Bowater Shutdown

[mike_belben]

No, there is only one scale on the plateau and that is doyle. And yes it hurts.


To mudfarmer i dunno if this will answer youre question or not but ill try. In 2018 i called this mill and the spec was complicated enough and price low enough that i said no way i will bother wasting time to make pallet logs for that, and never did.  I got $19/T for HW pulp back then which wasnt worth it, so i will bet pallet was like $22ish and a lot more stringent than pulp spec -which can be done in paces by eyeball, no tape necessary.  As easy as making firewood logs.

I only recently called on pallet because stavebuyer mentioned it some time back and i know ties had climbed quite a bit.  

I guess the result of covid was a lot less logging across the board because all lowgrade sawyers have been fighting for enough to stay running. Tie logs "only" pay $450-550/mbf right now.  Pulp hit $65/ton. Pallet got to $60. 4SC stave WO went from 1600 to 2500 top grade.


One thing to consider is, much of that seemingly high price on the pallet logs might just be an illustration of how severely doyle scale penalizes small diameter. Was mostly 8 and 9" logs.  A pair of tens were the biggest.  11" is where i can start making ties.  If the whole load was 13" and up i bet the $/bf would be much lower because doyle scale will credit more recovery to the larger diameter.   Pallet mill owes me $197.50   Last week it woulda been $237.  If the tie mill would buy 8" logs hand scaled that load would only pay $155-160 but realistically a few woulda been rejected for not sound ends.

I have a small pile to send the tie mill when theres enough to make a trip that coulda gone for pallet for same money, just to feel like im doing my part to keep them running too.


Firewood is worse than ever. Still $50 a rick after the cost of life doubled, land prices doubled and tripled etc.  $100 dont go far in the deli meat, copper plumbing or wire aisle anymore

[SwampDonkey]

Four foot pulp was always scaled here, and NB rule was used. Bangor rule to sell to Maine. But it was never worth much, yet the wood was 100% usable, no rot allowed. With Doyle, they don't have to pay for 20% of the wood, even if the price was a bit more. Sounds like selling potatoes to McCain, the first 20% skimmed off the top. :D It wasn't until tree length came along they switched to tonnage. 8' or 100" wood was by the tonnage. Lots of folks hauled 4 foot on the back of pick ups if they lived close by. Back in the 60's 4 foot went by rail, you brought your farm truck into the siding and loaded it all by hand, every stick. And it had to have been peeled to. Dad said, cut'n, peel'n, loading onto the farm truck and then loading over onto the train was worth $20. A chainsaw chain was $20 to. That is why a lot of woodlot owners never sold much wood that way off their woodlots, no money. : Most wood cut'n here at the farm was firewood, then sawlogs. Then in the early 80's with large wood producers, contractors, the big clearcuts began with big equipment and most farmers sold stumpage and never hardly carried a saw anymore around here. My father was the only farmer in these parts that cut any amount of wood to sell, had a skidder. Dad's cousins, farmers to, next door, never put a chainsaw in their hands. They sold stumpage, and some wood they had was never paid for. I doubt they ever walked their own woods.

[moodnacreek]

Doyle for pulp or pallet just doesn't sound right. I guess thats why the price seems high.

[mike_belben]

Yes i agree doug it is mostly doyle scales hatred of small diameter making for the initial .  

Ive searched around and believe a 16" facecord of green wood to weigh about 15-1600 pounds.  If thats correct this pile woulda made about $140 AFTER cut and split and stack.  Was almost 200 just tossed on trailer with one delivery at my liesure instead of three.  So in that light pallet price is still excellent now.  I bet in a month thats over. 

[moodnacreek]

It seems funny that a small dia. buyer would use it [doyle] but it goes to show what I have tried to tell amateurs for years: the buyer controls the scale used and the price paid. So the only thing the scale does for you is allow you to get on the same page as the buyer, that is figure out what you should get before you deliver.                                                       I remember buying pine from a log yard in Sullivan co.   They sold on the scale they bought on. All the bent logs where pile scaled and overscaled as if they where straight logs.  I paid top dollar and they bought from locals, many like mike's neighbors and paid very little. That's how they could over scale and save time to look at better wood. I had to stop buying from them even though I really needed the pine.

