightened awareness of the impact we've had on the planet has bolstered a strong consumer-driven imperative for more sustainable packaging.

The global food packaging industry is setting ambitious targets to make its operations more sustainable, working on designing for circularity across systems and products. However, lasting solutions need cooperation between different contributors.

Kimberly-Clark announced that it has earned a 2020 SmartWay® Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for leadership in environmentally responsible shipping. The award recognizes companies for using a range of fuel-saving strategies in their shipping and freight delivery services that reduce transportation emissions and make freight delivery more sustainable.

The discovery of a new bottom layer of sludge at Boat Harbour is being blamed for delaying Northern Pulp's cleanup of the effluent treatment facility in Pictou County.

Södra has launched Wood Solutions to expand cooperation with customers and enhance the way it helps them contribute to a climate-smart, simple and efficient construction industry. The new concept includes services, solutions, advice and support which are complementary to its sustainable sawn timber products and construction systems.

A late summer swarming caused a widespread spruce bark beetle outbreak and Södra now sees a significant increase in damage.

Södra has successfully added 20% used textiles to its OnceMore® dissolving pulp. The achievement is a significant step towards more sustainable solutions for the fashion industry.

Smurfit Kappa has announced new targets to further reduce its fossil CO2 emissions, including its ambition to reach at least net zero emissions by 2050.

Sonoco ThermoSafe, a unit of Sonoco and the leading global provider of temperature assurance packaging for life sciences and healthcare, announced the launch of its new EOS™ line of fully curbside recyclable temperature controlled packaging in the U.S.

Ms. Twedt has been recognized by the Idaho Business Review as a Leader in Law and an Accomplished Under 40 award.

Four Columbia County fire companies responded to a structure fire Saturday morning, Oct. 31, at Schweitzer-Mauduit International Inc., commonly known as the Ancram Paper Mill.

Firefighters battled a massive 2-alarm fire early Monday, Nov. 9, that erupted at a Georgia-Pacific paper mill in San Leandro.

Homann Holzwerkstoffe GmbH has expanded its management team, which was previously composed of Fritz Homann and Ernst Keider. Helmut Scheel, who has served as Managing Director of Homanit Holding GmbH since February 2019 and has since also been responsible for the Group's financial operations, was officially appointed Managing Director and CFO of Homann Holzwerkstoffe Group.

WestRock Company announced that Jim Porter, president, Business Development & Latin America, has decided to retire, effective December 31, 2020.

Despite Covid-19 and the consequencing difficult conditions, a complete CLT cross-layer system with a new Z-press CL was assembled on time and on schedule at Stora Enso in Ybbs, Austria. /span>

This new facility enhances packaging development capabilities and merges structural and graphic designers into a collaborative and dedicated environment serving all of Unicorr's corrugated production plants.

The trials for newsprint paper production on the paper machine 6 at UPM Jämsänkoski paper mill as well as paper test runs at printing plants have been successful. As a consequence of this, the product portfolio of uncoated mechanical papers of the paper machine 6 will in the future be extended to cover also newsprint paper. /span>

Weyerhaeuser Company announced the appointment of Deidra C. Merriwether, senior vice president of North American sales and services for W.W. Grainger, Inc., to the company's board of directors. Her appointment is effective immediately and will replace a retiring board member in 2021.