United States

The tentative deal to end the three-day strikes affecting East Coast and Gulf State ports has altered the narrative after several weeks in which they were almost the sole topic of conversation. The parties have undertaken to continue negotiations until January 15 next year in a bid to resolve their differences, so a strike is still possible if agreement has not been reached by that point.

These ports handle approximately 54% of US exports of recycled materials and so, hopefully, there will now be a relatively rapid return to normal operations.

Owing to a slowdown in demand for their finished products, US mills would not necessarily have been able to fully exploit any oversupply arising in the domestic market as a result of strike-related export disruption. This weaker demand has led to mill downtime and inventories at full capacity. One of the largest exporters of recovered fibre has supposedly offered a price to a US mill of under US$ 10 per ton. Right now, it’s all about moving material; price is secondary.

Even without the port strikes, pricing had been trending downwards. Fastmarkets/RISI PPI Asia recently stated: “Prices for (OCC) imports have largely been on the decline since May, adding downward pressure on recycled packaging board prices in Southeast Asia, leading to widespread price cuts in the recycled containerboard sector in Southeast Asia.”