Shipments of market pulp to China totaled 462,157 tonnes in September, down 0.6% compared with August shipments, according to a report last week by China's Materials Information Center.Despite the month-to-month decline last month, market pulp imports into China year-to-date have climbed 33% vs. the same period last year. From January to September 2001, imports have totaled 3.54 million tonnes, reported China's general administration of customs. This might indicate that the Chinese buyers have plenty of stocks available and might slow down their purchasing patterns.


Weak market in the pulp industry continues to push producers into taking further downtime. As expected the bulk of downtime is taken by the Canadian producers who face the highest producing costs.  Today NorskeCanada announced it will take additional curtailment at all four of its BC pulp and paper divisions during the fourth quarter to reflect the continuing difficult market conditions.The company said it will curtail paper production by 60,000 tonnes (including 38,000 tonnes of newsprint) and pulp production by 23,600 tonnes in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter curtailment brings accumulated total paper curtailment for 2001 to 166,000 tonnes (including 112,000 tonnes of newsprint) and pulp curtailment to 121,000 tonnes.