Pulp Paper & Logistics
INDUSTRY NEWS 7
Stora Enso inaugurates consumer board mill in China
S
ome 200 guests joined executives and local officials in June when Stora Enso officially
inaugurated its new consumer board mill at Beihai in China. The mill, which had started up in May and is expected to reach full production within 18 to 24 months, represents an investment of €800 million. That makes it the largest direct investment from a Nordic country in China. The Beihai consumer board mill has an annual capacity of 450,000 tonnes of high-grade carton board products. One of the key end products is board for drinks cartons, of which more than 80 per cent is currently imported to China. Stora Enso is
up of our consumer board mill is crucial to meet the growing demand for high-quality and safe fiber-based food packaging in China and the Asia Pacific region.” The consumer board mill is
the world-leading producer of this product, which is one of the most demanding and high value-added products in this industry. “We are delighted to announce the official opening of the Stora
Enso consumer board mill in China. This is a very important milestone for us,” says Stora Enso’s chief executive Karl-Henrik Sundström. “China is a market with high potential and the start-
located in the Tieshangang industrial zone of the Guangxi region, 40 miles outside of Beihai city. Stora Enso’s operations in the Guangxi region also consist of tree plantations with around 85,000 hectares of land leased since 2012. The plantations have been certified to the Forest Stewardship Council and the China Forest Certification Council (CFCC), and they will provide a sustainable, cost-competitive and self-sufficient fibre base for the mill.
Higher labour and maintenance costs hit Sonoco results
Packaging to fibre products manufacturer Sonoco says its margins were lifted in the second quarter, despite the costs of selling a paperboard mill in France and restructuring a retail packaging business in Puerto Rico. Sales slipped by 3.4 per cent
to US$1.21 billion while net profit fell 13 per cent to $56.3 million. But gross profit as a percent of sales improved to 20.1 per cent, compared with 19.2 per cent in the same period in 2015, reaching the highest margin level in 13 years, said the Hartsville, South Carolina-based global manufacturer.
While Sonoco’s growth segments – Consumer Packaging and Protective Solutions – each produced record operating profit for a second quarter, and its Display and Packaging segment continued to show improvement, they offset weaker results in its Paper and Industrial Converted Products segment, driven by operating losses in corrugating medium, said chief executive Jack Sanders. Sales benefitted from a better price-to-cost relationship, gains from fixed cost productivity, lower pension and post- retirement benefit costs and
a lower effective tax rate. Offsetting these positive factors were higher labour, maintenance and other operating costs, and the negative impact of foreign currency translation. “Operating profit in our Consumer Packaging segment was up 3.4 percent, reaching record levels for the seventh consecutive quarter,” said Sanders, “while segment operating margins improved 80 basis points over the same quarter last year. Segment sales declined 3.8 percent due to lower selling prices, primarily related to lower raw material costs, lower volume and the
negative impact of foreign currency translation. The Display and Packaging segment operating profit improved significantly for the quarter due to a positive price/cost relationship and productivity improvements. “As expected, our Paper and Industrial Converted Products segment faced headwinds in the second quarter with operating profit declining 3.8 percent from the same quarter last year due primarily to the impact of deteriorating market conditions for paper produced on our single corrugating medium machine.”
July/August 2016
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36