Cepi has named Francesca Stevens Director General, effective Sept. 28, succeeding Jori Ringman (DG since 2019); she was Secretary General of packaging lobby EUROPEN since 2020 and earlier held senior roles at Arconic and Alcoa, and will lead the 24-person Brussels secretariat as the European pulp and paper industry presses on energy costs, decarbonisation and competitiveness (PULPAPERnews)
Graphic Packaging appointed Aditya Gandhi VP and Chief Accounting Officer, effective Sept. 28; he joins from AptarGroup (CAO) after earlier CAO and senior finance roles at Sonoco, WestRock, GE and Deloitte, and reports to interim CFO Charles D. Lischer (PaperAge)
Forestry & Timber
Stora Enso will permanently end cross-laminated timber production at its Gruvön sawmill in Sweden by end-2026 and wind down its Nordic CLT sales organisation, citing slower-than-expected CLT market growth, higher wood costs and weak profitability; union negotiations cover the site's ~220 staff with up to 80 positions affected, Nordic CLT customers will be served from Ždírec (CZ), Ybbs and Bad St. Leonhard (AT), and sawn and planed production at Gruvön continues (Global Wood Markets Info, Nordiska Projekt)
Gulf softwood lumber imports fell 33% to 1.06M m³ in H1 2026 as the Strait of Hormuz stayed effectively closed to container ships; Brazil displaced Finland as top supplier (204,000 m³, −11%; Finland 146,400 m³, −40%), Kuwait's imports collapsed 81%, container quotes hit US$5,000 by April and standard 2×4 framing prices in Qatar are up 52% since the closure (Wood Central)
China's wood-processing industry profits fell 38.0% y/y to RMB 6.34B in Jan–Aug 2026 on revenue down 14.6% to RMB 408.4B, and furniture-sector profits dropped 51.8% to RMB 7.58B, while paper and paper-products profits rose 23.6% to RMB 24.7B on revenue up 5.0% (Fordaq)
The Swedish Forest Agency forecasts 2026 gross felling of ~84.6M m³, down 3% from 87.0M m³ in 2025 and the lowest since 2012, with sawlog harvest −1.3M m³ (−4%) and pulpwood −0.8M m³ (−2%) on weaker industrial demand and raw-material flows altered by storms Johannes and Dave; separately, birch sawmill Vanhälls Såg AB in Dalarna is closing after three loss-making years, blaming high birch sawlog prices and weak furniture demand ("even Ikea can't maintain sales") (Timberbiz, Global Wood Markets Info)
Poland's Coalition for Polish Wood says the country's processors are short more than 7M m³ of timber, with ~45,000 jobs lost since 2022, sold production down from PLN 238.5B to PLN 203.1B, PLN 352M in overdue debts and Chinese furniture imports up from €417.6M to €1.114B/yr; it blames lost Russian/Belarusian imports (~3M m³), post-2024 policy (~3M m³) and pellet-plant demand rather than log exports to China, which took just 42,000 t of 703,000 t of raw wood exported Jan–Apr (Wood Central)
Update: the Nackawic (NB) dissolving-pulp idling is now hitting woodlot suppliers — 32-year Stanley, NB producer Ken Thomas is downsizing and selling to US buyers after AV Group stopped buying wood in August ahead of the end-October shutdown; the province is temporarily exempting Nackawic-bound mixed hardwood from export restrictions, and ~257,000 ha of Crown licence would come into play if the closure becomes permanent (CBC via Tree Frog)
Australia's engineered-wood-product imports rose 10.8% to A$1.94B in 2025-26, with LVL imports up more than 160% in three years to 254,065 m³ as average LVL import prices fell from A$1,294 to A$629/m³ — most of the manufacturing capacity supplying Australian demand is now offshore (Wood Central)
MOMA GmbH has filed with Germany's Bundeskartellamt (case B1-137/26, lodged Sept. 17) to acquire all shares of Bavarian sawmill HCR Holz Centrum Regensburg (Wenzenbach; pine/spruce sawn, planed, treated, garden and packaging timber, part of Outdoor Life Group since 2009); merger review is pending (Fordaq)
Wood Pellets
Montenegro's agriculture and forestry minister Vladimir Joković said Sept. 28 he will seek a suspension of pellet exports if domestic supply and the government's regulated prices are not respected ("export cannot take precedence over citizens' needs") after residents reported difficulty securing pellets; on Sept. 26 the government capped retail pellet prices at €250/t (A2) and €270/t (A1) incl. VAT through June 30, 2027 (Mina News, Montenegro Business)
Estonian pellet prices are at record highs going into the heating season after skipping their usual summer dip, as pellet exports to Poland jumped ~50% on demand from Poland's Clean Air boiler-replacement programme; wood chips are up ~20% and dry firewood is expected to rise only 5–10% (ERR News)
New Hampshire heating pellets are approaching US$400/t at many suppliers, up roughly $50 from a year ago, as heating oil tops $5/gal (vs ~$3.30 last year), propane passes $4/gal and Eversource's winter electric rate rises 10% to 17.32¢/kWh on ~$100/bbl crude (Concord Monitor)
Industry Technology Vendors
Valmet — Launched a renewed sizer roll cover portfolio for board and paper machines: polyurethane Sizer Roll Cover CF-M and CF-EC and rubber SH-EC, aimed at containerboard and packaging board, specialty and glassine producers, with longer regrinding intervals and film transfer unaffected by hydrophobic sizing agents; a glassine mill reference saw roll change intervals rise up to threefold with improved coating quality (Valmet)
Valmet — Published results from the BioCMPC Line II drying upgrade at CMPC Guaíba, Brazil: single shoe-press wet ends, a drying-section upgrade for higher steam pressure and an added baling line lifted single-line drying capacity from 2,500 to 3,050 Adt/d (record 3,200 Adt/d; 58% press-outlet dryness), taking combined mill drying capacity to 6,100 Adt/d and annual output from 1.5M to 1.85M Adt (Valmet)
