Suzano S.A. (Suzano) operates as a vertically integrated producer of pulp and paper in Latin America.
The company operates mainly in the pulp (paper grade and fluff) and paper (paperboard, printing and writing, and tissue) segments. As other Brazilian eucalyptus pulp producers, the company has one of the lowest costs of pulp production in the world.
The company’s structure includes administrative offices in Salvador and São Paulo, two integrated pulp and paper production facilities in the stat...
Suzano S.A. (Suzano) operates as a vertically integrated producer of pulp and paper in Latin America.
The company operates mainly in the pulp (paper grade and fluff) and paper (paperboard, printing and writing, and tissue) segments. As other Brazilian eucalyptus pulp producers, the company has one of the lowest costs of pulp production in the world.
The company’s structure includes administrative offices in Salvador and São Paulo, two integrated pulp and paper production facilities in the state of São Paulo (Suzano and Limeira units), a non-integrated paper production facility in the state of São Paulo (Rio Verde unit), an integrated pulp, paper and tissue facility in the state of Bahia (Mucuri unit), an integrated pulp and tissue facility in the state of Maranhão (Imperatriz unit), two paper facilities in the states of Pará and Ceará (Facepa), and FuturaGene, a biotechnology research and development unit. The company also owns pulp production facilities in the state of Espírito Santo (Aracruz unit), in the state of São Paulo state (Jacareí Unit), two units in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (Três Lagoas unit and Ribas do Rio Pardo unit) and 50% equity participation in Veracel together with Stora Enso, an industrial unit located in Eunápolis (in the state of Bahia).
After the company completed the acquisition of Kimberly-Clark's Tissue business, its structure also includes a tissue facility in the state of São Paulo (Mogi das Cruzes unit).
In October 2024, the company completed the acquisition of an integrated paper production mill in Pine Bluff and an extrusion and conversion facility in Waynesville, in the U.S. Both assets were previously owned by Pactic Evergreen.
The company owns one of the largest distribution structures for paper and graphic products in South America, maintains an office in China, and has subsidiaries in the United States, Switzerland, Argentina, and Austria.
The company's eucalyptus pulp production satisfies 100% of the company's requirements for paper production, and the company sells the remaining production as market pulp. As of December 31, 2024, the company's total eucalyptus pulp installed capacity was 14.4 million tons per year.
The company’s Limeira, Suzano, Rio Verde and Jacareí mills are located near the city of São Paulo, the largest consumer market in Brazil. These mills are located approximately 150 km from the port of Santos, an important export hub. They can supply both domestic and international markets in a competitive manner.
The company’s Mucuri and Aracruz units are focused primarily on export markets. Mucuri is located approximately 250 km from Portocel, a port specialized in exporting pulp located in the state of Espírito Santo, in which Suzano holds a 51% stake, while Aracruz is located only three km from Portocel.
The Imperatriz unit, in Maranhão, is also focused primarily on export markets. Its gateway for the external market is the Port of Itaqui, 600 km far from Imperatriz. Exports are carried from the company’s mill to the ports by train, which allows for very competitive transportation costs.
The Três Lagoas and Ribas do Rio Pardo unit, in Mato Grosso do Sul, are both focused on export markets, and most of its volume is transported by train to the Port of Santos, where all exporting volumes are shipped. The relatively short distances between the company’s planted forests, its mills and most of its Brazilian customers or export facilities provide the company with relatively low transportation costs.
Pulp and Paper
The company manufactures a diverse range of eucalyptus pulp and paper products, including pulp utilized in the company's paper production processes and market pulp. The company's sales encompass both domestic market and international. The company's product portfolio includes coated and uncoated printing and writing paper, paperboard, tissue paper, market pulp, and fluff pulp. Specifically, within the printing and writing paper category, the company offers various sizes and shapes, including cut paper for general purposes (cut-size), folio size, and reels. The company's sales are not concentrated in any specific customer, in either the Brazilian or the export markets. As of December 31, 2024, one of the company's customers was responsible for 9.8% of the net sales of pulp segment.
Pulp and Paper Production Process
The company's production process comprises the three main stages: (i) planting and harvesting forests; (ii) pulp manufacturing; and (iii) paper manufacturing. Consistent with the company's strategy of conducting its business in accordance with the highest environmental standards, the company uses plantation and harvesting techniques that are environmentally friendly and sustainable, such as minimum-impact cultivation and soil preparation techniques that avoid erosion, maintain soil fertility along generations and promote high levels of efficiency and productivity.
