Timber sale contract questions

[Boll Weevil]

I'm hoping some of you might be willing to answer some questions related to logging from your point of view as a logger/timber buyer, landowner, or forester. Not exactly sure what part of the country ya'll are in and I know markets and negotiation practices vary widely but thought I'd get others views if you're open to it. I'm in SW TN, have a forester and work with just 2 sets of loggers: a 1 man outfit who's a horse logger for really small jobs like storm salvage and another crew that's fully mechanized for larger jobs.

Any given tract can obviously have lots of different products, species, and variability in value so how do you prefer to establish a contract on a stand of timber?  Bid, shares, shares by product, other? When you do shares by product what might it look like? As an example (% delivered price to landowner/logger):
Walnut veneer 70/30
White oak stave 60/40
White/red oak sawtimber 60/40
Misc hardwood 50/50
Pine sawtimber 50/50
Pine chip n saw agreed upon $/ton
Hardwood and pine pulp agreed upon $/ton

All feedback is welcomed and thanks for your consideration.

[timberking]

Per ton by product.  No scaling in this area anymore

[nativewolf]

I'm hoping some of you might be willing to answer some questions related to logging from your point of view as a logger/timber buyer, landowner, or forester. Not exactly sure what part of the country ya'll are in and I know markets and negotiation practices vary widely but thought I'd get others views if you're open to it. I'm in SW TN, have a forester and work with just 2 sets of loggers: a 1 man outfit who's a horse logger for really small jobs like storm salvage and another crew that's fully mechanized for larger jobs.

Any given tract can obviously have lots of different products, species, and variability in value so how do you prefer to establish a contract on a stand of timber?  Bid, shares, shares by product, other? When you do shares by product what might it look like? As an example (% delivered price to landowner/logger):
Walnut veneer 70/30
White oak stave 60/40
White/red oak sawtimber 60/40
Misc hardwood 50/50
Pine sawtimber 50/50
Pine chip n saw agreed upon $/ton
Hardwood and pine pulp agreed upon $/ton

All feedback is welcomed and thanks for your consideration.

Welcome Mr. Weevil.  Are you a mill owner or landowner?  Just wondering what your perspective is?  
We manage forest on long term contracts and perform the work ourselves, we keep it simple.  If the site has super walnut maybe 60/40 but if just average it will be less.  Same on logs.  We groom our sites, brush cut down to knee hight, sites replanted if required, etc.  We have not done pine.  We average 40/60 split on most properties.  Our key is to merchandize the heck out of our harvest so even though we are slow we deliver a return that exceeds that offered by guys waving a check.
I think in really competitive markets the rates you showed may not be out of the norm but overall they seem a bit low for a logger, I think a logger would be stuck in poverty at 60/40 for oak sawlogs much less stave.  Also you only address walnut veneer and there is a veneer log on a hickory if it is nice. If you want to chat about this interesting topic feel free to send me a PM with a phone #.

[mike_belben]

50/50 is hard enough to live on in avg wood.  I wouldnt suggest going lower unless its a fine stand.

Pulp is expensive to harvest in dollar per unit compared to sawlogs.. So a logger ought to make sure he gets a bigger slice to put it up.

[WDH]

Same as timberking,  By the ton per product.  In the Deep South where there are a lot of mills, wood is not sold on shares.  It is almost all sold by the ton since each load is weighed.  

[Boll Weevil]

Thank you all for the responses; very very much appreciated.  To answer nativewolf's question I'm a landowner but really trying to gain more perspective on the complete process.  As mentioned above, significant merchandising is done by the loggers I use to maximize revenue and every product that can be sold goes to a mill; that was one of the reasons I selected them.  About the only market we don't have in my area is pellets or tree chipping.

I've seen some timber harvests that remove nearly every merchantable product on a given site and others that I simply can't believe they left that much marketable wood.  There's some big mills in the region and they can singlehandedly shift local pricing and quotas/demand...big mill = big mouth to feed.  They're close and diesel remains pretty low so haul costs are low.