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International Paper Company
IP · ARCX · Packaging & Containers · United States
International Paper Company is a leading global producer of renewable fiber-based packaging and pulp products. It operates primarily through two segments: Industrial Packaging, which includes linerboard, medium, whitetop, recycled linerboard, recycled medium, and saturating kraft, and Global Cellulose Fibers, offering pulp for applications in diapers, towel and tissue products, feminine care, incontinence, personal care, textiles, construction materials, paints, and coatings. The company holds approximately one-third of the North American corrugated packaging market and has expanded its European presence through the acquisition of DS Smith. International Paper Company serves diverse end markets such as industrial, consumer products, and manufacturing sectors across North America, Latin America, Europe, and North Africa. With around 37,000 employees, it emphasizes sustainable packaging solutions, including recent strategic moves like exploring new facilities and divesting its cellulose fibers unit. In the financial markets, it plays a key role in the packaging and containers industry, providing essential materials for global supply chains.
Industry
Packaging & Containers
Consumer Cyclical sector · United States
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Supply Chain
Paper and Pulp Supply Chain
The paper and pulp supply chain is governed by three structural constraints that determine who can produce, what they can produce, and how the industry evolves: cellulose fiber dependency means all paper requires either virgin wood pulp from managed forests or recycled fiber that degrades with each reuse cycle, mill capital intensity means a modern pulp mill costs one to three billion dollars and must run continuously to remain economical, and the packaging shift means paper demand is migrating from printing and writing grades to packaging as e-commerce grows — but the same mills cannot easily switch between grades, creating simultaneous overcapacity and shortage across different product categories.
Plastics Supply Chain
The plastics supply chain converts oil and gas derivatives into the polymer materials that become bottles, packaging, pipes, dashboards, medical tubing, and shopping bags, governed by three root constraints: petrochemical feedstock dependency that permanently couples plastic economics to energy markets, resin-to-product diversity explosion where a handful of base resins branch into millions of end products through compounding, molding, and extrusion with incompatible specifications, and recycling thermodynamics where most plastics degrade with each reprocessing cycle — unlike metals — creating a structural downcycling problem that limits circularity.