Cepi has published an EU ETS policy paper warning that cuts to free allowances could cost the pulp and paper sector about €1B a year by 2030. Ten of the eleven sector benchmarks face the maximum reduction rate for 2026–2030, and about 40 installations where biomass makes up at least 95% of emissions would lose free allowances entirely. Cepi wants the 95% biomass threshold removed and the 2021–2025 benchmark values kept for 2031–2040 (Paper Advance)
Södra has changed its leadership as of Oct. 13. Peter Karlsson becomes president of Södra Wood, Marcus Åsgärde moves to head of strategy and technology at Södra Cell, and Kim Gunnarsson becomes acting president of Södra Skog. Södra is also narrowing its innovation work, which leaves about nine positions in overcapacity. The company posted a Q2 operating loss of SEK 424M (Paper Advance)
AF&PA is backing an Oct. 8 motion by a food-industry coalition to add claims against California's SB 54 packaging EPR law to its existing lawsuit over SB 343 recycling labels. AF&PA says SB 54 "gets paper wrong" and wants California to pause implementation. The filing does not suspend SB 54, whose regulations took effect May 1 (Paper Advance)
Update: German authorities have lifted the swimming ban on the Saale after water samples returned to normal. The ban followed contamination linked to Mercer's Rosenthal mill. Mercer has still not set a date to restart pulp production and will report Q3 results on Oct. 29 (ad-hoc-news)
Forestry & Timber
Finland's Luke and PTT expect timber demand to recover in 2027. Luke forecasts stumpage prices rising 3–4% for pine and birch and 2% for spruce sawlogs, and PTT expects purchases from private forests to rise 12%. Private owners' gross timber income is expected to fall from more than €3B to about €2.7B in 2026 (PULPAPERnews)
Danske Bank's Oskar Lindström sees early signs of a turnaround for Nordic forest producers after four years of losses, though mainly because of production cuts and closures rather than stronger demand. He says pulp and packaging producers have a better outlook than sawn timber, where Swedish sawmills face a harder recovery (Global Wood Markets Info)
Eurostat data show EU hardwood log exports outside the bloc reached €165.6M in the three months to July, up from €142.0M a year earlier. China bought €90.6M of that, including €67.6M of oak. U.S. hardwood log sales to China fell to US$261.8M in January–July, down from US$433.7M in the same months of 2024, and Vietnam is now the top market for U.S. hardwood logs. The European sawmill association EOS says log exports cost Europe jobs (Wood Central)
Log exports through New Zealand's Napier Port fell 2.8% to 2.62M t in the year to September, although the final quarter rose 4.4% to 699,000 t. At Tauranga, log exports fell 8.1% to 5.8M t in the year to June, and the port says higher fuel costs made some exporters cut harvesting (Wood Central)
Industry Technology Vendors
Raute — Is in talks to help build a veneer and LVL plant at The Precinct, a planned engineered-wood hub at Portland, Victoria, and is considering a full-scale service team in Australia. It is testing bluegum veneers and suggests blending 10–30% bluegum into radiata pine LVL, and it would train the new mill's operators. Australian LVL imports hit a record 254,000 m³ in 2025–26, and 78% came from China (Wood Central, Wood Central)
Valmet — Has made Darwin-based Territory Instruments its local partner in Australia for Boiler Diagnostics, PlantTriage loop optimization and Advanced Process Controls. Valmet engineers still deliver the software and optimization work, and the announcement is aimed mainly at energy and process customers (Valmet)
