Fastmarkets Knowledge Base

Corrugated box statistics

Published January 19th, 2026 by heide matussek

Corrugated box statistics The Paper Packaging Monitor shows US Containerboard/Box statistics on Table A1 (Appendix tables), and within the market story on Containerboard/Boxes of PPI Pulp & Paper Week. These tables are updated quarterly as Fastmarkets depends on statistic sources like the Fibre Box Association that provides its numbers (shipment

How can I compare the cost/view trends over a longer period of time?

Published July 16th, 2025 by heide matussek

How can I compare the cost/view trends over a longer period of time? Trend Analysis — Market and Mill Level At both the Market and Mill levels, users can view and analyze historical cash cost data over a selected time period, beginning from Q1 2013. How to Access Trend Analysis Open either the Market Cash Cost report or the Mill Costs report. Click

Mill Map/Facility Map/Asset Map

Published October 15th, 2025 by heide matussek

On the Asset Database, a map shows on the top of the Assets tab after hitting View Search. The facilities that match your search criteria will appear on the map. Facility and company data will appear below the map. How to Change Map Views Toggle between Asset Type, Capacity and Consumption to view facilities by those categories. Asset Type w

How to Access Mill Details from any report in the Asset Database

Published October 16th, 2025 by heide matussek

How to Access Mill Details from any report in the Asset Database From any of the reports, or from the Google mill map, in the Asset Database, you can click on the Asset Name to open the mill detail page of that mill . You can also sort your search result by choosing criteria in the SORT drop-down box.

How to Search for Mill/Facility, Projects & Company Data

Published October 15th, 2025 by heide matussek

From the homepage of either tab, you can choose to search for companies and assets in a variety of ways. First, customize your search criteria. You can choose to apply any number of search filters to narrow your results. Company or Asset Specific Quick Search Begin to type a facility or company name in the search box and select the appropr

What does Materials and Maintenance cost contain?

Published January 6th, 2026 by heide matussek

What does Materials and Maintenance cost contain? In Analytical Cornerstone (AC), Materials Cost reflects the non‑labor, non‑energy consumables required to keep a mill operating. These are modeled using benchmark maintenance data, regional wage structures, and grade‑specific direct material usage. 1. What “Materials” Includes Materials represent the

PIX Price Indices (published previously by FOEX)

Published January 21st, 2026 by heide matussek

PIX Price Indices (published previously by FOEX) PIX pulp, paper and biomass indices are part of Fastmarkets' Forest Products division. The list of PIX indices are shown on the list of Fastmarkets RISI price assessments. FOEX still exists as an official entity in Finland, registered by the name “FOEX Indexes Ltd”, and its team calculates the PIX in

How to contact Fastmarkets' engineers and analysts with feedback and questions

Published January 27th, 2026 by heide matussek

How to contact Fastmarkets' engineers and analysts with feedback and questions If you have a question or would like to submit feedback about the data or tools available in the Analytical Cornerstone cost benchmarking tool, you can contact Fastmarkets RISI's engineers and analysts via the millintelligencehelp@fastmarkets.com directly from the Analyti

How to Set General Preferences

Published October 15th, 2025 by heide matussek

Click on “Asset Preferences” in the upper-right hand corner of the page and follow the prompts to set the application defaults for currency and units of measurement.

What is Fastmarkets Mill Intelligence ?

Published October 23rd, 2025 by heide matussek

What is Fastmarkets' Mill Intelligence ? Fastmarkets’ cost analysis and mill intelligence provide insight into mill operations, cost, profitability and competitive standing for 4,500 assets in the global forest products industry. Our data and analysis cover all major mills producing pulp, paper, packaging paper, tissue and wood products. Fastmarkets

Exporting Data and Graphs

Published February 11th, 2026 by heide matussek

Exporting Data and Graphs in Analytical Cornerstone Analytical Cornerstone provides two types of exports: Data Export and Graph Export. Each export type generates a file based on what you are currently viewing in the application. 1. Export Data (Excel) The Data Table export creates a Microsoft Excel (.xls) file containing all data visible in the t

Custom Markets - Emission

Published February 19th, 2026 by heide matussek

Custom Markets - Emission The Emissions Report displays Fossil CO₂ emissions (Scope 1 and Scope 2) as well as Biogenic emissions. By default, the report opens in Data view, showing Fossil CO₂ emissions (Scope 1) per machine and by product, expressed in ton(ne)s per ton(ne) produced. Machines/mills are ordered from the lowest to the highest total emi

Custom Markets - Overview

Published February 19th, 2026 by heide matussek

Custom Market Report — Overview The Market Overview displays a regional Google Map showing the geographic location of all mills included in the selected Custom Market. The map can be exported to PDF, Word, and PowerPoint. As with any Google Map, you can view it in full‑screen mode, zoom in and out, switch between Map and Satellite views, and access

Analytical Cornerstone Homepage

Published November 27th, 2025 by heide matussek

Analytical Cornerstone Homepage The Analytical Cornerstone home page conveys important announcements, a summary of your subscription, market snapshots and latest changes, as well as a quick access to your recently viewed markets and mills.

