Pre-Registration & Cocktail Reception (Location: Main Lobby Outside Ballroom & Windsor Lawn)

Please pick up badge and conference materials before going to the reception.

Start of Conference (Location: Ballroom)

Welcoming Remarks

~ Greg Rudder, Editor, PPI Pulp & Paper Week, RISI

Introduction to RISI

~ Mike Coffey, CEO, RISI

Presentation of the RISI North American CEO of the Year Award to James Rubright, Chairman and CEO, RockTenn

~ Presented by Mike Coffey, CEO, RISI

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

~ James Rubright, Chairman and CEO, RockTenn

Keynote Questions & Answers

Analyzing Current North American Industry Capacity and Addressing the Threats to Future Supply

• Discussing the factors threatening supply of fibre in North America: decline of supply from Western Canada, foreign trade, housing, increased demand for wood pellets for the biomass industry
• Implementing effective strategies to deal with oversupply and forecasting future requirements and demand
• Outlining the timeline for the eradication of the mountain pine beetle in Canada - when will production return to 'normal'?
• Considering the opportunities to take advantage of declining supply - where will this supply come from?
• Assessing the implications of a lack of supply for the paper industry

~ Mark Kennedy, Forest Products Analyst, CIBC

Questions & Answers

Morning Refreshments & Networking Time (Location: Main Lobby Outside Ballroom)

Financial Analyst Panel Discussion: A Financial Perspective on the Forest Products Industry

• Analyzing the state of the industry from the perspective of the finance community - how has this developed in the last few years?
• Assessing the confidence of investors in the forest products industry, are more companies raising to investment grade?
• Discussing how the industry can learn from its past and what it must do to attract more investment from financial institutions

Moderator:
~ George L. Staphos, Managing Director, Sr. Research Analyst, North American Paper/Forest & Packaging Co-sector Head, Industrials & Materials, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Panelists:
~ Mark Wilde, Managing Director, Deutsche Bank
~ Mark Kennedy Forest Products Analyst, CIBC
~ Bill Hoffmann, Managing Director High Yield Research, RBC Capital Markets - Fixed Income
~ Phil Gresh, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Paper & Packaging, JPMorgan
~ Mark A. Weintraub, Senior Vice President, The Buckingham Research Group

Networking Lunch (Location: Windsor Lawn)

Successfully Capitalizing on Biomass as a New Revenue Stream

• Establishing the business case for pursuing biomass as a supply of energy – environmental considerations, plant conversion costs
• Considering the opportunities biomass offers landowners and the paper and pulp industry
• Understanding the implication of increased governmental support for the biomass industry - impact on access to fibre for non-biomass purposes
• Appraising how the developing biomass industry will alter supply dynamics across North America
• Assessing the pros and cons of opening national forest land to logging to meet increased demand for biomass
• Overcoming growth constraints: infrastructure and logistical considerations

~ Bob Cleaves, President and CEO, Biomass Power Association

Questions & Answers

 

Panel Discussion: Evaluating the Business Case for Sustainable Practices and Overcoming the Challenges in Maintaining Sustainability

• Evaluating the consumer trend towards sustainability and the impact on the forest products industry
• Assessing the economics of sustainable business practices - do the ends outweigh the means?
• Discussing the challenges in ensuring sustainable practices when working with foreign partners
• Addressing the challenges faced in ensuring the validity of certification schemes for forest and paper products
• Understanding the economics of the recovered paper market and addressing the challenges it poses
• Improving public perception of the forest products industry through a unified and effective sustainability message

Moderator:
~ Phil Riebel, President, Two-Sides U.S. and President, P. Riebel Consulting

Panelists:
~ Frank Locantore, Director, Green America Better Paper Project
~ Bob Ewing, Director, Timberlands Strategic Planning, Weyerhaeuser
~ Kathy Abusow, President/CEO, Sustainable Forest Initiative
~ Donna Harman,CEO, American Forest & Paper Association
~ Ian Hanna, Director, Business Development, FSC - US
~ Ward Hubbell, President, Green Building Initiative

Afternoon Refreshments & Networking Time (Location: Main Lobby Outside Ballroom)

Evening Cocktail Reception (Location: Sun Deck)

Registration (Location: Main Lobby Outside Ballroom)

Start of Conference (Location: Ballroom)

Outlook for US Housing Markets: Navigating the Rocky Path to Recovery

• When will demand recover and how strong will it be?
• What will the split between single and multifamily starts look like moving forward?
• Will household formations pick back up to prerecession levels in the next 2 years? What is the key driver?
• Will ownership rates ever get back to the peak seen in the early 00's or will rentals become the new norm?
• What are the critical determinants for a sustained housing recovery?

~ Crystal Gauvin, Senior Economist, Wood Products, RISI

North American Timber Market Outlook

• Do current timber prices reflect underlying demand and supply or is a correction in the cards?
• What conditions are required to lift the roof on log prices?
•Will price spreads between sawtimber and pulpwood return to prerecession levels?
• Will China’s import demand extend to suppliers in the southern US and eastern Canada or are the new trade patterns temporary?
• Are pulp producers justified in their concerns regarding competition for fiber to produce bioenergy? Should timberland owners be apathetic to these developments?

~ Peter Barynin, Principal Economist, Timber, RISI

Global Pulp Market Outlook

• There will be wider divergences in prices and market conditions for longer periods of time across regions due to demand cross currents between China and the rest of the world.

• The long-term decline of uncoated freesheet production in the US is a key dynamic in the industry and has implications for market pulp capacity but also for paper and board grades.

