N.A. Chems & Pkg’g "Bills Coming Due? Paper Machine Age and Capex Implic..."

Research evidence excerpt

N.A. Chems & Pkg’g "Bills Coming Due? Paper Machine Age and Capex Implic..."

Global Research

8 June 2026ab

N.A. Chems & Pkg’g Equities

North AmericaBills Coming Due? Paper Machine Age and

Capex Implications Chemicals, Commodity

Anojja Shah

Analyst

anojja.shah@ubs.com

US containerboard mills at the top 3 producers (IP, SW and PKG) are aging +1-312-525 4310

According to UBS estimates and Fastmarkets RISI data, the median age of US mills across Andrew Jones

these three producers is approximately 26 years, highlighting a maturing asset base. This Analyst

suggests a growing need for reinvestment and upgrade capex over the coming years, as andrew-i.jones@ubs.com

companies work to maintain reliability, improve efficiency, and maintain +44-20-7901 6545

competitiveness. In this report, we explore the relative condition and investment history Joshua Spector, CFA

of each company’s mill network to assess their relative positioning. See Figures 5 Analyst

through 9 for machine age of each machine across the three producers. joshua.spector@ubs.com

+1-212-713 6188

North America: PKG best positioned, IP most exposed Gaurav Sharma

PKG stands out as the best positioned, with a structurally younger and more recently Associate Analyst

invested mill base relative to both IP and SW in NA (Figure 1). Only ~30% of PKG's mills gaurav-l.sharma@ubs.com

were built/rebuilt before 2000. That percentage is almost 50% for SW and almost +1-212-713 4312

65% for IP. This reflects a history of consistent capital spending at PKG, resulting in a Christopher Perrella

network that requires less near-term reinvestment. By contrast, IP’s NA mill system Analyst

skews older, implying a higher burden of maintenance and modernization capex over christopher.perrella@ubs.com

the next several years.