Mills section in Analytical Cornerstone

Published November 27th, 2025 by heide matussek

Mills section in Analytical Cornerstone The Mills homepage offers quick access to the mills search, saved mills, recently viewed mills and created mills. The Mills section provides detailed data for every mill in Cornerstone, with details on paper machines/pulp dryers*, products/grades produced* as well as all of the following reports (see dropdowns

Custom Markets - Labor Productivity

Published March 5th, 2026 by heide matussek

Custom Markets - Labor Productivity The Labor Productivity report displays labor productivity data for all machines included in the selected custom market. The report provides a graph and a table view of labor productivity showing the man‑hours per FMT or FST, which demonstrates the labor hours required per unit of production for each machine or mil

How to Search Mill Projects

Published October 16th, 2025 by heide matussek

Click the Projects tab to find capital investment and mill closures for pulp and paper mills as well as wood, timber and bioenergy plants. Choose the search criteria by clicking on the + in the Region and Grade/Product boxes. You can also click on the large + to select additional filters: Project type: e.g. for New, Rebuild or Closures Project area

Custom Markets - Costs

Published February 12th, 2026 by heide matussek

Custom Markets - Costs The Custom Market Report includes four Analytical Cornerstone cost reports, all of which share the same interactive graphing functionality. These graph-based reports allow users to analyze cost competitiveness and compare mills within the selected market. The following cost curve graphs are available: Cash Cost Curve: Displays

How do I create an Index in the Index Builder?

Published October 28th, 2025 by heide matussek

How do I create an Index in the Index Builder? There are several ways to create an Index with your desired options: 1. Select from the library of index templates Specific to packaging type, material used, and other indicators. Benchmark portion (%) of package price corresponding to material based on external research. 2. Build an index from scratch

What are the machine benchmarks?

Published August 4th, 2025 by heide matussek

What are the machine benchmarks? Quartiles in Cost Benchmarking When viewing cost curves in Cost Benchmarking (both Basic and full Analytical Cornerstone), mills or machines are positioned along the curve and grouped into quartiles based on their cost competitiveness and their share of total market capacity. How quartiles are defined The total capac

How to Save a Market

Published January 28th, 2026 by heide matussek

How to Save a Market The saved markets screen allows you to view, delete, duplicate and share saved markets. List Options: Sort — To change the sorting of the list, select the value from the select box above the list. The sort options are: market name most recently viewed most recently created most recently modified creator View a Saved Market Yo

What does the Mill level Profitability Report show?

Published September 2nd, 2025 by heide matussek

What does the Mill level Profitability Report show? The numbers on the Profitability Report per mill are all estimates by Fastmarkets RISI, mainly based on publicly available information. The Profitability Report simulates a standard format income statement by combining regional product price with company, mill and country specific inputs. The prof

Scenario Manager

Published January 29th, 2026 by heide matussek

Scenario Manager The Scenario Manager allows you to adjust Fastmarkets RISI data to evaluate how those changes would affect a mill’s competitiveness within a market. For example, you can model the impact of changing exchange rates on a specific mill or on all mills within a region. Analytical Cornerstone offers two types of scenario adjustments: 1.

How to highlight and label mills or companies

Published January 8th, 2026 by heide matussek

How to highlight and label mills or companies Highlighting and labeling allow you to visually distinguish specific mills, machines, companies, or saved groups within cost curves and other market reports. This makes it easier to scan charts, compare positions, and quickly locate assets of interest. Note: Highlighting is supported on all Market Report

How can I compare the cost at two specific points in time?

Published August 27th, 2025 by heide matussek

How can I compare the cost at two specific points in time? Analytical Cornerstone allows users to compare two quarters at a time—at both the Market level and Mill level. You may choose any two quarters from any years. This feature is especially useful when analyzing cost trends, margin pressure, or operational changes over time. How to Compare Dates

How to Search Company Profiles

Published October 15th, 2025 by heide matussek

Click the “Companies” tab. Then click the “+” to expand the Top Companies list or click on Top 25 Companies or All Top Companies. You can click on any company name in the list to view its profile. You can also search by company name, grade and region by clicking the “+” next to Region or Grade/Product to select your search criteria. Then click the “

Custom Markets - Mill List

Published February 19th, 2026 by heide matussek

Custom Markets - Mill List The Mill List displays all mills included in a Custom Market. Status Active — Mills currently in operation. Inactive — Mills that have closed. These may still appear in cost reports when viewing a historical date during which they were operational. Active* — Mills that have changed grade. This indicates either: the mill ha

Saved Mill Groups: compare multiple specific mills

Published January 28th, 2026 by heide matussek

Saved Mill Groups: compare multiple specific mills Saved Mill Groups allow users to combine any selection of mills into a single group for easier analysis. These groups can be used in multiple ways. For example, you may create a Saved Mill Group to analyze several mills for an acquisition assessment. Their primary purpose is to highlight a specific

How to Export Mill Data

Published October 16th, 2025 by heide matussek

To export data for your search results, click on the export button. You will be asked if you want to download only the information on the current page (CURRENT DATA VIEW) or if you want to download ALL of the data associated with your search. When download ENTIRE DATA REPORT is selected, the text appears, informing that a link to an export file will

How to create a Custom Market

Published December 2nd, 2025 by heide matussek

How to create a Custom Market Creating a Custom Market The Custom Market homepage offers quick access to the market search, Saved Markets, or Saved Mill Groups. To define a custom market, set the filter values for the market. You can use any combination of the 12 filter categories to build your market. To define the region or grade/product, click

How to Email Feedback or Questions to Fastmarkets' engineers and analysts

Published October 21st, 2025 by heide matussek

How to Email Feedback or Questions to Fastmarkets' engineers and analysts If you have a question or would like to submit feedback about the data or tools available in the Asset Database, you can contact Fastmarkets RISI's engineers and analysts directly from the Asset Database using the “Email us Feedback” button located at the upper-right hand corn

How to save Mill Groups/Projects Groups/Companies Groups

Published October 21st, 2025 by heide matussek

How to save Mill Groups/Projects Groups/Companies Groups To save a mill group, first set your filters and click “View Search”. Then hit "Save Search" and enter a name for a new Saved Search group or choose an existing name from the list if you have existing saved searches, then lick “Save”. The same method can be used to save groups for projects an