PCA out with $70/ton liner and $90/ton medium price hike for the start of 2025 in the US

Packaging Corp of America (PCA), just as it did a year ago, announced a start of the New Year price increase of $70/ton for linerboard and $90/ton for corrugating medium for the US domestic market.

The increases are effective Jan. 1, 2025, buyer and seller contacts said they confirmed with the company or its customers.

PCA, the third largest containerboard producer by capacity in North America, a year ago announced a Jan. 1, 2024 increase as well. At that time, the containerboard/corrugated box market in North American was in uneven supply and demand shape from destocking, yet signs of rebound appeared. One official for a major company would later say in third quarter this year that the PCA New Year’s 2024 increase was a “game changer” for containerboard industry producers in America.

That increase began in February 2024 and ended up amounting to $40/ton for linerboard and North American producers, as demand continued to improve slightly, gained a second $40/ton price increase this year for linerboard in the open market, based on Fastmarkets’ PPI Pulp & Paper Week price survey.

So far this year, US actual corrugated box shipments are up slightly, on a year-over-year basis, and reports last week were of steady demand. One integrated mid-sized producer reported being full on orders to mid-January.

“Everyone is steady busy and costs are not fair,” an official with an integrated company said.

The increase also appears as export US kraft linerboard demand and pricing just started to be under some pressure, and as domestic pricing for recycled linerboard in Europe is on the decline since last month.

Since the COVID pandemic, North American open market linerboard prices increased $220/ton on four increases from late 2020 through early 2022. Prices then declined about half of the amount they increased during the destocking through yearend 2023. In 2024, there were the two linerboard price increases for $40/ton for the open market in North America.

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