San Francisco. Oct 22, 2004. /Forestweb/. Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. told its European customers yesterday that it would increase its hardwood pulp prices effective Nov. 1. The new prices will be $510/tonne for mixed northern bleached hardwood kraft (NBHK) pulp and $500/tonne for its mixed southern bleached hardwood kraft (SBHK) pulp. Compared to October levels, the new prices will generally be $40/tonne higher (and perhaps $50/tonne higher than some current Italian prices). At this time, Smurfit-Stone has not made softwood pulp price or U.S. price announcements. The company's announcements are the first known November price plans in Europe by a North American producer. Its hardwood pulp price announcements follow Nov. 1 announcements by several major bleached eucalyptus kraft (BEK) pulp producers, which would increase their prices to $520/tonne, generally up $30/tonne (in some cases, $40/tonne, sources say). Today, Swedish producer Södra Cell AB announced a Nov. 1 northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) price increase of $10/tonne, to $600/tonne, and it also followed the earlier BEK price announcements (see Forestweb, Oct. 21). Smurfit-Stone's capacity includes 220,000 tonne/year at its Pontiac mill in Portage du Fort, Que., and 300,000 tonnes/year from its mill in Panama City, Fla. The Panama City mill this year has been producing a little more than half softwood pulp; the rest is hardwood. The mix is flexible depending on market conditions. The Panama City mill has been building inventory in preparation for its annual outage on Nov. 2. The 900 tonnes/day mill lost about 5,000 tonnes of production as a result of Hurricane Ivan, when it was down for five days, a company executive said.