Why Coated Paper Prices Look Ready for a Fall

North American prices for coated paper will decline and more paper machines will be idled next year, according to a leading industry analyst. Even supercalendered paper, currently in short supply, could see declining prices by the middle of 2012, Reel Time Report editor Verle Sutton said in a webinar recorded a few days ago.

Sutton’s forecast runs counter to the brave talk coming out of the mills and the more bullish analysis from rival forecaster RISI. He noted that his and RISI’s 2012 price forecasts are as much as $120-per-ton apart. Sutton, always the iconoclast and often spot-on with his predictions,