Where is all the optical brightener (OBA) going?

In March, after completing the merger with Weyerhauser, Domtar became the second largest producer of uncoated wood-free sheet (UFS) in the world with 4.3 million tons/yr of capacity. This is behind International Paper with 5.7 million tons/yr. Thousands of tons a year of optical brightener are used in UFS, making these two paper companies coveted customers for the big OBA producers such as Ciba, Kemira, Clariant and 3V Sigma.

Despite these paper chemical companies dominating the paper OBA market, there is increasing competition from quality, non-traditional manufacturers based in India, China and other emerging producing-countries.

The new Domtar is called Domtar Corp and all of its UFS capacity is in North America.