Recent Articles

Interfor announced that it will indefinitely curtail operations at its sawmills in Meldrim, Georgia and Summerville, South Carolina. These curtailments are in response to persistently weak lumber market conditions.

Turkish industrial and retail group Eren Holding AS has secured a €775 million ($854 million) loan to finance a $1.3 billion container-board and tissue mill in Wales, in a boost to foreign direct investment in UK manufacturing.

APRIL, a member of the RGE group of companies, announced that it has invested more than Rp100 trillion (approximately US$6.4 billion) in transforming Pangkalan Kerinci from a small village in Pelalawan regency, Riau, into a thriving industrial complex.

The Supervisory Board of Heinzel Holding GmbH announces the appointment of Karl Achleitner as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Heinzel Holding, effective September 2, 2024. Achleitner will join the top management team of Heinzel Group, alongside CEO Sebastian Heinzel.

Nearly 10,000 Canadian rail workers will end their work stoppage after the Canada Industrial Relations Board sided with a federal order to resume operations at Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railway. The board also imposed binding arbitration to reach new collective agreements between the rail companies and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, the union representing the workers.

UPM Fibres renews its organisation by centralising its production operations in Finland under one top level organisation. The change will simplify the Fibres Business Area structure.

The Magnera board of directors ("Magnera Board") will consist of nine directors, with five directors designated by Berry, three directors designated by Glatfelter, and the Chief Executive Officer.

The modern company employee organization is an extension of military organizations going back thousands of years. There are the managers or salaried staff (officers of old) and the hourly workers (soldiers). As a society we have now often thrown in unions to represent the hourly workers. In my 54-year career, the division between the salaried and hourly staff has done nothing but grow, now leaving in many cases a vast chasm between the two.

The PM40 closed Friday, 30 August 2024, at 5811.

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 30 August 2024 up 11.7% from the 1 September 2023 level.

In this issue of Disconnected Comparisons, we evaluate Graphic Packaging and Sonoco.

Duties on softwood lumber from Canada have climbed to 14.54% from 8.05%.

Net income decreased 3.5% to $87.1 million or $1.50 per diluted Class A share compared to net income of $90.3 million or $1.55 per diluted Class A share.

Greif, Inc., a global leader in industrial packaging products and services, announced that its Board of Directors has declared quarterly cash dividends of $0.54 per share on its Class A Common Stock, and $0.81 per share on its Class B Common Stock.

The quarterly dividend of $1.25 per share will be paid to shareholders of record as of September 16, 2024 with a payment date of October 15, 2024.

In the Q2 2024, the Mayr-Melnhof Group (MM Group) was able to improve results compared to the previous quarter and exceeded the previous year's figure.

The price adjustments include timber, small sawn assortments, softwood pulpwood, hardwood pulpwood, fuelwood and grot. The price adjustments are aimed at stimulating forestry activities such as regeneration felling, thinning and conservation management.

Smurfit Westrock plc announces that one of its indirect wholly owned subsidiaries, WRKCo Inc. ("WRKCo"), has applied to the Autorité des marchés financiers (the "AMF"), as WRKCo's principal securities regulator in Canada, for a decision that it has ceased to be a reporting issuer (the "Order Sought") in Québec, Manitoba and British Columbia (the "Canadian Jurisdictions").

GAW started up the new coating colour preparation at Mondi Jülich (part of Mondi Group). It was the first order for GAW at this plant located in the border triangle of Germany, Belgium, Netherlands.

Andritz will supply a new high-capacity chemi-mechanical pulp production line to Zhanjiang China Paper Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Guangdong Guanhao High-Tech Co., Ltd. in Guangdong Province, China.

Andritz has provided key equipment for a new hardwood Neutral Sulfite Semi-Chemical (NSSC) production line and for a woodyard upgrade to packaging and paper producer Mondi at its containerboard mill in Kuopio, Finland.

Valmet is to deliver six wire tyers to Sappi's Saiccor dissolving pulp mill in South Africa. Valmet Wire Tyer is a fully automated tying machine that applies high-tensile steel wire around pulp bales at pre-selected positions.

Stora Enso's internal investigation into the environmental violation in Hukkajokiin Finland, which was discovered on Thursday 15 August has been completed. The investigation was conducted with the assistance of an external legal expert. The violation is also subject to a police criminal investigation and is being investigated as a serious nature conservation crime.

Police collected an "AK47 style pistol," two loaded AK-style magazines and two loaded AR-15 style magazines. A manager told police that there were 75 employees present during the incident and a loss of $15,000 in wages.

Smurfit Westrock will now pursue the full value of the Award from Venezuela.