Planting and Harvesting Forests
The development of the company's planted forests starts in its nurseries, where the company uses the most modern cloning technology available, and in third-party nurseries that use the company's genetic materials. The saplings the company produces in its nurseries are a variety of eucalyptus that increases the production of pulp and are well suited for the climate and other geographic aspects of the micro-regions in which they will be planted. A harvester is used to cut, de-limb and de-bark the trees, and to cut them into logs. Part of the bark and leaves of the harvested trees is left in the planted forests. A forwarder carries the logs to the edge of the planting area, where a loader loads the logs onto a truck for transportation to the mill.
The management of the company’s forests is the base that sustains its business, based on the planting and management of renewable forests, targeting of a competitive supply of wood through long-term planning and development and application of genetic improvements. As of December 31, 2024, the company owned or leased approximately 3.2 million hectares of land, of which approximately 1.7 million hectares were used for eucalyptus cultivation and 1.2 million for forestry reserves, ensuring compliance with Brazilian law that determines the percentage of area required for legal and permanent preservation reserves, located mainly along the rivers. Remaining 0.2 million hectares are related to other uses, such as roads. The company’s production units are in compliance with or exceed environmental standards – both Brazilian and international – for the production of pulp and paper.
Given the high degree of integration between the production of pulp and paper, the company has a low conversion cost of pulp to paper.
Pulp Manufacturing
The pulp manufacturing process takes place in two stages:
The Kraft Cooking Process: The logs received in the company’s pulp mills are first de-barked, if not already de-barked in the field, and chipped in small pieces. The wood chips are screened by size and then transferred with conveyors to the impregnation stage followed by a pressurization and feeding system to the digester where they are cooked with sodium sulfide and caustic soda. This kraft cooking process is known for minimizing damage to the pulp fibers and allows the recovery of chemicals, thereby preserving high uniformity and strength of the fibers for subsequent paper production or other uses. During the cooking process, the cellulose fibers are separated from lignin and other extractive to produce unbleached pulp fibers. The unbleached pulp is then screened, washed and submitted to a pre-bleaching stage where oxygen delignification takes place. The combination of Kraft cooking and pre-bleaching removes approximately 95% of the lignin. At this stage, the pulp can already be used for specific paperboard applications, such as in one of the paper machines at the Suzano mill. Although not the company’s main product, unbleached pulp grades can be commercialized or used in specialty packaging papers or boards. The lignin and other by-products of the Kraft process form a substance known as black liquor, which is separated and pumped to evaporators to increase its solids concentration. Thereafter, the concentrated black liquor is burned in recovery boilers, where it serves as the primary fuel for generating steam and electricity to power the entire production process. Also, approximately 99.0% of the chemicals used in the kraft cooking process are recovered and reused within a closed-loop chemical recovery system, with only minimal makeup chemicals needed to compensate for losses.
Bleaching: To produce bleached pulp, the unbleached pulp is submitted to a chemical bleaching process. The bleaching process promotes further selective delignification and increases brightness of the fibers. This process consists of a series of medium-consistency bleaching stages in towers. In each bleaching tower a different mixture of bleaching agents is applied and after each stage, the pulp is washed. Three or four bleaching stages are required to obtain a fully bleached pulp. The company’s modern and low environmental impact bleaching processes are either elemental chlorine free (ECF) or total chlorine free (TCF). The bleaching process is designed to be harmless and may incorporate chlorine dioxide, sulfuric acid, caustic soda and hydrogen peroxide, without the use of elemental chlorine. At the end of the bleaching stages, the diluted bleached pulp, in its fluid state, is pumped to storage towers. Thereafter, the bleached pulp may be transferred directly to integrated operations in its own paper production or tissue paper facilities. The company produces paper in the Mucuri, Suzano and Limeira mills; and also supplies slushed pulp to integrated paper producing customers in Jacareí (Ahlstrom) and Três Lagoas (Sylvamo Corporation). The company’s tissue paper production takes place in the Mucuri and Imperatriz mills. The majority of bleached pulp is, however, sold as raw material after being dried in high-capacity drying machines and converted into bales. In the Suzano mill, the company is also producing dried pulp in rolls for fluff applications.
