WOOD PULP Table 2.- Wood Pulp: United States imports for consumption, Source: Official statistics of the U. S. Department of Commerce. SUMMARIES OF TARIFF INFORMATION WOOD PULP Comment Description and uses.-This summary covers all kinds of wood pulp. Wood pulp is a fibrous mass prepared from wood by several chemical and mechanical processes or by a combination of chemical and mechanical means. It is used principally for the manufacture of paper, including paperboard. It is also used increasingly as a raw material by the rayon, chemical, and plastics industries but the amount so used is less than 5 percent of total United States consumption. The Wood pulp varies in characteristics and uses according to the particular process employed to convert the wood to pulp. Of much the greatest importance in consumption and trade are the chemical pulps and mechanically ground wood. chemical pulps consist of sulphite and sulphate, bleached and unbleached, and soda pulp. There are several types of semichemical and special-process pulps which are of growing importance in domestic consumption, but they are not factors in the import trade of this country. Sulphite is light in color, even in the unbleached condition, and is readily bleachable to a very high degree of brightness and purity. It is used both unbleached and bleached in a wide variety of papers; it is primarily suitable for fine printing and other grades of paper and board where brightness or color is important. It is also (in a highly purified form) the kind of pulp chiefly used in rayon and other chemical products. Unbleached sulphate is dark brown in color and is used for wrapping and other coarse papers and boards where strength is essential and color is not important. Bleached and semibleached sulphate is of growing importance for use in some grades of light-colored papers, tag stock, board for food containers, and other light-colored boards. Soda, semichemical, and specialprocess pulps, chiefly exploded wood fiber and asplund or defibrated pulp, have limited or specialized uses. Soda pulp is used chiefly in certain grades of book paper in admixture with sulphite; the semichemical and special-process pulps are used for various kinds of corrugating and building papers and boards, and roofing and saturating felts. Ground wood, very little of which is bleached, is light in color, when made from suitable woods, but lacks strength and permanence. It is desirable for papers where absorbency, bulk, and opacity are important. It is the principal ingredient in newsprint paper, and is also used, in mixture with other pulps, in some grades of printing, tablet, and tissue papers and in building and insulating papers and boards. United States wood fiber requirements.-Wood pulp, pulpwood (the basic raw material for wood pulp), and paper (chiefly newsprint) are the forms in which wood from the forests of foreign countries contribute to United States requirements of wood fiber. 1/ Table 3 shows the extent to which our total annual requirements for fiber derived from pulpwood are supplied from domestic wood, and the extent to which they are supplied by imports in the form of wood, pulp, and paper. In addition to the wood-fiber requirements (in terms of pulpwood) indicated in table 3, there are annually consumed in the United States in paper manufacture large quantities of other fiber, chiefly reclaimed from waste paper almost entirely domestic in immediate origin. Such materials, which are not comparable in terms of pulpwood with the data shown in table 3, constitute about 40 percent of the total tonnage of fibrous material consumed in paper manufacture in the United States, and wood pulp constitutes about 60 percent. 1/ See separate summaries on pulpwood (par. 1803(2)) and newsprint (par. 1772). WOOD PULP Table 3.- Pulpwood: United States requirements represented by consumption of domestic wood, imported wood, and imported pulp and paper, in terms of pulpwood, 1936-39 and 1943-47 3/ Preliminary. Source: Data for 1936-39 from U. S. Bureau of the Census (with estimated adjustments to cover consumption of species of pulpwood which are not separated by Census according to whether domestic or imported), and compiled tables of record of the U. S. Forest Service; data for 1943-47 are estimates by the U. S. Tariff Commission based on official statistics of the U. S. Department of Commerce. Sources of wood-pulp supply.-The United States, Canada, Sweden, Finland, the Soviet Union, and Norway are the principal producers of wood pulp. The United States uses most of its own production, and imports large quantities of pulp as such (apart from imports in the form of paper). Canada exports a high percentage of its output in the forms of pulp and newsprint to the United States. Practically all of the pulp produced in the Soviet Union is consumed within that country. Sweden, Finland, and Norway manufacture pulp beyond their requirements, and the surplus is exported in the forms of pulp and paper. They are the principal sources of supply for most countries, other than the United States, whose production is less than their requirements (see table 4). SUMMARIES OF TARIFF INFORMATION WOOD PULP Table 4.- Wood pulp: Production, imports, exports, and apparent 2/ Preliminary. 1/ Data are not available for the Soviet Union. Source: Official statistics of the U. S. Department of Commerce, United States Pulp Producers' Association, and Foreign Service Reports. United States production.