Pulp futures

The process of dispersing papermaking raw materials into a single fiber is called pulping, and the product obtained is called pulp; The purpose of pulping is to dissolve the lignin in the raw material, separate the raw material into a single fiber, and increase the specific surface area of the fiber (the surface area of the fiber per unit weight).

Chemical pulping is mainly divided into acid pulping and alkali pulping. Alkali pulping process mainly through SH-, OH- plasma and lignin nucleophilic reaction, the ether bond of macromolecules of lignin is broken, the macromolecules become small molecules, and the lyophilic phenolic hydroxyl group is increased, the lyophilic lignin is enhanced, and the lignin is dissolved from the wood chips. The acid pulping process is mainly through S032- or HS03- and lignin nucleophilic reaction, lignin sulfonic acid, lignin sulfonic acid combined with the salt base in the solution, the formation of lignin sulfonate, dissolved from the wood chips.

1.3. Paper industry

Papermaking is the dispersion of the resulting pulp to obtain evenly interwoven sheets. Paper products are usually divided into cultural paper, wrapping paper, household paper, and special paper according to the use of finished products: (1) Cultural paper covers all printing and writing paper, including newsprint, uncoated cultural paper (double-adhesive paper, writing paper, lightweight paper, electrostatic copy paper, etc.) and coated cultural paper (mainly coated paper); (2) Packaging paper covers all paper packaging raw materials, including cardboard (white board paper, white cardboard, corrugated paper, box board paper, kraft paper, etc.); (3) Household paper (toilet paper, diapers, etc.); (4) Special paper.

Cultural paper refers to the writing and printing paper used for disseminating cultural knowledge, which is mostly used for information transmission and cultural inheritance, mainly including uncoated printing paper, coated printing paper and newsprint. Typical uncoated printing paper includes duplex paper, writing paper, lightweight paper, SC paper, xerographic paper and printer paper. Coated printing paper mainly includes light-weight coated paper and coated paper, among which coated paper consumption accounts for more than 90% of coated cultural paper.

Packaging paper is a general term for a class of paper used for packaging purposes, which is generally used for the outer packaging of downstream household appliances, daily chemicals, food and beverage, cigarettes and other industry products. The main types of wrapping paper include corrugated paper, box board paper, whiteboard paper and white cardboard. Among them, box board paper and corrugated paper are mostly used in the fields of home appliance packaging and daily chemical packaging, and white board paper and white cardboard are often used for packaging cigarettes, food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Global supply and demand of pulp

2.1. Global pulp production and sales

Since 2011, global pulp production has experienced a process of decline - stagnation - and then growth. As of 2016, global pulp production reached 185 million tons (excluding waste pulp), an increase of 1%, continuing the positive growth rate since 2015. The change in demand is basically in line with the change in production, but it only returned to positive growth after 2016. Overall, the development of the global pulp industry tends to be stable.

In terms of the supply pattern of pulp, the Americas, Europe and Asia are the three regions with the largest output of pulp, with the output of 93.46 million tons (50.3%), 46.269 million tons (24.9%) and 41.27 million tons (22.2%) respectively in 2016. From a national point of view, the top five countries are the United States, Brazil, Canada, China and Sweden, whose 2016 pulp production was 48.76 million tons, 18.835 million tons, 16.59 million tons, 15.964 million tons, 110.35 million tons, the five countries accounted for 61.2% of the global pulp production.

2.2. Global pulp trade

The global pulp trade is basically from the Americas to Europe and Asia. Public data show that in 2015, the global pulp trade volume reached 53.823 million tons, of which Latin America, North America net exports total 25.846 million tons, Asia is the largest pulp net import region, net imports of 21.92 million tons.

Countries do not look at Brazil, Canada is the main exporters, the United States import, export volume are larger, and the largest importer is China, its 2017 imports of wood pulp reached 21.12 million tons, an increase of 12%, higher than the growth rate of about 5 percentage points in 2016.

Global paper product production distribution

The paper industry is known as "never failing" industry. The United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada and other major developed countries in the world have developed paper industry, and have long been among the top ten papermaking countries. For example, among the world's top 10 paper and cardboard producers in 2016, except for China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, the other six countries are economically developed countries; The paper and paperboard production of the above six countries accounts for 39.96% of the world's total output.