• How will the planned conversions from integrated to market pulp capacity in the US South and papergrade to dissolving pulp capacity effect the papergrade market?

• Pulp prices started to soften during the summer months with pulp inventories in China at relatively high levels. How far will prices fall and when will they rebound?

~ Kurt Schaefer, Vice President, Fiber, RISI

Questions & Answers

Morning Refreshments & Networking Time (Location: Main Lobby Outside Ballroom)

Global Recovered Paper Market Outlook

• What are the demand trends for recovered paper in different regions?
• How will trades, especially Asian imports, influence global market balance?
• Will paper producers switch from recovered paper to virgin pulp to cope with the recovered paper crunch?

~ Hannah Zhao, Economist, Recovered Paper, RISI

Cost Benchmarking

• Overview of cash cost structure for global kraft and recycled linerboard, semi-chem and recycled medium
• Cost competitiveness of containerboard mills in Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and North America
• Changes due to fluctuating recovered fiber prices

~ Ryan Burgess, Benchmarking Analyst, RISI

Questions & Answers

Networking Lunch (Location: Windsor Lawn)

Global Printing and Writing Paper Outlook

• Summary of the findings from RISI's study of the impact of e-Readers and media tablets on paper demand
• Impacts on global markets of excessive capacity growth in Asia
• Measures that producers in North America and Europe are taking to combat declining demand
• Cost driven price hikes could further crush demand
• Profitability may struggle as producers' cost escalation eats up most if not all of price hikes

~ John Maine, Vice President, Graphic Paper, RISI

Global Newsprint Market Outlook - After Recovery, New Challenges

• Demand trends...will world demand begin sinking again?
• Advertising, circulation and e-reader/tablet trends
• Global shift in capacity?
• Impact of export markets on market balance
• Outlook on profitability for key producing regions

~ Derek Mahlburg, Economist, Graphic Paper, RISI

Quality Upgrading Dominating the Tissue Outlook

• Consumption well recovered, but what next?
• Will higher quality requirements change the industry structure?
• Many investment plans, will overcapacity be a major threat for profitability?

~ Esko Uutela, Principal, Tissue, RISI

Special Focus on the Dissolving Pulp Market

• Inventory destocking and increased global cotton supply along with lower cotton prices will limit dissolving pulp demand growth?
• The huge wave of capacity expansion in the near term will likely outpace demand.
• Prices began to soften in the late second quarter 2011, will the trend continue?

~ David Fortin, Economist, Fiber, RISI

Questions & Answers

Close of Conference

North American Softwood Lumber Markets 2011-2012: Challenges Persist

• Demand: Stuck at low end of the industry cost curve.
• Capacity: Demand not likely to test operating mill supply let alone total capacity through most of 2012.
• Costs: In absence of pricing power, costs disadvantages quickly translate into curtailments and loss market share.
• Prices and Profits: An oxymoron through 2012.

~ Bob Berg, Principal Economist, Lumber, RISI

Waiting for Housing: Engineered Wood Products Producers Continue to Spin Their Wheels!

• EWP Demand will remain low through at least 2013.
• Excess capacity continues to overhang EWP markets.
• LVL somewhat healthier than I-Joists, but both sectors are waiting for higher housing starts.

~ Wade Camp, Senior Economist, RISI

North American Structural Panels Market Outlook

• Demand, supply and capacity described by supply stacks
• End use markets by volume current and forecast
• Use factor trends OSB versus plywood
• Profitability trends
• Demand/capacity ratios

~ Wade Camp, Senior Economist, RISI

Questions & Answers

Networking Lunch (Location: Windsor Lawn)

Contraction, Consolidation and Restructuring: North American Particleboard and MDF Producers Face the Future

• Demand growth falters despite recovery in furniture production.
• Capacity shakeout yet to be completed.
• Cost-push rather than demand-pull drive pricing.

~ Bernard Fuller, Principal Economist, Wood Panels, RISI

North American Wood Pellet Exports

• Industry structure and trends
• Opportunities and constraints by region
• Demand and regulatory analysis
• Sustainability

~ Seth Walker, Associate Economist, RISI

Panel Products: The Primary Engine of China’s Forest Products Industry

• Unlike North America and Europe, Woodbased Panels drives China Wood Products Demand.
• Construction and Furniture Production are the main end-use markets.
• How much will a slowing Chinese economy impact Lumber and Panel Demand in China?

~ Bernard Fuller, Principal Economist, Wood Panels, RISI

International Timber Markets: Outlook for Demand in China and Other Asian Log and Woodchip Markets

China

• China's timber supply deficit continues to expand, despite the major increase in forest plantations in China over the past decade. How is this likely to change in the years ahead?

• China's log market has slowed rapidly in the third quarter of 2011, is this a cyclical downturn or have we seen the peak? Which suppliers have been most impacted by this downturn?

• Woodchip imports in China have continued to expand, but the focus to date has been on lower-priced chips from Southeast Asia --- how is this sourcing strategy likely to change in the next several years?

Japan

• Has the March earthquake had a major impact on Japan’s woodchip imports in 2011, and which suppliers have been most impacted?

• Log, lumber and wood panel producers have been hoping for a major boost from the rebuilding effort in Japan --- when is this likely to take off, and which suppliers are most likely to benefit?

India

• The “next big thing” for log and lumber imports?

~ Bob Flynn, Director, International Timber, RISI

Questions & Answers

End of Conference

*Topics are subject to change.

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