After a couple of years of speculation, Glatfelter finally announced this morning that it will add a new airlaid line in the U.S. While the airlaid giant was vague on location details—only saying that it was scouting potential locations in the Southeast U.S.—it did give firm capacity figures. The new line will add 22,000 short tons of airlaid capacity in response to a commitment from a major (unnamed) U.S. customer.

After facing some serious overcapacity issues in the early 2000's, the airlaid market started to tighten dramatically starting in 2010 as new application development outpaced capacity installations. Really, the industry—still skittish from the oversupply situation of 2001 when 100,000 tons of capacity came up in a blink of an eye—has not seen a signifcant investment in years. In North America, only McAirlaids has invested in the past decade, adding a relatively smaller 7000-ton line in 2010, while in Europe the most recent expansion was made by Glatfelter in 2010. Meanwhile, many companies have been in consolidation mode with Buckeye, Georgia-Pacific, Duni and even Glatfelter closing some of their smaller lines between 2004 and 2014.

Experts do say there is more capacity available today than there was two years ago but supply is still tight. Not only has this forced supply from Asia, it has slowed down product development in some cases. Hopefully Glatfelter's announcement today will reverse both trends. As part of this investment, the company will establish a North America Center of Excellence dedicated to the development of lightweight airlaid materials.

However, it will still be some time before the airlaid market gets the capacity it has been waiting for. Glatfelter's announcement today was just that—an announcement. It will take at least two years for the new line to be built and begin operation. During that time growth in airlaid will be dependent on the world's existing capacity. Hopefully this won't slow down development of new airlaid applications.