Box Shipments Rise - Packaging-Online

Apr 21, 2007
Official Board Markets

March U. S. box shipments fell 1.4 percent versus the same month in 2006, reports the Fibre Box Association (FBA). However, last month had one less shipping day (22) when compared to March 2006. Adjusting for this difference, box shipments were actually 3.4 percent higher. On a rolling three-month average basis, box volumes are down an average of 2.1 percent year-to-year on both an actual and an average week basis. A sharp increase in export shipments (up 38 percent year-over-year) helped keep domestic markets fairly tight.

While actual box shipments slumped 1.4 percent, containerboard consumption, a more robust measurement of the containerboard industry, was flat year-over-year (2,665,000 tons last month versus 2,664,000 tons in March 2006).

Total containerboard inventories (at mills and box plants) fell by 76,000 tons to 2,472,000 tons from 2,548,000 tons at the end of February, the FBA says.