According to the data provided to the author by Xie Yulin, a senior analyst at Berry Research, China is the world's largest importer of pulp, and high-quality wood pulp mainly relies on imports, with wood pulp import dependence exceeding 60%. In 2019, domestic wood pulp production accounted for 17.59% of the world's total, but consumption accounted for 37% of the world's total. The difference between this was made up by imports.
As one of the important commodities, pulp prices have been advancing all the way since the fourth quarter of 2020. The main pulp futures contract 2103 has reached the lowest price of 4,620 yuan/ton on November 2 last year and the highest price of 6,778 yuan/ton as of February 2021. In less than three months, the pulp futures price rose by more than 2,100 yuan/ton, a rate of 46.7%. At the beginning of March this year, it rose to an all-time high, with the highest increase close to 70%. Since March, pulp prices have declined slightly, and in June they started to rise again.
The price of paper products has also soared. For example, white cardboard, the price of 250g-400g flat sheet white cardboard at the end of March 2021, increased by 36.95% from the beginning of the year, and increased by 62.34% from the same period last year. On April 21, the market shipment price of white cardboard reached 10,000-10,500 yuan/ton.
The skyrocketing price of pulp has also caused turmoil in the dye sublimation industry. The price of base paper has skyrocketed, and the production cost of dye sublimation transfer paper continues to rise. Naturally, the sales price cannot escape the increase in prices. Paper prices have risen six times during the period from February to May 2021, with an increase of 6000 yuan/ton. Manufacturers such as Jangho Paper and Guanhao Paper have successively issued notices of price increases. This unprecedented price increase has greatly increased the process cost of sublimation transfer printing, and downstream paper companies are generally waiting and watching.
The skyrocketing raw paper has also made it difficult for coating plants to make quotations. They want to cover the increase in raw material costs, but they are worried that customers cannot accept it.
How to control production costs in the case of skyrocketing base paper? This problem plagues many manufacturers of sublimation transfer paper.
Regarding this issue, Suzhou JOIN-GOAL New Material Co., Ltd. has been taking precautions. JOIN-GOAL tried to solve this problem from two directions.
One is to develop a coating compound with lower cost
and higher cost performance. JOIN-GOAL started with the research and
development of sublimation coating rubber powder, and its research and
development capabilities are recognized by the majority of customers. The
products currently supplied have a higher cost performance than similar
products in the market. JOIN-GOAL believes that through further research and
development, the coating formula will be further upgraded to help customers
control the production cost of sublimation transfer paper from the coating
cost.
Second,
look for other paper bases suitable for the production of sublimation transfer
paper across industries. Dye-sublimation transfer paper has been mainly
produced on professional dye-sublimation base paper for a long time. The
paper-base has stable properties and is more suitable for coating production,
but the corresponding cost is relatively high. In this regard, JOIN-GOAL asked
whether it is possible to use paper from other industries as the paper base,
coupled with the targeted optimization of the coating formula, so as to produce
a cost-effective product. For this idea, JOIN-GOAL has already handed in a
perfect answer in 2020. JOIN-GOAL cooperates with coating manufacturers to
successfully produce sublimation transfer paper based on packaging paper (kraft
paper). The product was introduced to the market and was unanimously recognized
by the market, which demonstrated the practical operability of applying paper
used in other industries as a paper base for the production of sublimation
transfer paper. At present, under the pressure of the market, JOIN-GOAL is
accelerating the test of the possibility of using paper as a paper base in
other industries, and it has achieved initial results.
