Board Converting News, May 22, 2023

PCA To Idle Mill In Wallula, WA

Box Shipments ( U.S. Corrugated Product Shipments) Industry Shipments In Billions of Square Feet Month December 2022

Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) will be idling its paper mill in Wallula, Washington affecting some 300 jobs, according to the Tri-City Herald . Operations are expected to resume later this year. Facilities producing corrugated products in Richland and Wallula, however, will remain open, the paper said. The Washington mill produces about 1,800 tons of unbleached paper and corrugated medium per day and consumes about 1,000 tons per day of old corrugated containers (OCC) it sources from around the region. Based in Lake Forest, Illinois, the PCA is the third-larg- est producer of container board in the US. It operates more than 100 facilities and employs approximately 15,000 employees. The decision did not fall under the Worker Adjust- ment Retraining Notification (WARN) Act which requires advance notice for companies employing more than 100 people, the report said. PCA’s packaging division includes seven container- board mills and about 90 converting operations. In 2022, PCA produced about 4.6 million tons of con- tainerboard and shipped about 63.4 billion square feet of corrugated products. PCA's net sales in 2022 was $8.5 billion.

Year

Actual

Percent Change Avg Week Percent Change

2022 2021

30.124 34.180

-11.9

7.927 8.545

-7.2

Industry Total

Year-to Date

December 2022

Year

Actual

Percent Change Avg Week Percent Change

2022 2021

400.520 416.189

-3.8

7.979 8.291

-3.8

Industry Total

Containerboard Consumption (Thousands of Tons)

Year

Month

Percent Change Year-to-Date Percent Change

2022 2021

2.4260 2.7360

-11.3

32.5461 33.8321

-3.8

Container Board Inventory - Corrugator Plants (Thousands of Tons)

Corrugator Plants Only

Date

Percent Change Weeks of Supply

Percent Change

Dec. Nov.

2.2603 2.2586

0.1

3.5 3.6

-2.8

Shipping Days

Year

Month

Year-to-Date

2022 2021

19 20

251 251

SOURCE: Fibre Box Association

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May 22, 2023

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