BEIJING, 5 May 2022 (Fastmarkets RISI) - China has continued to see packaging paper and board production curbs this month as demand remains weak amid widespread lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Shanying International has arranged downtime for its three mills in Fujian, Hubei and Guangdong provinces through May.

At its mill in Zhangzhou city, PM 31, a 250,000 tonne/yr recycled linerboard machine, was shut down on May 1 and will remain out of operation till May 10.

PM 32, which has a recycled linerboard capacity of 350,000 tonnes/yr, is scheduled to be offline for three days starting May 6.

The 300,000 tonne/yr high-strength corrugating medium machine PM 33 is set to suspend production between May 9 and May 11.

The Zhangzhou mill also houses a 100,000 tonne/yr high-strength corrugating medium unit, which will keep running through the month.

Shanying International’s Jingzhou mill in Hubei province boasts three recycled containerboard machines with a combined capacity of 1.45 million tonnes/yr.

The 550,000 tonne/yr PM 21 there will go through a week-long outage from May 6.

The company operates a 100,000 tonne/yr kraft paper machine at its mill in Zhaoqing city, Guangdong province.

The sole PM there will be offline between May 16 and May 28.

All in all, Shanying International will see an estimated production cut of around 28,000 tonnes as a result of the halts.

Other stoppages:

Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings) has also rolled out new downtime plans for its mill in Leshan city, Sichuan province.

A 300,000 tonne/yr high-strength corrugating medium machine there, PM 38, will be out of production for 14 days starting May 10, cutting its output by approximately 12,000 tonnes.

Zhejiang Rongsheng Environmental Protection Paper runs five recycled containerboard machines with a total capacity of 550,000 tonnes/yr at its sole mill in Pinghu city, Zhejiang province.

The five BMs there will be taking alternating downtime of six to ten days between May 3 and May 25, which will lead to a total supply cut of nearly 16,000 tonnes.

These fresh moves have come on top of extensive slowdowns at many packaging mills, mostly in the recycled containerboard sector, over the past two months due to slack demand and logistics obstacles stemming from COVID-19 controls in China.

With Shanghai grinding into its fifth week of strict lockdowns and similar measures taking place or looming large in other cities, including Beijing, China’s hardline on the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on its economy.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) fell from 49.5 in March to 47.4 in April. Meanwhile, the non-manufacturing PMI dived to 41.9 from 48.4.

The key gauges, at their lowest levels since the initial onset of the pandemic in February 2020, indicated contraction in both factory and services activities for two consecutive months, and the decline has deepened.

From Fastmarkets RISI