2 min read
Recycled Fiber 360: Accessible, Reliable Recycled Fiber Prices at Your Fingertips
Fisher International : October 10, 2022
We’ve heard it dozens and dozens of times over the past two years as we have completed over 30 interviews with buyers, sellers, and traders of recycled fiber in North America – markets are frustrated by the lack of actionable information on the US market. Specifically, we have heard:
- Existing price indices do not reflect underlying supply and demand
- Benchmarks do not accurately reflect differences in geography, product quality, or format
- Current conditions do not enable reliable benchmarking of one’s own selling or buying activities
When you compare a reference price to your own transaction records, side by side in black and white, and see wide discrepancies, it’s easy to lose faith in the quality of the data in the index. And it is extremely difficult to make confident business decisions that could have expensive consequences.
These unexpected movements can happen because the index being used based on survey-based methods is naturally confronted with the risk of biases. The metrics used to measure the market that seek to predict future prices based on industry chatter tend to exacerbate artificial volatility – and the ramifications of this type of volatility are serious.
The best way to reduce uncertainty with price discovery is to build an index based on actual market transactions. The OCC market is similar to the complementary feedstocks we’ve worked with – and during our experience, we’ve seen the benefits of reliable data based on actual market transactions in these markets. Prior to the introduction of our transaction-based indices, log markets were highly volatile and uncertain in ways that could not be explained. Our index – now capturing millions of transactions per year – solved this problem.
Introducing Recycled Fiber 360
Buyers and sellers of OCC and other recycled fiber products want reliable, actionable data. Fisher International and Forest2Market, two ResourceWise companies, have collaborated on a transaction-based recycled fiber price benchmark built specifically to help the industry reduce volatility and uncertainty – Recycled Fiber 360.
Fisher International has more than 30 years of experience in pulp and paper business intelligence, with detailed data on every pulp and paper mill in the world, in addition to best-in-class cost modeling and forecasting. Forest2Market, the creator of the timber price benchmark for pulpwood mentioned above, has more than 20 years of experience in gathering, securing, anonymizing and reporting transaction data in the forestry vertical.
Together, we have introduced a transaction-based recycled fiber price benchmark that offers:
- Index breakdowns by region and product—quickly see the exact pricing data you need when you need, delivered or FOB.
- Historical price trends—track and understand market movements over time to correlate price changes with industry events.
- Segmentation of apparent contract vs spot to understand market dynamics and get insight into where the market is headed.
- Compare individual mills within your organization and to other facilities purchasing recovered fiber within the same geographic region.
To ensure that recycled fiber markets are both competitive and efficient, owners and managers need to be able to make fact-based decisions that protect and improve facility margins. The more confidence decision makers have in the data they use, the more confidence that can have in their decisions. And when decision makers have more confidence in their decisions, they can take aggressive action to spur improved performance and profitable growth.
For a more detailed look at how our Recycled Fiber 360 benchmark can help your company access dependable, vital data, watch the video below.