Paperboard Industry Continues to Suffer from Rising Costs

“The increase in costs, especially energy, is putting an enormous strain on the cartonboard industry,” states Juha Yrjönen, senior vice president of sales, M-real Consumer Packaging. Since the beginning of 2004, both oil and energy prices have nearly doubled and these increases are also behind the soaring costs of transport and papermaking chemicals. In addition, pulp prices have continued to move upwards. Folding boxboard market prices, however, have now remained practically unchanged for the fourth year even though operating rates of folding boxboard machines have stayed at satisfactory levels during the same period of time.