Recent Articles

Company Positions Itself for Anticipated Exponential Growth of Sustainable Wood Energy Markets and Large-Scale Industrial Decarbonization.

Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) has been included in Forbes magazine's 2021 list of "World's Best Employers" -- one of only 24 U.S.-based manufacturing/engineering companies to make the list.

A fire that started inside a mixing tank Friday morning, Dec. 31, at Georgia Pacific Chemicals in Taylorsville was quickly brought under control.

Sonoco Recycling, a unit of Sonoco, has acquired American Recycling of Western North Carolina, a privately owned recovered paper recycler located in Asheville, North Carolina.

Members of the Paperworkers' Union, the Finnish Electrical Workers´ Union and the Trade Union Pro have started strikes at UPM mills in Jämsänkoski, Kouvola, Lappeenranta, Pietarsaari, Rauma, Tampere and Valkeakoski. According to the unions, the strikes will continue until 6 o'clock on 22 January 2022 unless a new collective labour agreement is reached before that.

Huhtamaki has acquired full ownership of its Polish joint venture company Huhtamaki Smith Anderson sp. z o.o. from Smith Anderson Group Ltd. (SA). The company manufactures and sells foodservice paper bags in Eastern Europe at Huhtamaki's facility in Czeladz, Poland.

Most of the people I talk to today have not prepared or managed capital budgets under the conditions we find ourselves in now. Well, I saw my first capital budget in an industrial setting in March of 1970. Perhaps I can help you a bit--we had similar issues back then as those we are facing today--the administration in the White House in those days thought they could control inflation with price controls which caused me to miss two planned 25 cent raises as a co-op student, from $2.75 per hour, to $3.00 per hour to $3.25/hour, over a period of 18 months. Glad I could do my part to help tame inflation; as a student operating on the pay as you go plan (no loans), one makes too much money anyway.

Have you ever had a conversation like this? "I was going to by a car from Brand X because it is cheaper and has more features than Brand Y." "Well, you obviously bought Brand Y. Why?" "Brand X didn't have any in stock and didn't know when they would get any." So, really, in the end, Brand X didn't mean anything because you could not get Brand X. Their price could have been twice the price or half the price of Brand Y, it just didn't make any difference. You may find yourself in this place with certain pieces of capital equipment now. You may have to become a "satisfier" instead of an "optimizer."

Silver Surfers (age 55+) are a growing eCommerce consumer segment: nine out of ten shopped online in 2021; 49% bought more online than last year and 5% shopped online for the first time.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., the printing and information services company, said it received a higher non-binding offer from a strategic party just days after it agreed to be bought by Chatham Asset Management LLC.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to fine New Indy Containerboard $1.1 million over the odor dilemma in South Carolina that sparked thousands of complaints against the paper mill.

KPA Unicon has appointed Tomi Honkala as a new member of the Management Team and as head of sales (Vice President, Sales). Tomi has previously worked as the CEO of Chempolis and before that he has had a long career at Metso / Valmet as a Sales Director, e.g. in Finland and China.

Valmet will supply an extensive paper machine grade conversion rebuild with an automation package to Model Paper Eilenburg in Germany.

Emergency crews responded to a small electrical fire inside the Georgia Pacific Dixie facility in Fort Smith Tuesday, Dec. 28, evening.

The purchase price amounts to USD 116m (approximately SEK 1.1bn) with a potential additional earnout amount of USD 15m (approximately SEK 137m) on a cash and debt free basis.

Clearwater Paper may become a takeover target for BillerudKorsnäs if the Swedish company looks to expand its North American platform, according to RBC.

Valmet will supply eleven Valmet Microwave Consistency Measurements (Valmet MCA) to SCA's Ortviken mill in Sweden. The mill is currently being converted from paper to market pulp production.

UFP Industries announced that its subsidiary, Deckorators, Inc., has acquired Ultra Aluminum Manufacturing Inc. (Ultra), a leading manufacturer of aluminum fencing, gates and railing, for $25 million. The transaction includes $2 million to be paid if certain future performance goals are met.

The company said in a regulatory filing that it has implemented a series of containment measures, including activating its incident response protocols and shutting down its servers and systems. It has also hired a cybersecurity expert to examine the incident while working with law enforcement authorities.

In 2022, the International Paper mill in Cantonment will switch natural gas suppliers to Pensacola Energy, significantly increasing revenue for the municipal utility while saving money for IP.

The IntegriBlend-CF product developed by GMCO is built upon Columbia Pulp's novel biopolymer chemistry platform, introducing a high-performance non-chloride alternative to dust suppression and soil stabilization applications.

Timi Hyppänen is appointed Senior Vice President, Supply Chain of Metsä Fibre, and a member of the company's Management Team as of 1 January 2022.

The start-up of the new systems is scheduled for the second half of 2022.

The delivery will take place in the first half of 2022.

I don't think this is a one size fits all question as you look at your marketing going forward. Some customers will be interested in your energy usage, others will be interested in what your products can do to save them costs in their manufacturing and logistics schemes. Please note that in all scenarios in this column, I will be talking primarily about business-to-business sales, not business to consumers.