Brazil’s Suzano shuts mills due to trucker strike

KP Tissue Inc. and Kruger Products L.P. announced the completion of construction and successful start-up of their state-of-the-art Sherbrooke manufacturing facility featuring Canada’s largest and most modern through-air-dry (TAD) tissue machine. The new facility also comprises three converting lines which have been successfully commissioned. Kruger Products also announced a further investment of $240M to expand the Sherbrooke operation with new production lines as well as the construction of a new tissue manufacturing facility over the next three years. This investment is part of the Company’s broader focus on expanding its business and continuing to offer high quality tissue products to customers across North America. The investment announced today is supported by the Government of Québec through Investissement Québec (“IQ”) which is investing $165M in loans.

Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. announced a cost surcharge of USD 146 (EUR 133) per metric ton applicable to all shipments of its cellulose specialties and viscose-grade products. This surcharge is necessitated by the impacts of rapidly escalating inflation and directly correlates to the significant increase in the Company’s costs for energy, logistics, chemicals, and wood. The surcharge is effective immediately and will be applied to all shipments April 1, 2022, or later.

As a result of Russian aggression against Ukraine, the geopolitical situation in Europe has permanently changed. This has wide-reaching human, political and economic implications in Europe and the situation is evolving rapidly. Our primary concern are the people suffering from the war. UPM is providing support to its employees in the affected areas. We have also started providing humanitarian and material support to Ukraine this week. UPM will cease its deliveries to Russia for the time being. UPM businesses will keep the Russian customers and suppliers informed of the situation. While the forest industry is not directly targeted by the international sanctions at the moment, sanctions against the financial sector may impact UPM’s or its customers’ businesses and transactions in Russia. The full impact of the current and possible new sanctions and counter-sanctions will be known only as the situation evolves. UPM monitors the situation closely and makes decisions accordingly. UPM has employees, customers and suppliers in both countries but UPM’s exposure to Russian and Ukranian markets is limited. UPM Raflatac has a distribution terminal in the Kyiv region with 13 employees. The terminal operations have been closed until further notice. In Russia, UPM employs 800 persons most of whom work at the Chudovo plywood mill. The operations are currently running as usual. UPM’s sales to Russia and Ukraine combined was approximately 2 % of UPM’s total sales in 2021. Assets in Russia are less than 1 % of the group total. In 2021, less than 10 % of UPM’s wood sourcing to Finland originated from Russia.