-United States production of pulp, which is mainly from domestic pulpwood but to considerable extent from imported pulpwood, is chiefly by integrated mills for their own use in the manufacture of paper. Market pulp, i.e., pulp made for sale, constitutes only about 15 percent of total domestic output. However, total sales of domestic and imported market pulp in the United States amounted to about one-third of total United States apparent consumption of pulp as such before World War II, and to about 25 percent of apparent consumption in 1947. A relatively few mills producing pulp primarily for sale account for most of the domestic market pulp, but sales of pulp are also regularly made by some integrated mills. The principal consumers of market pulp (domestic and imported) are converters (paper manufacturers not owning pulp-producing facilities), who constitute an important section of the domestic paper industry. Pulp is also purchased by rayon and other chemical converting establishments, and some integrated mills supplement their own production by purchase of pulp. Of the total amount of domestic pulp produced for sale, sulphite predominates constituting about 73 percent of the total in 1939 and 68 percent in 1947; sulphate accounted for about 15 percent of sales in 1939 and in 1947. A substantial part of the sulphite pulp sold (about 20 percent in 1939 and 40 percent in 1947) consisted of dissolving pulp chiefly for nonpaper uses. Sulphate pulp, constituting about 45 percent of the total domestic output of wood pulp, including both that for self-use and that for sale, has led in domestic production since 1938. Before 1938, sulphite, and before 1935, ground wood as well, exceeded sulphate in production. Sulphite and ground wood are still produced in large volume in the United States, but output is limited by relative scarcity of species of wood suitable for these kinds of pulp (chiefly spruce, hemlock, and fir other than Douglas fir). The sulphate process may be employed with most woods, but is used chiefly for pulping species which are not readily adaptable to the sulphite process. Extensive development in the use of Southern pine accounts for the expansion in output of sulphate in recent years. (See table 6 for production by kinds of pulp.) During the war, domestic pulp production greatly expanded, although there was no material change in the number of mills. The increase in domestic output exceeded the loss caused by the wartime discontinuance of imports from Europe, but the demands for pulp were so large that, despite increased production and increased imports from Canada, acute shortages of supply developed during the war. UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION WOOD PULP Domestic wood-pulp mills are located in four general regions--(1) the Northeast (New England and Middle Atlantic States), (2) the Lake States, (3) the South (Virginia to Texas), and (4) the Pacific States (chiefly Washington and Oregon). Table 5 shows the percentage of United States total production of wood pulp originating in each of these regions in 1939 and in 1946 Table 5.- Wood pulp: Percentage of total United States Northeast Lake States South Region Pacific Northwest Source: Official statistics of the U. S. Department of Commerce. Conditions of production, consumption, and timber supply are in general similar in the Northeast and in the Lake States. These two areas (roughly north of the Ohio and Potomac Rivers and including Minnesota) produce about 35 percent of the domestic output of pulp, including that made from imported pulpwood. Most of the converters who depend on market pulp are located in these areas, and consequently most of the market pulp, both domestic and imported, is consumed in these two regions. Timber species used for pulp in these two regions are mostly northern softwoods (spruce and balsam); sulphite and ground-wood pulps predominate in production. A large part of the domestic output of soda pulp (which is made from hardwoods) is also produced in these areas. Some sulphate is produced in the Lake States, but it is generally of special grades and constitutes only a relatively small proportion of total domestic sulphate production. The forests of the Northeastern and Lake States have been reduced by years of cutting for lumber, pulp, and other uses. As a result of the deficiency in domestic supplies, pulp mills in these areas now rely on imports for a large part (about 30 percent) of their pulpwood, and these mills account for the greater part of the total United States imports of wood for pulping. Almost all the imported pulpwood comes from Canada. The South, although the most recently developed pulp-producing region, is now the largest (see table 5). Most of the output consists of sulphate made from Southern yellow pine. Nearly all of it is converted into paper and board by the producing mills. Relatively little pulp as such is shipped from the region, but most of the output is shipped to other consuming areas in the form of finished paper and board or converted products. Very little pulp is brought into the region for making paper, although there is some use of outside pulp for nonpaper purposes. The wood used for pulp in this region is all of domestic origin. Pulp of most of the different kinds is made in the Pacific region. Western hen.lock is the species of wood chiefly used, but white fir, Douglas fir, and other species are also used. The industry in this region consists largely of integrated pulp-paper mills, but also includes the mills which account for most of the domestic market pulp. Very little imported pulp is used in the Pacific region, but it does use relatively small quantities of wood imported from Canada. United States imports.--United States imports of pulp as such are large. Before World War II, they were equal to from 30 to 35 percent of total domestic production, and to about 75 percent of the wood pulp marketed (as listinguished from that consumed in the producing mills) in the United States. In 1947 imports, which were at about the prewar level, were equal to 20 percent of United States |