Vertical Research Partners' (verticalresearchpartners.com) packaging and forest products analyst Chip Dillon, offers insight below into the U.S. containerboard sector as growth nears zero. "U.S. capacity to produce containerboard grew less than 0.1% through the first five months of 2017," says Dillon.
Capacity Growth Crawls to Near Zero – In the recent release of the May Containerboard data, US capacity to produce containerboard grew less than 0.1% through the first five months of 2017 (interpolating from AF&PA data). Noting that "everyday" is a mill day, this growth was 0.7% adjusting for the one fewer day this year versus the first five months of 2016, a leap year. However, looking at May alone, US capacity actually fell to 3.196 million tons for the month versus 3.226 million tons for May of 2016.