<B>Recycled Board Production Slides for October</B>

As if confirming what many paper stock dealers have been seeing over the past several months, the most recent figures from the American Forest and Paper Association show the production of recycled paperboard declining a sharp 3 percent for October. The sharp drop in recycled paperboard followed an overall decline in paperboard production, which declined a slightly sharper 3.1 percent for the first ten months.

For recycled paperboard, the production figures are down month to month, as well as down for the first ten months of the year. According to the AFPA production for October stands at 1.341 million tons, pushing the ten-month total to 13.145 million tons. Figures for the same time last year 1.467 million tons for last October and 13.552 million tons the first ten months.

Broken out by individual commodity groups, recycled linerboard, the largest segment, saw production drop by 4.8 percent over the first ten months of this year. For October, production stands at 355,000 tons. On an annual rate, year to date, production stands at 3.912 million tons.

The decline in recycled linerboard was matched by an overall sharp decline in linerboard production, according to the AFPA. Linerboard production for the first ten months of this year dropped 4 percent in comparison to figures the same time last year.

More problematic has been the recycled corrugated medium business. October’s production level stands at 315,000 tons, bringing the annual rate, year to date, to 3.779 million tons. For the first ten months of this year production of this commodity has dropped a steep 6.9 percent.

While recycled medium dipped, total corrugated medium is down only 2.2 percent from last year. While down slightly, the other component of the corrugated medium industry, semi chemical, increased by 1.1 percent between last year and this year.

The final portion of the recycled paperboard industry, boxboard, posted a modest improvement for the month, first ten months, and on an annual rate. According to the AFPA October’s production stands at 250,000 tons, bringing the ten-month figure to a modest 0.1 percent increase. Further, the production of recycled boxboard, on an annual rate, year to date, stands at 2.856 million tons.

Although the figure is up modestly between last year and this year, total boxboard production dipped by 0.2 percent between the two years. In the folding boxboard segment, the other components, in addition to recycled folding boxboard, are solid bleached and unbleached kraft. Both of these sections posted stronger improvements between last year and this year. For solid bleached folding boxboards figures are up 2 percent, while unbleached kraft production jumped 4.1 percent between last year and this year.