The tissue industry is expected to add 2.3 million tons of capacity in 2009-10, according to the second Tissue World Projects Survey. This is almost exactly the same as the additions shown in last year’s survey covering the period 2008-09. Seemingly the global economic crisis of the past year has had a very minor medium-term impact on tissue, despite the difficulties some companies experienced in the fourth quarter of 2008 and into early 2009. In 2009, the additions included in the survey total 1.3 million tons. This is exactly the same tonnage growth as was seen in 2008. In last year’s survey, however, only 1 million tons of new 2009 capacity was listed. The difference is partly the result of delays to projects originally earmarked for 2008 and partly the result of new projects decided since November 2008 or unknown to Tissue World at that time. For 2010, the total drops to 960,000 tons. This is also very close to our forecast in November 2008 for the following calendar year.

Perhaps more surprising, given the continuation in many parts of the world of the credit squeeze that followed last year’s financial collapse, more than 900,000 tons of additional capacity is already planned for 2011 start-up. A large part of this tonnage has already been ordered, much of it in recent weeks.

For example, APP alone has recently ordered three Voith machines with combined annual design capacity of 240,000 tons, large machines by any standards and a striking contrast to its earlier policy of installing large numbers of small machines. A geographic breakdown of the data shows that Asia Pacific leads the way, accounting for 40% of the global total for the three years under review. This is much the same percentage share as last year. Latin America leapfrogs Europe into second place. Last year, its share of the forecast global increase was 16%, the same as North America and well down on Europe’s 23%. This year, it jumps to 22%, while Europe slides to 16% and North America drops to 9%, less even than the Middle East and Africa, which register 13% of the total.

China – with APP in the forefront – is unsurprisingly pre-eminent. Our list includes more than 30 Chinese projects, with total capacity additions of close to 1 million tons over the three years under review. This is almost as much as the next four countries combined. The USA, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey between them are also expected to add about 1 million tons in the period.

Nearly a quarter of the 109 projects listed are for machines with annual capacity of more than 50,000 tons. Between them they are expected to make close to 1.6 million tons, about 70% of the total shown in the survey.

All aggregates taken from the survey should be treated with some caution. While all care has been taken to publish comprehensive data, it is inevitable that projects will be missing or details incomplete. We welcome your help to ensure than next year’s survey will minimize the omissions.