CTL Market

[Plankton]

Are the mills down south upping price per mbdft when switching to ctl? to account for the more time it takes for the logger and what would seem to be a time saver for the mill versus whole tree.

 Up here in the northeast we make out fine production wise with slashers on the landing or ctl equiptment in the woods since hardly any mills I know of take tree length but it's a whole different scenario up here.

[Skeans1]

If you’re using a processor on the landing do you really need a bump? Time and speed should be the same or slightly faster since you sort/pile well processing plus you’ll have less waste to take back out in the brush for slash.

[kiko]

Y'all come on back! I am tired of working on skidders and rubber tired bunchers anyway.

[RT roosting]

Barbender - I hear what you are saying - a steady diet of junk is bad no matter what you are dealing with, and higher rates a lot of times aren't able to compensate for lack of production.

I just saw the one machine where you aren't paying labor, workers comp, you use less fuel, probably less maintenance cost, and the ability to cut a much wider variety of tracts and ground types and best of all no employees!    However I'm guessing price of one is in the $650k range and for just one piece of equipment that's tough to overcome.

I'm assuming your buddy cutting in GA was using traditional 2 machine setup?  Any ideas what kind of production he was getting? 
      

[barbender]

I get where you're coming from, RT. My buddy actually demoed a Ponsse Buffalo Dusl when he was in Georgia. He wasn't impressed with it as a harvester at all. As I said before, it still had the forwarder crane (way less lifting power, waaay less swing power), and then you have the long forwarder frame to contend with. He said you end up processing over the wheels all the time👎 I think they would work ok in small diameter wood, but they really are limited as a harvester. The Timberpro is it's own beast, they look completely capable as harvester. 
  I don't remember what kind of production they were getting down there. They speak tons and we speak cords, not to mention that the wood is way heavier down there😊

[Skeans1]

Barbender - I hear what you are saying - a steady diet of junk is bad no matter what you are dealing with, and higher rates a lot of times aren't able to compensate for lack of production.

I just saw the one machine where you aren't paying labor, workers comp, you use less fuel, probably less maintenance cost, and the ability to cut a much wider variety of tracts and ground types and best of all no employees!    However I'm guessing price of one is in the $650k range and for just one piece of equipment that's tough to overcome.

I'm assuming your buddy cutting in GA was using traditional 2 machine setup?  Any ideas what kind of production he was getting?
      

Most of the Timberpro machines will use more fuel or the same as the two machine setups. One thing to look at is you’ll be down production since you’re cutting for a while then yarding, in thinning we do about 3 loads a day so around 75 to 100 tons a day of logs and pulp now cut that in half plus loading time.

[RT roosting]

Thanks Skeans and Barbender, the dream is officially dead.  I would need the production to be in the 3-4 loads/day range to make work.  Our wood may be heavier so processing might be quicker to get to the tonnage, but I think it is still a stretch.  As you mentioned still have loading time to factor in, and unless you can somehow schedule trucks or have set out trailers there is going to be a lot of switching going on.  

[chevytaHOE5674]

Good buddy of mine has an 8wheel timberpro harvester with a logmax 7000 head on it. He has no trouble putting 70+ cord of wood on the ground every day using not much more fuel than the Ponsse and JD machines I ran did. His forwarder burns more fuel per hour than the "euro" machines but his can swing a lot more wood a lot faster as well. The crane will lift a house if needed.

My reason for wanting a good combo machine is I dont want an employee, no workers comp, no expensive insurance on the hired man and machine, one machine to move, etc. But everytime I get serious about it my wife smacks me back to my senses. Haha

[Skeans1]

@chevytaHOE5674 
Our newer 1270G is running around 3.5 an hour in fuel our old school TJ1210B has a Perkins 6 is about 2.5 an hour. I can’t say how much wood we could do in a clear cut being we don’t hardly do them, but doing the lengths we have to do out here 32’s 36’s it takes more time to produce then short logs. I get the big bonus on insurance and moving costs everything has to pay out to make worth while.
Is my math right he’s cutting roughly 150mbf a day?

[Skeans1]

Thanks Skeans and Barbender, the dream is officially dead.  I would need the production to be in the 3-4 loads/day range to make work.  Our wood may be heavier so processing might be quicker to get to the tonnage, but I think it is still a stretch.  As you mentioned still have loading time to factor in, and unless you can somehow schedule trucks or have set out trailers there is going to be a lot of switching going on.  

What we use for loading instead of a forwarder is a shovel/log loader to load the trucks the landings are smaller and the roads stay cleaner. What lengths are you guys running down there?

[RT roosting]

Yeah I thought about the possibility of a high hour cheap loader.  That way if it works drivers could load themselves, reducing down time of machine.  For pine we generally cut ply multiples 17' 25' etc... and sawmill lengths 10, 12, 14, 16, and multiples.  

We generally get about 50' of logs out of our pine and then 20 feet of pulp per stem.  I figured most of the cut lengths would be in the 16' to 25' range.    

[Claybraker]

What about smaller tracts, 10 acres or so. Leave a few TPA for a seed source for regeneration and aesthetic value. Operating at the margins is an easy way to go broke slowly, but figuring a way to profitably exploit an underserved market can be quite profitable, or so I've heard.

