The rise in energy has led to increased costs and more and more negative events that enterprises are overwhelmed. The Zago family, the head of Pro gest, Italy’s most important paper group, announced the shutdown of six of its paper mills.

The group is the most important and largest company in Italian paper production, but it had to stop production temporarily because of rising energy and high transportation costs. The group mainly produces and supplies toilet paper, napkin, corrugated paper, etc.

The company’s explanation for the shutdown is that the normal selling price of the paper is about 680 euros per ton, but now the energy cost alone needs about 750 Euros.

Not only the paper mill, but also more and more other paper mills have been forced to stop production. In the whole of Italy, there are about 150 paper mills, with an output of more than 9.6 million tons and a turnover of 8.18 billion in 2021, but this figure began to deteriorate in 2022.

According to industry sources, Italian paper mills paid five times the cost of natural gas for the rise of energy in December last year, while at present, the average cost has increased by 10 times! Increased by 15 times at the highest peak!

It is expected that the paper towel toilet paper in the supermarket will face some shortage or price rise. And not only in supermarkets, the whole supply chain of packaging production, medical paper and information publishing paper has been seriously affected. The partners can stock up properly.

“This is a very critical moment and we hope to overcome it as soon as possible,” Francesco Zago, CEO of Pro gest group, explained “Pro gest group is a leader in the Italian paper industry, with a production capacity of more than 1 million tons / year. Due to the serious tension of the war, the current natural gas price is more than 10 times higher than 12 months ago and tripled in more than a week. We sincerely hope to resume production as soon as possible, and we will ask the government agencies to intervene to protect the whole production sector.”.

At present, the paper group has not announced the time to resume production, and the employees have not been laid off, but on vacation. Only when the remedial measures of energy are solved, or there is a compensation scheme, can the industry operate normally again.