Paper and Tissue Paper Manufacturing
The company produces (i) uncoated woodfree printing and writing paper at its Mucuri unit, Limeira unit, Suzano unit and Rio Verde unit; (ii) coated woodfree printing and writing paper at its Suzano unit and Limeira unit; (iii) paperboard at its Suzano unit and at the company’s recently acquired Pine Bluff unit, in the U.S., and (iv) tissue papers at Mucuri, Maracanau, Cachoeiro do Itapemirim, Imperatriz, Mogi das Cruzes and Belem. The company starts the paper production process by sending the pulp to refiners, which increases the fibers’ resistance. The pulp slurry is then fed into the paper mill, where it is mixed with fillers and additives to provide the necessary properties required by paper grade and the end users. These additives include synthetic sizing, precipitated calcium carbonate, optical dyes, and others. During the paper and paperboard production, the sheet is formed, pressed and dried in a continuous process. At the end of the process, jumbo rolls are obtained and then converted into reels, folio sheets or cut-size paper. In the case of coated paper, the paper receives additional surface treatments with coating and additional drying before converting to reels or sized papers. Tissue papers are produced in dedicated tissue machines. Different from other paper machines, the tissue ones seek for other characteristics like softness, bulk and absorption. Tissue paper production requires very little additives and mechanical preparation of the fibers (refining) in special parameters, normally low intensity. Tissue papers are produced in dedicated tissue machines, different from other paper machines and seek for other characteristics like softness, volume and absorbance. Tissue paper production requires very little additives and mechanical preparation of the fibers (refining). The produced tissue paper mother rolls can be converted on site, converted in dedicated conversion units or sold.
Computerized systems control or monitor all process stages. The marketing, sales and production, personnel work close together to manage the programming and control of the company’s paper production process. In this manner, the company is able to plan, optimize, and customize different product runs; and to anticipate, respond and adapt to seasonal variations and customer preferences.
Pulp and Paper Production Schedule
The company’s integrated pulp and paper mills operate three shifts, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, with the exception of scheduled maintenance periods. The dates of these maintenance periods are flexible and may be moved as a result of factors such as production, market conditions and supply of materials. The company keeps an inventory of certain spare parts that it considers critical to the production process or that are difficult to replace. The company has also developed a close relationship with its suppliers to ensure access to spare parts.
Pulp Customers
In 2024, most of the company's sales were made under contracts to customers with whom the company has a long-term relationship in the Brazilian and export markets. Most of the company's customers are tissue, printing and writing and specialty paper producers that value the high-quality pulp produced and the reliability of supply provided by the company. The majority of deliveries to final customers during last year were made from the company's overseas terminals in the United States, Europe, - and direct shipments to Asia.
The company has a diversified customer base for its pulp products. The company's customers generally purchase their products using credit provided by the company.
Paper Sales
The company sells its paper products in Brazil and abroad. The markets the company seeks to serve are large and very competitive. This preference is shared among customers of all segments, from producers of notebooks and non-promotional materials to more sophisticated customers, such as producers of promotional materials, high-quality packaging and art books.
Paper Customers
The company’s customers generally purchase its products using commercial credit provided by the company. The company has a diversified customer base for its paper products.
Marketing and Distribution
The company has its own sales teams for its pulp and paper business units, which sell the company’s products in both the Brazilian and international markets, to final consumer or distribution intermediaries. The company sells its products in both the Brazilian and export markets. In the year ended December 31, 2024, 79,8% of the company’s net sales from market pulp and paper products was attributable to sales made outside of Brazil. Domestically in Brazil, the company has a sales staff consisting of employees operating in various regions of Brazil.
Pulp
The company's pulp business unit's commercial strategy is based on three pillars: strong relationships, long-term partnerships and differentiated services. To ensure proximity with the company's national and international customers and to ensure that the company's products are tailored to their needs, the company uses a Brazilian sales team, which services Latin America, and local sales teams in the United States, Austria, China and Singapore. In Brazil and in each of the company's international offices, the company has technical assistance departments that focus on its customers' needs, with the purpose of providing the company's customers with smart technical solutions for their transition from other types of fiber to eucalyptus fiber. The company organizes annual technical workshops, in Brazil and in each of the countries where the company operates, to share with the company's customers and international offices the company's innovative initiatives, technical developments and market strategy.
Paper
In 2024, 74.2% of the company’s paper net sales were made to the Brazilian market. In order to better serve this market, it has divided it into five categories, designing different commercial and marketing strategies for each segment:
Packaging: This is the main end use of the company’s paperboard sales and involves production of packaging for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, toys, clothing, shoes, food, beverage, hygiene, and cleaning industries. The company also serves liquid packaging and food service segments of paperboard, through its Pine Bluff mill in the U.S.
