May Poll
New housing starts have not lived up to expectations so far this year. Will they rebound in 2H2019?
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Results From April's Poll
What is your outlook for the global printing/writing papers market over the next year?
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SYP Lumber Prices Stall, then Spike in Late April
By John Greene
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After three weeks of flat performance throughout most of April, southern yellow pine (SYP) lumber prices surged late in the month. As winter finally gives way to some warmer temperatures and the building season kicks off in earnest, lumber prices have displayed less volatility when compared to 2018.
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New Study Quantifies the Economic Impact of Private, Working Forests in the US
By Forest2Market
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Forest2Market has completed a new study commissioned by the National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) that analyzes the economic impact of private, working forests on the US economy. The study and resulting published report, titled The Economic Impact of Privately-Owned Forests in the 32 Major Forested States, quantifies the contribution that forestry-related industries make to state, regional and national economies, and analyzes the most forested regions of the country based on the most recent year of data available, which is 2016.
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Monitoring Timber Prices and Inventories in the Lake States
By Pete Coutu
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Wood fiber prices have been extremely flat in the Lake States region over the last two years despite an economy that has been growing at a strong pace. The same dynamic can be seen in the US South, though the price drivers and the supply/demand dynamics are different. What’s keeping prices in the Lake States so consistent?
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Supply Chain Price Differences Affecting the North America Pulp and Paper Industry
By John Greene
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Over the last two decades, several trends have driven customer preferences and changes in demand for forest and paper products. As a result of these changes, demand for one of the forest industry’s seminal products—printing and writing papers—continues to decline rapidly; over the last decade, production of printing and writing papers has declined by 6% annually.
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Regional Differences Pose Profitability Challenges for North American Sawmills
By Joe Clark
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Beginning in 4Q2017, prices for domestic and export Douglas fir logs in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) rose steadily before they spiked in 2Q2018 to record levels. The phenomenon occurred when North American lumber prices also surged to record highs. While regional lumber producers in the PNW couldn’t fully capitalize on high lumber prices due to their equally high log costs at the time, producers in the US South were perfectly positioned to take advantage of the market and maximize profits.
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Identifying Opportunities for Improving Lumber Recovery
By Bryan Beck
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When it comes to lumber recovery and comparing performance between individual sawmills, the most important factor is log size. As the chart below illustrates, log size (average bucked log, small-end diameter) and lumber recovery (tons of logs used to produce a thousand board feet of lumber) are strongly correlated, with yield generally improving as log diameter increases.
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Carolinas Stumpage Market: Identifying Imbalances After Hurricane Florence
By Mike Powell
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On September 14, 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall on the North Carolina coast before idling in place for days. As it moved westward across the state at only 2-3 MPH, the sluggish storm saturated the Carolinas with an average 17.5” of rainfall—and close to 36” in some areas. Even in the aftermath of Florence, steady and heavy rainfall continued to batter the region through the fall and into the winter of 2019.
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Biomass101 Refutes Anti-Forestry Extremists with Facts, Science
By Forest2Market
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An opinion piece authored by The Dogwood Alliance and published by The Hill on March 21 relied on this tired tactic, as Dogwood made yet another attempt to change the global conversation about working forests based solely on fear. To rebut the misinformation, Biomass101 has compiled an excellent “redlined” refutation with actual evidence and science.
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Forest Service Publishes Update Detailing the State of America’s Forests
By John Greene
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Stakeholders in the US forest supply chain must maintain a solid understanding of the general health, conditions and trends affecting America’s vast forest resources. Gathering this data is a tremendous undertaking on the part of the USDA’s US Forest Service (USFS), who works to compile the official statistics for all public and private forestlands throughout the country. The USFS then shares this knowledge by publishing the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, which is an invaluable tool used to inform policy, management and operational decisions throughout the US forest value chain.
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US Forest Industry Performance: March 2019
By Joe Clark
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Total industrial production (IP) edged up by 0.1 percent in February (+3.5 percent YoY) after decreasing 0.4 percent in January (originally -0.6 percent). Manufacturing production fell 0.4 percent in February for its second consecutive monthly decline; data for January was revised to -0.5 percent, from the original -0.9 percent. The index for utilities rose 3.7 percent in February, while mining moved up 0.3 percent.
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US Housing Starts Disappoint in March
By John Greene
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US housing starts fell unexpectedly in March, coming off a poor performance in February when single-family builds dropped to an 18-month low. Despite lower mortgage rates, higher wage growth and other economic indicators holding steady, there hasn’t been enough buyer activity to ignite a new wave of housing starts activity in recent months.
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