Brazil Suzano paper, the world’s largest pulp producer, recently said that the company’s pulp production will increase in the second quarter of this year to offset the reduction in production in the first quarter. Affected by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the price of natural gas soared by 54% in the first quarter, pushing up the cost of pulp production. The natural gas price trend in the second quarter of this year is still uncertain.

Due to the impact of equipment maintenance and shutdown of the pulp mill and excess inventory, the company’s pulp sales in the first quarter of this year remained at 2.69 million tons, a decrease of 13.0% over the previous quarter.

It is reported that customers’ orders continue to run at a high level, and Suzano paper’s production capacity is close to the upper limit. Global pulp supply and demand tightened in the first quarter and will continue in the second quarter. Global pulp prices are likely to rise again.

The company said that although the effect of the rise in pulp prices in the first quarter of this year has not yet been reflected in its revenue, the price of exported pulp has risen to $639 per ton, 20% higher than a year ago.

The company recently announced that the price of pulp exported to China has been increased by US $30 per ton, which has been confirmed, and all customers will be notified after the end of China’s Labor Day holiday.

By the end of April this year, due to the unexpected pulp production reduction of more than 1.5 million tons, the tight supply and demand of pulp had intensified. The global pulp market remained strong in May. On the other hand, affected by the continuing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, logistics fell into a bottleneck and supply was restricted.