Cost Benchmarking Basic
Mill Asset Database
Table of Contents
Cost Benchmarking Basic
Depending on your subscription level, an Upgrade option may appear on the second tab of the Mill Asset Database. To obtain full access, please contact your Fastmarkets account manager.
You can view cash cost and/or capacity data per mill for the grades (product level) included in your subscription.
Click the plus (+) icon next to Region to expand and select a region, country, sub‑region (if available), and state or province (for the US, Canada, and China).
Under Grade/Product, click the plus (+) icon and select the market pulp or paper grade of interest. For additional guidance on drilling down to the product level, refer to the Grade Nomenclature in the Asset Database Glossary.
The default result is the Graph showing Cash Cost Curve, that displays mills ranked by cash (operating) cost, showing relative cost competitiveness.
At the top of each cost curve or cost report, several settings are shown and/or can be adjusted to customize the analysis:
Cost Date: Indicates the quarter and year for which the cost data applies. The cost dates determine the dates for the cost values for all of the machines/mills in the report. Costs are updated quarterly, typically about two full months after the end of the quarter. Note that the Cost Benchmarking Basic does not allow to change to previous quarters - this option is available in Fastmarkets RISI's Analytical Cornerstone detailed cost benchmarking tool.
Currency: Displays the user’s preferred default currency (as set in Preferences). This can be changed directly within the graph/report.
Units: Shows the default unit of measure (from Preferences) used in the report. This can be changed as needed.
Cash Cost Curve - Graph
The Cash Cost Curve report shows the cash cost breakdown for all mills included in the selected Custom Market.
The X‑axis represents the capacity of the market (e.g., 7.41 million short tons in the example below).
The Y‑axis represents the cost per ton(ne) produced.
Each bar on the chart represents a paper machine (or a pulp dryer if a market pulp grade is selected):
- The width of the bar corresponds to the Mill's capacity per product.
- The height represents the cost per ton(ne) produced of each product at each mill.
This visualization allows users to see how mills rank from lowest to highest cost, and to quickly identify cost‑competitive or less competitive assets.
Each bar represents a grade or product at a mill in the selected market, unless an alternative sorting option is applied. Selecting a bar reveals the mill name above the chart, while the company name, mill name, and grade/product are shown below. The cash cost per ton(ne) appears under Consumable Costs, with the accompanying percentage indicating the variance versus the Average Market (weighted average mill).
Note: With a Fastmarkets RISI Short‑Term subscription, cash costs are displayed as a single aggregated value (cash cost per ton(ne) produced), as per the image above. In contrast, a Long‑Term subscription provides a detailed breakdown by major cost category, as outlined below:
Sort By, Group by and Indicate By
Several options to Sort by, Group by and Indicate by are available, enabling users to view and analyze the data from different perspectives. They can be combined as needed. Some options are easier to read in the Data version of the Cash Cost Curve, that does not contain any headers or titles (except for the mills that can be labelled). Changed settings in Sort By or Group By remain active when moving between Data and Graph, however it does not change affect the Trend function.
The Sort By function allows users to organize mills based on different cost categories. You can sort the list in either ascending (lowest to highest cost) or descending (highest to lowest cost) order, depending on your preference. Selecting Cash Cost will take you back to the default sorting.
The Group By function allows users to organize machines and mills according to different dimensions. This helps tailor the view depending on the scope of the market being analyzed. You can group the data by:
- Mill – when several products are included in the market.
- Company – when multiple mills, machines, and products are included.
- Grade – when several product grades are included.
- Product – when multiple products are included.
- World Region – when more than one world region is included.
- Region – when several countries or sub‑regions are included.
- Configuration – when several mill configuration types are included.
Each grouping displays the total capacity (per day and per year) for the selected category, in ascending order, alphabetically.
Selecting None will return you to the default, ungrouped view.
Indicate By is only available on the Cost Curve Graph. When using Indicate By, the colors and legend automatically adjust based on the selected item:
- Mill – The legend displays mill names.
- Company (default setting) – The legend shows company names.
- Grade – Shows different grades (when multiple grades are present in the market).
- Product – Shows different products (when several products are included).
- World Region – Shows all world regions/continents if applicable.
- Region - shows different countries or sub-regions if applicable.
- Configuration – Shows configuration types such as Integrated, Semi‑integrated, Recycled, etc.
To return to the original indication settings, click on Company.
Cash Cost Curve - Data
Clicking on Data will open the Data report. By default, the Cash Cost Curve Data report lists the mills in the same order as in the graph view—ranked from the lowest‑cost to the highest‑cost machine or mill. The Sort By and Group By functions allow different sorting or grouping as explained above.
For each asset, the report shows:
Capacity FST/D or FST/Y, FMT/D or FMT/Y: provides the mills production capacity per product/grade in both daily and annual terms, depending on the preferred Units.
Cash Cost: The last column shows the mill's total cash cost per unit of output, allowing users to compare cost competitiveness across all mills in the market.
Notes:
1. The full version of the Mill Asset Database would allow you to find more technical details as well as contact information on the pulp and paper mills.
2. Our Analytical Cornerstone cost benchmarking tool provides a more detailed cost estimate per machine and per product at each mill. It also allows to make historical comparison on cost as well as on capacity.
If you do not have access to these, please contact your Fastmarkets account manager.