Iggesund announces further board price rises

The news comes two weeks after M-real announced a £45/tonne increase of its coated and uncoated white-top kraftliner grades from 20 September.

Iggesund previously increased board prices by £100 a tonne in May.

Guy Mallinson, Iggesund business director for packaging, told Packaging News that input costs such as wood and energy had gone up inexorably and were affecting areas such as transportation as well as production.

“Prices have been low for some time. They go up gradually and then erode to the point that you need to increase prices. The current demand for products helps us to increase them.”

Need for long-term profitability
“In the long run, if the industry, or this section of the paper and board industry, is not consistently profitable, then there will no longer be investment in Europe. European box makers would then be dependent on imports from outside of Europe.”

Mallinson said the cost situation was behind Iggesund’s refocusing of its UK operations.

“We’ve closed one machine and are focusing on investments to improve productivity and quality on our remaining machine.”

Iggesund said that next month’s price increase would affect all plastic-coated and laminated Invercote and Incada products.

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