[snowstorm]

We've had a few discussions on the topic of Cut-to-Length machines and I thought I'd start a thread to discuss some of the trends.  

Just painting a picture:  Sort of three harvesting methods competing in the US.  Whole tree- Feller buncher, skidder, slasher/loader.  Shovel Logging- feller, excavator, processors, and CTL- processor & forwarder.  

• We've seen a giant contraction in the number of manufacturers of skidders, down to Tigercat and JohnDeere for the most part- which is odd because there are more feller buncher manufactures than skidder manufacturers.  I have heard that the total skidder sales volume was less than 1000 units in the US in 2018- despite a steady timber market.  If the global market is moving away from skidders I could see it being an every more niche market with support challenges and lack of innovation.  
• Shovel logging, started in PNW, is moving into the south instead of CTL and I find that interesting as well.  Shovel logging often still uses a processor on the landing so that is a real difference for some loggers-in the environmentally challenging coastal plain shovel logging may be a winner in large plantation clearcuts. Shovel logging obviously would not work in thinning, it's a clearcut process so something to watch if it gains more market share.  It would mean a bifurcation of harvesting teams, has this already happened in the PNW.  @Skeans1 and others might jump it
• Globally the CTL market seems to be booming; Ponsse sold 300 units in Russia alone last year.  That's a combination of Forwarders and Harvesters.  If Ponsse is selling that many than JD and Komatsu are likely very close.  That would put the Russian market at nearly 1000 units by itself.  Virtually no skidders being sold there anymore from what I hear.  

CTL tidbits in no particular order:

Another note on processors.  I hear that some mills in the south are now requiring that their loggers have processors on the landing which I think may hasten some change.  

Locally and very relevant to me: Tigercat dealer was unable to show me a forwarder in person, turns out there are 2 new tigercat forwarders in the US and one was made in 2018.  Seems to me that Tigercat is having trouble figuring out a market placement.  They have some great tracked harvester machines but boggie driven harvesters and forwarders seem to challenge them.  The manager in the local dealer was great, very responsive.  Just clear that CTL was not something they have experience or backing to support.

Komatsu, JD, Ponsse are the clear 123 in Europe and the NA markets, just depends on location to determine rank.  Even in Finland JD still gets a nice chunk of the market share (behind Ponsse) which I find interesting.  Here in NA Ponsse has a very strong resale value but is hampered by the lack of equipment financing (ask me how I know  ) and high initial prices. In the south things are different: JD and Komatsu have the financing but dealer support is still lacking they appear to do well in the PNW where dealers offer better support.  Ponsse mobile support teams might be an option for JD and Komatsu and give loggers the comfort to know they will not be stranded with millions of dollars in equipment in the field.  

1 of those tigercat forwarders was in bangor me last week for the show

[snowstorm]

along with the owner of tigercat

[nativewolf]

@snowstorm Yep I've taken a look at them, they looked ok.  The tigercat dealer in Virginia, a big dealer in tigercat skidders, loaders, harvesting machines has never sold one.  They did look around the US for ones for me to demo.  That's how I know they had 2 new ones for sale on dealer lots.  

Interesting thing though, in the Richmond VA logging expo Tigercat also came with a 1075.  I am beginning to think it is a demo machine  .  

When the dealer manager says..."well maybe a Tigercat forwarder in VA is not the most logical thing"....you have an issue. 

In other news Ponsse US market share is now at 53%.  Komatsu has been paying most of that market share loss and Ponsse has been the beneficiary.  

[Skeans1]

@nativewolf 
Did they say how much of that is just from one operator?

[makeri_drvr]

We tried CTL in the 80's in VA. Thinning pine cutting 8ft post. There is no incentive for mills to subsidize the higher cost lower production of CTL. Most are set up for tree length now. Mills don't care about stand improvement because very few own any timberland anymore. The heavy underbrush in the South is hard on processors. A traditional sawhead is just tougher. I also found the short steep ground gave the forwarder a problem. Now I was using Iron Mules and a Lokomo Makeri that were small machines nothing like the stuff available now. But after owning it and trying to make it work and working on a high production conventional crew I wouldn't try CTL again. 

[nativewolf]

@makeri_drvr  Welcome to the forum.  Sounds like you may know @wudman.  In the most productive pine plantation area  (coastal GA) in the US they are changing from whole tree to CTL, so either a CTL operation or a processor on landing.  Plusses and minuses 

[mike_belben]

Theres nothing wrong with a buncher and knuckleboom.  

The economics will not change much until a government entity forces them to change.  There are too many sawmills for any one to dictate the whole market, atleast in NC and TN in my opinion.

  If i own a paid off conventional iron quiver and the mill tells me its time i borrow a half million for CTL gear to suit their needs, im shaking hands, walking out the door for the last time, selling it all off and buying a few end dumps. Loggin aint the only way to earn a livin.  If the mill wants CTL they can buy the gear themselves. 

[nativewolf]

I see in the latest edition of Timberline that 3 loggers in the Mississippi and Alabama have put waratah on the landings.  

@Skeans1 also sent me a link to the latest Komatsu head which is supposed to compete against the h8hd head and even go on a tracked machine.  Not out yet, due in early 2020.