Every day I get up and genuflect towards China. The ONLY reason my crew and I are working is to help fill the demand of China's expanding markets. http://naturalresourcereport.com/2011/06/u-s-housing-starts-5-of-chinas/
Interesting link Scott, thanks for posting.
There is at least one mill up here servicing China alone...pretty wild.
Thats good, Scott. This hasn't been a good year down here, either. Our season is off to a slow start due to weather. But I wonder about all this China stuff. How long do you think it will be before we see Chinese lumber at Lowes and Home Depot? At prices way below American, or even Canadian, lumber. We all know they can do it and we all know there probably isn't a damn thing we can do about it. Short term...the export market is a good thing. Long term...maybe not. I'd sure hate to see our mills go broke because of cheap imports. And I'd sure hate to see the next logging contract I sign have to be translated for me...because it's written in Chinese.
Numbers I'm hearing from here in Canada... 30% of BC's production went to China last year...mostly through Canfor and Westfraser. International Forest Products and some other smaller producers are also shipping large amounts to China. 30% of BC production is roughly 15% of Canadian lumber exports to the states or 5% of US lumber consumption. In Alberta large volumes are starting to head to China as well with a shift of wood products being accepted. Where most wood in the past was used for concrete forms now changes to building codes and higher demand for finishing means more structural 2x4 export and higher grade products. Still not a lot of news on plywood or OSB uses however. The change in export markets to China from the US has been in part a large reason for the recent increases in lumber prices the last 18 months as Canadian wood is no longer available to US consumers...less supply, more demand, higher prices. In terms of importing wood from China I am not aware of any wood exports from China currently as the land pressures there do not allow for large scale wood production in the settled areas...and rural areas are being taxed heavily with agricutlure demand. There are some smaller scale plantation operations going on but it is a fraction of what is being consumed currently but market even if 100% liquidated. To put it in perspective we have one forest fire going on right now that is larger than land holdings of the largest publicly traded Chinese plantation operator I know know of (571,000 ha of fire vs ~ 490,000 ha of plantation lands under SinoForest Corp. last I looked).
A large amount of our forest estate is either owned or managed by US based companies and a significant amount is exported to either China or India. Someone out there is making a lot of money out of the timber.
S&R in langley Cuts 100% for a Japanese buyer, nothing else. And they're a big mill. not a super mill, but big
A buddy of mine works there....if yer cutting cedar,you're printing money. Did you ever see the pic I posted on that other site of the old growth pocket i was in last year? buyers were in the landing claiming logs as the heli dropped them off Down in your neck of the woods.....
No?
It was pretty wild...in the valley behind Hemlock ski hill more or less.
Up near Chehalis then? Or in one of the watersheds round their bouts. There area a few rumored Valley's still.
pm'd
Ceder would be a nice alternative to spruce, pine and poplar. Guys like birch for the firewood market but tough to get alot of and is more of a byporduct than anything up here. I just hope 2x4 prices keep going up some so the smaller outfits can stick around
10 million homes to be built in 2011...!:notworthy http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2011-03/07/content_12130794.htm
Theres A rather LARGE timber exporting operation at the port of Oakland where they cross load from rail cars and stuff the bundles into regular sea cans. I personally figured it was going to japan after the tsunami but china also makes sense. its a pretty decent sized operation even by lumber yard standards
Well China's gone for a crap now what?
We are being told to expect more production in March, the Japan markets have been good. Scott S
I know a few people here iin NZ have fallen into that trap of putting all their eggs into one basket.. it's all good and well until the arse falls out of the Chinese market and they have nothing to fall back on.