According to the monitoring of the commodity market analysis system of SunSirs, the price of softwood pulp slightly increased last week, while the price of hardwood pulp slightly decreased. On March 14, 2025, the average market price of softwood pulp in Shandong Province was 6,600 RMB/ton, an increase of 0.46% compared to the average price on March 9. On March 14th, the average market price of hardwood pulp in Shandong Province was 4,730 RMB/ton, a decrease of 0.13% compared to the average price on March 9th.

Supply side: The recent strike in Finland is coming to an end, which will have a certain impact on the subsequent supply of wood pulp. Recently, the second largest professional pulp ship in the world, the "Itapoa", arrived at the Dagukou Port area of Tianjin Port with full load, so the short-term pulp market supply may be relatively sufficient. The unexpected increase in the import volume of broad-leaved pulp has led to high pressure on port inventory.

On the demand side: Due to the slow recovery pace of terminal consumption and the obvious lack of momentum for replenishing inventory in the industrial chain, the spot market still maintains low trading volume operation. Although domestic and foreign leading paper companies have successively released price increase signals, the domestic processing end is constrained by poor cost transmission, and most paper mills are still on the edge of the break even line, resulting in a tug of war bargaining game between upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.

Domestic port data: The inventory level in this cycle shows a trend of destocking, with the main port inventory showing a destocking trend for two consecutive weeks. As of March 13, 2025, the sample inventory of mainstream pulp ports in China was 2.145 million tons, a decrease of 105,000 tons from the previous period and a month on month decrease of 4.7%. The inventory of pulp in the mainstream domestic port of Qingdao Port shows a trend of destocking, with little change in the daily average shipping speed in the port, and the quantity of broad-leaved pulp exceeds half. Changshu Port's inventory shows a narrow trend of destocking, with shipments approaching 120,000 tons within the week. The inventory levels of other main ports have shown a narrow trend of destocking.

In terms of futures, last week's pulp futures prices fluctuated. As of March 14, 2025, the opening price of the main contract SP2505 pulp futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was 5,882 RMB/ton, the closing price was 5,918 RMB/ton, and the highest price was 5,936 RMB/ton, with a daily increase of 0.44%. The trading volume was 229,600 lots, and the position was 183,263 lots.

According to the wood pulp analyst from SunSirs, with the recent influx of imported pulp into ports, short-term port inventories may increase, while downstream demand shows no significant signs of recovery. It is expected that wood pulp prices will maintain a wide range of fluctuations in the short term.

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