The US Tissue Industry Prepared for the Holiday Season in June

June showed somewhat varying trends in the US tissue industry. Converted product shipments were surprisingly rather weak but parent roll production was strong as also in May. There seems to have been some stock building effect in the month, typical before the holiday season began. Parent roll production of tissue increased by 2.8% in June year-over-year, after the very strong 3.3% measured in May. Cumulative growth of production after the irst half year was at 2.2%, thanks to new capacity and a decline in parent roll imports. Total tissue capacity was up by 2.3% from June 2016. 

As a result, the average industry operating rate improved further to a very high level of 97.8%, one of the highest values ever measured in the history of this publication. Actual parent roll imports were surprisingly high in May and exceeded our estimate by as much as 8,600 tons, and exports were also above our expectations, but much less, coming in 1,600 tons higher than our projection. Despite high May imports, cumulative net imports of parent rolls continue to show a major fall of about 20% from last year. Imports from Indonesia were particularly high in May after a much lower number in April. Converted product shipments grew by 1.2% in June, the lowest monthly growth rate this year. Converted At-Home product shipments were especially low at 0.9% after registering 2.0% in May. Converted AfH tissue shipments returned to the April level of 2.2% after 2.9% in May. AfH napkins showed the highest relative growth of 3.4%, but June is typically a strong month for napkin shipments.