New Zealand’s imports of newsprint have long been highly limited, due mainly to the self-sufficiency delivered by Norske Skog’s Tasman Mill. That will change in coming months as the Tasman mill transitions to be a supplier of ‘pulp-on-reel’ products and perhaps take up other opportunities. Source: IndustryEdge
This is a quick update on newsprint imports to New Zealand. The simple update is summarised below.
The chart and table below show that right up until the end of 2020, New Zealand was simply not an importer of newsprint. Even in the biggest quarter since the start of 2017 (DQ’18), imports totalled just 7417 tonnes, all of which was shipped from Norske Skog’s Australian operations.
There are occasional murmurings of interest from suppliers outside Australia, but the reality is that their contributions rarely amount to much and never last, as the data shows.
It can be anticipated that New Zealand’s newsprint imports are about to rise steeply. Australia is the likely main supplier, but it will not be the only supplier, as the data shows. How the balances will play out in the post-manufacturing environment is uncertain, for now.
