Pulp Mills

SIC 2611

NAICS 322110

Pulp mills manufacture pulp, the primary ingredient in paper, from wood or wastepaper (recycled fiber), although a small number of establishments use other materials for pulping, such as rags, cotton linters, and straw. Most major pulp operations are integrated with paper or paperboard production facilities. For additional information, see also Paper Mills and Paperboard Mills.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

The 1990s and early 2000s included extreme peaks and discouraging troughs for the global pulp industry. As with other international commodities, the price of pulp rises and falls simultaneously in all major pulp producing countries. In the early 1990s, pulp prices fell to their lowest levels in almost 50 years. In 2000, prices began to rebound, only to slump drastically by the fourth quarter of 2001. That year, demand for pulp dropped 21 percent in Japan, 6 percent in Europe, and 9 percent in the United States. But with improved economic conditions after 2001, the pulp market began to see steadier growth. According to the Market Pulp Association, global demand for pulp rose faster than expected from 2001 to 2004, growing by 5.3 percent in 2004. Global production capacity grew by 2.8 percent that year.

Pulp mills around the world produce a wide variety of pulps from wood fiber for making paper and paperboard. While the majority of pulp produced globally is chemical pulp, a substantial amount of pulp also was produced using the groundwood process. A growing number of mills make pulp from recycled paper. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), total world production of wood pulp in 2003 exceeded 170.3 million metric tons (mmt).

In 2003, the United States led the world in wood pulp production with 53.1 mmt. Canada was second with 26.1 mmt. Other significant pulp-producing nations included Finland (11.9 mmt), Sweden (11.7 mmt), Japan (10.4 mmt), Brazil (8.8 mmt), Russia (6.6 mmt), China (4.0 mmt).

Market pulp is a truly global commodity characterized by rapid price fluctuations in response to changes in capacity and demand. While market pulp is produced in about 25 countries, in the early 2000s more than two-thirds of world output came from six northern countries: the United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Norway. By 2002, China was regarded as the fastest-growing producer of pulp. In addition, production numbers were rising in South America, most notably in Brazil and Chile. One major advantage South American mills enjoy is access to fast-growing pulpwood trees, such as eucalyptus and radiata pine species. These trees reach pulping maturity within 7 years, compared to 30 years in some northern countries.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

In most cases pulp mills need to be located near their raw materials—trees or wastepaper—to minimize transportation costs. Many of the leading world pulp producers—such as the United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Brazil—have extensive forest reserves that are used, in part, for pulp production. Other leading pulp producers, such as Japan, possess limited forest resources but import logs and wood chips for pulp production.

While pulping and papermaking are very energy intensive, pulp and paper companies throughout the world are regarded as efficient energy users. They gained this efficiency through producing their own electricity by burning many of their waste products, such as tree bark and spent chemicals from the pulping process. In some countries, pulp and paper mills generate over half of the energy required to run mills. Newer, large pulp and paper mills using chemical pulp are often completely self-sufficient in energy. Nonetheless, environmental groups frequently criticize companies that supply wood to mills for endangering fish in small creeks by clearcutting practices and the dragging of logs through these waterways. In addition, poor logging practices as far as 80 years in the past have brought attention to overlogging practices in the United States and other countries.

Water is used in large quantities in pulp and paper manufacturing, and thus most mills are sited near lakes, rivers, or oceans. In decades past, waste water from the pulping process, known as effluent, was released directly into receiving waters and caused substantial water pollution. Today, however, many pulp mills in countries whose governments adhere to sounder environmental practices reuse and/or clean process water extensively before it is discharged. After water is reused within pulp and paper mills, it is sent to primary, secondary, and in some cases, tertiary treatment plants.

More often, wood pulp is being replaced by recycled paper in new paper production. The percentage of fiber from trees, called virgin fiber, used in global paper and board production dropped from about 75 percent in 1970 to less than 62 percent in 1992, as more recycled pulp replaced wood fiber. By 1997 that percentage had dropped further to 60 percent.

While the percentage of wood pulp in paper is expected to continue declining, it will likely remain the key ingredient in papermaking for years to come. Cellulose fibers can only be recycled a few times—about seven or eight—before they become so weak and short that they are washed out of the papermaking process. The overall use of wood pulp should grow—at least slightly—as the entire market for paper expands. Worldwide production of wood pulp was expected to rise by an average of 2 percent per year for the foreseeable future.

As of the early 2000s, chemical pulp clearly remained the pulp of choice throughout the world. In 2003, chemical pulp production reached 124.4 mmt, representing approximately 73 percent of global pulp production. Mechanical pulp, at 34.8 mmt, accounted for about 17 percent of the total, while other pulp production was 18.6 mmt, or 10 percent.

While global consumption of pulp spiked higher and lower from year to year in the 1990s, the general trend has been toward higher consumption, particularly as rising incomes contributed to increased consumption of paper and packaging. In 1996 global pulp consumption was 172.9 mmt. The leading pulp-consuming region was North America, at 72.2 mmt, followed by Asia at 46.3 mmt and Western Europe at 37.8 million. Other significant pulp-consuming regions were Latin America at 7.5 mmt and Eastern Europe (including Russia) at 5.65 mmt. While North America continued to lead in consumption of paper and paperboard, which are the chief end products of woodpulp, consumption in the region declined by 2.4 percent in 2000, with usage dropping by 2.3 percent in the United States and by 3.3 percent in Canada. The market for pulp was rosier in Europe, however, where paper and paperboard consumption rose steadily through the 1990s and into the early 2000s. The FAO projected that woodpulp consumption would also grow in Africa, where usage in 1994 was only 1.2 mmt. Consumption on that continent was expected to be 1.9 mmt in 2005, and 2.079 mmt by 2010.

BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT

Before the mid-nineteenth century, paper was made from rags or used paper. Rag collection for papermaking was an important part of the global economy at the time. However, as the global demand for paper continued to increase, the demand for rags began to outstrip supply.

A major revolution in pulping occurred between 1851 and 1918, when wood pulp was invented, developed, and industrialized. This period saw the development and commercialization of all major wood pulping processes, including groundwood, soda, sulphite, and kraft (sulphate). Soda pulping was invented by Burgess and Watt in England, and was patented in 1854 in the United States. Groundwood became established in the 1860s. Kraft pulping was invented in 1884 by German chemist Carl Dahl using sodium sulfate as the pulping agent. The pulp produced a strong brown paper, dubbed kraft, the German word for strong. This became the dominant method of pulp production in the twentieth century.

The science of pulping continued to develop along with the growth of papermaking. There were several quantum technological leaps in pulping, including the invention of the chemical recovery boiler, in which spent pulping chemicals are burned for their fuel value. This process recovers the energy in the chemicals and some of the chemicals themselves, which can then be reused. Another key pulping development was the continuous digester, invented by the Swedish firm Kamyr AB, which replaced the slower batch digesting process at most pulp mills.

While wood pulp remains almost completely dominant in the global production of papermaking fiber, there has been renewed interest in using agricultural fibers—such as kenaf—to produce paper. China and India already produce large amounts of pulp from agricultural fibers. Substances such as kenaf can be grown in areas of the world where trees are less plentiful, and they are viewed as more environmentally sustainable than wood pulp. Small-scale research on kenaf is underway in the United States, and there are currently several...

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