Advertising and Catalogs: This segment mainly involves coated paper sales and production of promotional flyers, catalogues, displays and signs;
Books: This segment accounts for the production of books, educational textbooks, magazines and newspapers and involves the sale of all of the paper types that the company produces (coated, uncoated and paperboard);
Notebooks: This segment involves the production of notebooks and diaries in both the local and export markets, and uses uncoated paper and paperboard;
Copy Paper: This segment encompass office end uses and retail channel, which involves the commercialization of uncoated paper in cut-size format (e.g., letter and A4 sizes) in stationery stores and self-service businesses.
To serve the first four categories listed above, the company uses various distribution channels: the company directly sells large paper volumes to publishers and converters, and sells small paper volumes both indirectly through publishing distributors and directly through its sales team spread across Brazil. In the copy paper segment, the company sells indirectly through paper distributors and directly through its call center, e-commerce, or commercial team for customers with large volumes.
The company owns distributors for its paper and graphic products, one in Brazil, one in Argentina, Stenfar S.A.I.C. Importadora y Exportadora and (Stenfar), and one in Ecuador, Suzano Ecuador. For Brazilian distribution, the company relies on four regional distribution centers: one in São Paulo, one in Serra (Espírito Santo) and one in São Jose dos Pinhais (Paraná), as well as its local distribution centers, in the cities of Campinas and Ribeirão Preto (state of São Paulo), Belem (state of Pará), Brasília (federal district), Campo Grande (state of Mato Grosso do Sul), Cuiabá (State of Mato Grosso), Londrina (state of Paraná), Fortaleza (State of Ceará), Goiânia (State of Goiás), Manaus (State of Amazonas), Porto Alegre (State of Rio Grande do Sul), Recife (state of Pernambuco), Rio de Janeiro (state of Rio de Janeiro), Salvador (state of Bahia), Uberlândia (state of Minas Gerais), Belo Horizonte (state of Minas Gerais), and a newly inaugurated local distribution center in Chapecó (State of Santa Catarina).
In October 2024, the company completed the acquisition of two new assets in the U.S. from Pactiv Evergreen, an integrated paperboard mill, in Pine Bluff, and an extrusion and conversion facility in Waynesville. These assets allow the company to distribute those products locally and export them to foreign markets from the U.S.
Other than distributing the company’s own line of paperboard and printing and writing paper, it also distributes other product lines to reach the graphics, editorial and consumer segments and to public agencies. In Argentina, Stenfar is a company-owned distributor of paper and computer supplies operating in Argentina, through which the company conducts such distribution operations. Stenfar has an important and active presence in the market, located in Buenos Aires. Stenfar services the graphics, editorial and consumer segments and public agencies, working with printing and writing paper, paperboard and computer supplies.
In Ecuador, Suzano Ecuador is a wholly-owned subsidiary that operates as a paper distributor. Through Suzano Ecuador, the company conducts its distribution operations in the country. Suzano Ecuador commenced its operations in 2023, and since then, it has been expanding its presence in the market.
In addition to providing a more comprehensive portfolio of services and products to the company’s customers, its distribution operations in Brazil, Stenfar's distribution operations in Argentina, and the establishment of Suzano Ecuador reflect its commitment to improving its distribution channels.
Alongside the company's own lines of paperboard and writing and printing paper, the company also distributes other complementary product lines not produced by the company, catering to the graphics, publishing, consumer, converter, and government entities segments.
Competition
The company faces substantial competition from numerous producers of paper and hardwood market pulp, including major Brazilian producers, such as Bracell, Eldorado, CMPC, and Celulose Nipo Brasileira S.A. (Cenibra).
Environmental Matters
The company’s industrial units are ISO 14001 certified, which attests to its environmental management system, except for Tissue mills (Belem, Maracanaú, Cachoeiro and Mogi Unit) and Suzano Packaging US. The company also has received other certifications, including ISO 9001 and ISO 45001.
The company’s forests units are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC -C010014) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC 28-32-63), including controlled sources. Both FSC and PEFC seals attests its responsible forest management.
The company’s environmental commitments are supported and monitored by relevant organizations and coalitions, such as the UN Global Compact, Climate, Forest and Agriculture Brazilian Coalition, the Alliance for the restoration of the Amazon and One Trillion Trees (1t.org), among others.
The company is committed to a zero-deforestation policy and adoption of best forest management practices, as defined by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
The company’s forestry activities are regulated by the Brazilian federal government and the state governments of the states of São Paulo, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Piauí, Tocantins and Maranhão.
History
The company was founded in 1924. It was incorporated in 1987. The company was formerly known as Suzano Papel e Celulose S.A. and changed its name to Suzano S.A. in 2019.
