Sawmills outside of the areas affected by the hurricane Xynthia must not hope to get any supplies of storm-fallen timber. Also markdowns are not realistic. On the contrary, contracts closed after the storm are showing slight price increases.
Softwood lumber prices were up in both North America and Europe in the 4Q, but it was
more the result of lower inventory levels and reduced production rather than an increase
in demand, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly. The hot market for lumber last year
was China, which increased imports by 75% thereby passing Japan…
The January producer prices statistics reflects the price increase for packaging wood and sidings. Unlike for construction timber those assortments show a significant surcharge. Compared with December 2009 lumber prices fell. The recovery of prices for engineered wood products now also affected laminate floorings.
This report contains prices of logs, wooden beams, veneer, plywood, solid wood flooring and other items from timber markets in several Chinese regions: Jiashan Kaihua, Shanghai Furen...
A shot of activity hitting the framing lumber market Wednesday firmed up mill quotes, but producers struggled to bounce prices back to the levels at which they started the week...
The representatives of the forestry and of the wood industry have argued for steady log prices in the Southwest of Germany. During the periodical meeting of the forestry department of Baden-Württemberg on March 3rd at Böblingen analysts of both sides said that for more reliable planning the up and down of prices should stop.
Here IHB/Fordaq-subscribers can see a detailed analysis of the precious logs sold by tender at the german-french tender sale of Saarforst/Saarland (2/18/2010) sorted by wood species and buyers.
At the state-owned forestry operation Hesse-Forst the requests for storm-fallen timber volumes after the hurricane Xynthia are still running. Even though the highlands haven't been surveyed yet, the headquarters of the operation in Kassel expects, that 1.1 million cubic meters of softwood and 100.000 cubic meters of hardwood fell victim to Xynthia.
In its business year 2009 the state-owned forestry administration of Thuringia lumbered over one million cubic meters. This amount is significantly lower than in the years before the hurricane Kyrill, when the total cutting volume was at 1.4 million cubic meters.
