Why Mills Can’t Keep the Coated Paper Market in Balance

There’s a simple way for North American mills to prevent the prices of coated paper from collapsing next year, the “Paper Guru” pointed out recently. Simple, but it won’t work. Responding to last week’s Dead Tree Edition article about the possibility of declining prices, Jack Miller wrote, “Uncoated freesheet producers have reduced capacity, balanced supply and demand, and maintained prices.”

“With U.S. coated mills still under cost pressures from pulp and chemicals, and with margins where they are,” he suggested coated mills might take out capacity to keep the market in balance. But what works for uncoated freesheet will be hard