News yes, but paper no.This is the title of an article by the Indian publishing industry in which he details the difficulties that the sector is going through due to the lack of paper and the enormous increase in the cost of this essential product.It is not the only country that is feeling the effects of the pulp and paper crisis.Half the world is already experiencing the consequences.In Turkey, the Publishers Association calculates that the cost of printing is going to translate into price increases for books, even, they say, with a frequency of up to “three or four times a year”.In Quebec (Canada), a bank of printers has been created to pool resources and help publishers cope with rising prices.“The authors are also negatively affected by the current situation.Many of them face uncertainty and indefinite waiting lists as they try to get their work published,” explains the International Publishers Association in a statement.Just to measure the problem, in Europe paper prices have registered a growth rate of 45% on average in the last six months, even reaching 80% for newsprint used to produce newspapers, according to data from the Association of the European graphic industry Intergraf.For the association, the lack of paper is already having its impact on the European economy: "Vital products such as food, medicine, but also newspapers and school books, are facing interruptions."For example, in Spain, the Ministry of Health already has a list of 500 medicines with which there are supply problems due to the lack of metal blisters and cardboard boxes, and in Autonomous Communities such as La Rioja, some newspapers are stopping printing .But what has happened?As is happening in other sectors, the paper sector is the victim of a perfect storm in which the stoppage of the pandemic, the economic recovery and the conflict in Ukraine, among other reasons, come together.“The situation is no different from what other industries are going through.During the pandemic many of the supply chains and many factories have been operating far below normal.And when the economic recovery has arrived, the demand has increased much more.In the publishing world and in the graphic arts they have resumed their activity with energy and time is needed to readjust the flows”, says Carlos Reinoso, director of the Spanish Association of Pulp, Paper and Cardboard Manufacturers (Aspapel).Added to the adjustment between supply and demand has been the war, which has caused, among many other things, sharp increases in gas prices.The paper production industry depends on this fuel.According to data from Aspapel, 64% of paper production in Spain is powered by natural gas, compared to 34% biomass and 2% oil.Paper is obtained from cellulose and this from wood.Cellulose can be used either to make paper directly or it can be previously bleached to remove residual lignin that darkens the pulp.An intensive process in energy consumption that reaches up to 30% of the costs of this industry.Added to energy prices are the rising costs of transport and ship charters, and the lack of raw materials.«The paper obtained from cellulose and cardboard for packaging and binding comes from countries located in areas of boreal forests such as those of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Canada, Russia, etc., together with the large Asian suppliers such as China or Thailand» , clarifies Manuel González Moreno, president of the Madrid Publishers Association.On the other hand, “Russia is the main supplier of aluminum for printing plates.Right now there are less in stock and it is sold more expensive.The most significant consequence of the sum of all factors is the price of printing paper, which costs up to 45% more than a year ago.And in the case of cardboard there is a cost overrun of up to 70%”, explains Cristian Castillo, professor of Economics and Business Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).In the European case, furthermore, workers' strikes have paralyzed the activity of UPM, a paper company in Finland and the main supplier of graphic paper in Europe.Some protests of almost four months that have finished giving the lace to the sector.And the last ingredient in the shaker has to do with a rapid growth in demand from other sectors such as parcels.“Electronic commerce has experienced an extraordinary increase since the start of the pandemic and that has been decisive in this shortage of cardboard for all uses.In the case of the publishing industry, the problem lies in the increase in prices and the difficulty of supplying paper and cardboard.The large publishing groups stock up on raw materials from one year to the next, but the scarcity derived from the greater demand and the extra cost of imports and the rise in energy prices have not been avoided.Although the situation has not substantially affected the forecasts for new releases and replenishment of depleted funds.In the case of small publishers, the problem has been aggravated by the small size of their purchase volume, but even so, it cannot be said that there is a collapse situation”, the publishers clarify.At the moment, the guild confirms that the situation is being adjusted through a selection of editorial releases and the commitment to those titles with more demand, relegating some more risky releases.However, in this situation there are those who see an opportunity.Beatriz Dueñas, editor of the Conatus label comments: «Many times it is printed as a filler.In other words, with the scarcity of paper, the criteria for printing are still changed and we editors think more than editing, because too much was being produced.The novelty tables are full of new books and are changed every Wednesday.It is difficult to know how long this situation will continue, especially considering that "the forecasts made in 2021 indicated that due to the pandemic, the flows of supply and demand would not be balanced again until 2023. Now, with the outbreak of the conflict, they start talking about 2024 and that is if nothing happens.In the case of paper, I don't think there will be shortage problems, but we are going to have certain problems with printing paper.There will be occasional delays, because it may not be supplied with the same fluidity.Industry is going to have to program itself better for a while and will suffer from the current rise in raw material prices," says the UOC Economics professor.From Aspapel they also consider that the current situation does not allow us to speak of a future shortage: "There is no reason to think that these problems are not punctual," says Reinoso.Scarcity comes to toilet paperA couple of weeks ago, the Bloomberg news platform published information echoing the alert launched by Suzano SA, a global supplier of cellulose regarding toilet paper.“Russia is an important source of wood for Europe, and this trade has been completely blocked since the invasion of Ukraine.This means that pulp producers in Europe will see their production capacity reduced.Those factors, along with strong demand, have caused Chinese pulp prices to rise by around 40% so far this year.Pulp inventories have been gradually declining to such an extent that they could reach a point of interruption or a pulp shortage."The price of toilet paper has also increased and in this case it is a type of product whose demand increases rapidly as soon as there is an international alert, as we have seen with the latest international events," says Cristian Castillo, professor of Economics at the UOC.