Forest products

California is poised to become the nation’s first state to ban single-use plastic and paper bags at supermarkets and convenience stores.

According to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Russia is to come to the terms in the field of export duties on roundwood. Moreover, Russia itself offered the EU to significantly increase  export duties on deciduous wood.

Russia is ready to increase export duties by tens %. It will mostly concern birch that is widely used in the Finnish industry, whereas in Russia this kind of wood is not practically processed by the Russian companies.

Most dividend announcements are in the range of pennies to several dollars, so when a company declares a special dividend of USD 5.6 billion, it tends to grab your attention, and that of shareholders.

China’s potential fibre-supply gap (the difference between total demand and total domestic supply) is projected to reach approximately 150 million m3 (roundwood equivalent) by 2015 - or a volume that is more than the entire Canadian timber harvest in 2009 - a strong indication that China’s wood imports must continue to rise in the short- to medium-term period to match with projected consumption reports International WOOD Markets Group,.

The Internal Revenue Service may have handed U.S. pulp and paper companies a multibillion-dollar gift by ruling that black liquor produced in 2009 is eligible for an even more lucrative tax credit than the one claimed by manufacturers last year.

The June 28 ruling contradicts previous guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency that the molasses-like pulp byproduct could not qualify for Cellulosic Biofuel Producer Credits (CBPC) because it is not a motor-vehicle fuel or fuel additive. The new IRS ruling does not allow the same black liquor to receive both the original black liquor credits ("alternative fuel mixture") and CBPCs, the so-called Son of Black Liquor tax credits.

The exact impact of the ruling is unclear, but in theory it is be worth more than $10 billion to U.S. companies.

Publicly traded U.S. companies received more than $6.5 billion in black liquor tax credits last year by exploiting a loophole in legislation designed to subsidize "green" fuels. Privately held companies probably qualified for at least another $2 billion.
 

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