[mike_belben]

In case i wasnt clear it was me who hand scaled the pallet logs that i sold by weight, just for my own conversion knowledge.  

I MIGHT take the time and spend the $ to weigh the next load of tie logs i sell so i can figure what that looks like and how it compares to firewood.  The only wood i cut is small.  

Every way i know of to sell logs in this region is doyle or tons.  Guy yesterday told me he buys cedar but on doyle instead of cedar scale and gets a lot of gruff about it. Claimed he pays higher than anyone, i didnt ask why he insists on doyle.


He also showed me the only processor head i have ever seen in tennessee.  On the ground, under a semi hood.  Said it works fine, "just doesnt work that good here."  


The brand new timbco 445 hot buncher and timberpro 840 suggests they can go CTL if they want to, and dont want to.
 

[SwampDonkey]

I remember when Deersdale mill closed. The lamenting that ensued. I said, didn't matter to me, they never paid enough for wood anyway. So wasn't a market I missed. :D

Besides, Irving never suffered, got a free handout from governor of Maine to move it over there to Ashland. Let them undercut those guys for while. ;D

[mike_belben]

Just cuz it didnt hurt you doesnt mean it didnt hurt someone else.

[stavebuyer]

Logs are a commodity. Anytime you lose a buyer it affects everyone in that market because demand just shrunk. That pesky law of supply and demand always sets the price.

[SwampDonkey]

Deersdale couldn't get the wood to keep it fed, so they were already loosing the pricing game.  Juniper lumber before it, just 10 miles away from Deersdale closed as they paid the most, and that killed them. But they had to, to get volume. Irving at the time was cutting their freehold for volume. Juniper had no wood left on freehold. Irving moved to their freehold (company ground) in Ashland. Mills around here have primary supply from public land and their freehold. Their isn't a big commercial mill here that isn't tied to a crown license. And you as a woodlot owner can not compete with crown or freehold wood, they can cut your throat. It's not a simple supply and demand scenario when you have government involved because it is less than an open market. I can't go cut wood off crown land and have government build my roads and pay for the management. You have to stop thinking things work the same as down there. :D :D

[stavebuyer]

Governments only create the illusion of setting a price. Subsidies/taxes/graft and theft from the "citizens" still figures into the real price equation even if Marketing Boards "negotiate" prices or Arab Sheiks set the pump price for gasoline at pennies on the dollar.

[SwampDonkey]

Governments don't set prices here, the mills do. Yes, this happens on crown land based on a formula and a survey of stumpage prices. Marketing boards have not negotiated contract prices for 25 years.

[SwampDonkey]

The price paid by those companies for trees taken from Crown land are based on the private market, in other words, on how much woodlot owners can fetch for their trees. Auditor General Kim Adair–MacPherson, had said only 20 to 30 per cent of the approximately 200 larger harvesting contractors respond to surveys on stumpage prices sent to them by the Commission. There is no enforcement, even though it is required by law. She also noted the province doesn't have a written definition for what constitutes fair market value for Crown stumpage, and that the province hasn't adjusted Crown timber rates, as required annually by law, since 2015.

[mike_belben]

So what youre saying is canadian markets are a monopolized mess ?  Or am i reading that wrong? 


We have pretty free markets here for a little while longer and its a sad day when another one bites the dust.  We get one step closer to the picture you have up there.   

[SwampDonkey]

Oligopoly as far as I can see. Heavily one sided. :D

[moodnacreek]

Free markets means nothing is guaranteed. Prices paid can go either way. You can survive , make more money than expected or loose your butt.  Only the strong survive sort of.  Many want the gov't to fix it so we all have the same but that just feeds the weak and in my opinion weakens the whole country.  The gov't might prop up a business that has made the wrong decisions so it can be competition to the ones who did it right. That is never right.  Another problem is that some people want more than others and will do what it takes to get it.  The less gov't the better.

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, less government is always better. Government creates false economies if left on their own would go away. And collusion is no good either. Both together and your chances are slim.

[kantuckid]

USA supposedly has anti-trust laws. They were loosened by a Potus (from California) years back as an appeasement to free markets and now beef market prices on both ends are being set by 3 mega meat packers.
 Timber, the SPF version at least, seems to be similar in box stores as it's soared top $1700 then back down then back up to $1000+?