Three years ago, an overview of the French paper and pulp industry was carried out. Since then, the world has endured a pandemic and an economic downturn.

Fibre moulding is an area that is developing rapidly, not least because new technologies enable the manufacture of products with properties that can compete with plastic applications.

In my last blog contribution I described the series of large investments that forest industry companies are doing in Sweden and Finland.

In recent years there have been extensive closures of printing paper mills and large investments within the Swedish and Finnish paper and pulp groups. Overall, therefore, their product portfolios have undergone major changes as this blog contribution will show.

In addition to present heavy investment in the Swedish paper and pulp industry, new start-up companies are bubbling with different ideas regarding opportunities for new products and applications based on forest raw materials and industrial side streams.

How is electricity produced and distributed in Europe? Why do we have today's situation with high electricity prices and a lack of electricity? Why is Europe affected by the natural gas prices? What is causing the paper and pulp industry in Europe to be plagued by sky-high prices for electricity and other energy?

Research and development of different types of nanocellulose is since many years an area in which a lot of money and efforts are invested. Norway, although not among the biggest pulp and paper producers in the world, is no exception as shown in this blog contribution.

The European forests and ways of forestry are now hot topics as the European Union Commission have launched proposals that would create substantial problems for forest owners and forest industry, not least in the Nordic countries.

A long-standing collaboration between KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linköping University and RISE in Sweden has resulted in an electrode paper that could be used for energy storage in batteries or supercapacitors. An important development step was the recent pilot runs to produce enough electrode paper for a continued application development.

In 2020 the French paper industry produced 6.87 million tonnes of paper and board. Like in other big European countries the main raw material source is recycled fibre.

In comparison with e.g., Canada, Finland and Sweden, the British paper industry’s fibre need is to about 70 % covered by recycled fibres.

Seven European producers of kraftliner and testliner are investing heavily to supply the corrugating industry.