Lumber prices too high

[LeeB]

The box stores haven't lowered prices any.

[ehp]

The report was just this week so it will take abit for the lumber yards to drop put everything shows here the price is going down , Lumber yards are starting to fill back up with lumber so that is a sign as well plus once these interest rates start to climb which they will that will make it really drop

[LogPup]

I'm still trying to figure out what is going on with ocean freight.  Down here at our inland port they are not taking any export containers.  Must have almost
3,000 full one sitting on the ground waiting to ship down to Charleston.  The chassis lot is almost always empty.  They used to have hundreds in the back yard.  We are still pulling stuff out and delivering. 

Our other freight business is just growing like crazy.  We are still picking up new customers.  The people we haul timber for in containers are just waiting for the port to open up again.

[mike_belben]

by the time western society figures it out the damage will have already been done.  imo its all the usual china orchestrated games to destabilize our market pricing, just like the scrap boom/bust they pulled over on us.

every article has a different story about the why and how but an empty container shortage is the result of this round.  and that means having to pay more for a can to export USA goods which means less profit coming back to america. but more cost is continually shoveled onto america.  piling on every last trick in the book to try to collapse "late stage imperial capitalism" once and for all.  if they dont haul our freight off our ports then our industries cant make their payments because they arent getting paid.  bury us all in debt. 

notice that the prices of everything are astronomical but none of the american producers are gaining much extra (farmers, loggers, manufacturers et al) after the astronomically rising costs or worker shortages (due to the inability to compete with welfare)  

its brilliant.

[ehp]

we quit shipping high grade about a month ago and I was told again yesterday do not cut any high grade bush, leave it stand 

[nativewolf]

HW loggers did really really well this past winter/spring Mike.  Really well.  If you didn't do well, time to sell your iron.  The HW prices have stayed up.

Containers are starting to become available for norfolk and baltimore, or so I hear.

I've been told that by August container issues will have cleared up.  Other than logs and a few commodities we really don'd send much stuff to China (part of the problem).  Containers everywhere have been short though, same issue shipping to India or Germany from what I hear.

Softwoods fell below $1000 and are still falling, my wall street family guy is on the AT somewhere in Maine and I hate to bug him with business while he is doing a bucket list item.  What a great time to walk across Maine, he'll wrap up in Georgia in the fall.  

[nativewolf]

I'm still trying to figure out what is going on with ocean freight.  Down here at our inland port they are not taking any export containers.  Must have almost
3,000 full one sitting on the ground waiting to ship down to Charleston.  The chassis lot is almost always empty.  They used to have hundreds in the back yard.  We are still pulling stuff out and delivering.  

Our other freight business is just growing like crazy.  We are still picking up new customers.  The people we haul timber for in containers are just waiting for the port to open up again.

Interesting, what sort of logs are getting exported?  How do you guys manage finding drivers?  

[mike_belben]

HW loggers did really really well this past winter/spring Mike.  Really well.  If you didn't do well, time to sell your iron.  

So did all the scrap operators for the boom years of china's insane metal buying frenzy when they needed to build all those fake cities.

  #1 prepared hit $400/t.  Everyone was suddenly a scrapper. The public was hauling in so fast that new shearing and loading equipment was required to keep up or yards couldnt fit any more and had to close until truckloads went out to make room.  Theres always great money in a boom.


Then poof. China shut it all off.  No one else.  Complete tumble, light iron was refused, #1 prepared got down to like $60/t.  Basically like a pulp quota. schnitzer global says we're full, unless you wanna give it away.  


Who is buying huge dollar, slightly used specialized equipment when the entire industry is suffering the same crisis and cant afford what they just bought 2 years prior?  


Whenever US housing crashes china will have some excuse to stop buying logs and it wont be a good time to have a big shiny new processor payment because low log prices across the planet means everyone will be shedding the same type of iron.

[mike_belben]

New industrial finance tends to hover around a 7 year term.  Thats why the boom and busts are getting so much closer.  The boom gets us into new debt and the bust has to come before its paid off.

"Asian contagion" alright.  Thanks globalism.

[ehp]

Scrape steel is the highest ever here and not by just abit . China is very smart and now controls most things but we let them do it so it's as much our fault if not more our fault . .  Things will settle down here before to long . I see alot more logging equipment coming up for sale 

[BAN]

I don't think loggers will ever see more, because there are too many of them content to work for too little. If there was ever a time loggers should be making a pile of cash it is now.

Many out here are, although a poorly run business will always be that. Just heard of a local company going down. Selling 10ish pieces of equipment. Might buy a piece or two myself if I can. Just a few years ago they bought a new machine just for the tax write-off. Don't know what happened. They were making lots of cash for a long time.

Buddy of mine came over from P.A. last weekend and said even Alder prices are high over there. To many guys over here to see prices move much. Boise gave $600 for peelers for a month and bought enough wood for the summer. Wont even buy now.. Stuck sending nicer wood to Idaho for less than $500 now. Fire season could change fall prices but right now mills are full.

Are they still planning on increasing the cut for the Okanogan NF? If so that won't help either. The company going under is for lack of trucks. Huge shortage out here. If you don't pay $25 an hour you can't even get a rookie in the seat. When most of the industrial production sides get 20+ loads per day, finding those ten trucks is hard.  

Last I heard the Colville national forest is trying to take in the Okanagan.  The Colville is pushing 100million a year so yea its changing the private liog market. No one can find drivers or operators over here either.  

[nativewolf]

Really pretty area from pics online (never been to that corner of the world).   Colville is harvesting 100 million feet a year?  Is this a long delayed and needed fuel reduction harvest?  

[barbender]

There's getting to be a lot of CTL action out there.

[Skeans1]

Really pretty area from pics online (never been to that corner of the world).   Colville is harvesting 100 million feet a year?  Is this a long delayed and needed fuel reduction harvest?  

That's a lot of wood moved?

[woodroe]

Glad to see the majority of people refused to pay the prices.

"There has really been a curtailing of demand, based on the level of pricing," said David Flanagan, president of Viking Lumber. "People have just said, 'Nope, I'm not gonna do it at that price.' And that's started to show in the marketplace, the fact that people are just not willing to pay that much."

https://bangordailynews.com/2021/06/15/business/after-historic-highs-lumber-prices-are-finally-beginning-to-drop/

[Mooseherder]

Media like the BDN helped cause the price of Lumber to go up.  They're in the club that needs to be held to account.   Where is the whistle-blower for this corrupt rag?  ;)

[Southside]

Ironic of all places Viking Lumber complaining about high lumber prices. That's all they ever know there. 

[quilbilly]

Really pretty area from pics online (never been to that corner of the world).   Colville is harvesting 100 million feet a year?  Is this a long delayed and needed fuel reduction harvest?  

That's a lot of wood moved?

The Wenatchee-okanogon is 3.5 million acres and the colville is 1.5 million. Not much for wilderness area I don't think either.

[snowstorm]

Media like the BDN helped cause the price of Lumber to go up.  They're in the club that needs to be held to account.   Where is the whistle-blower for this corrupt rag?  ;)

I agree the B d n is way out there

[snowstorm]

Ironic of all places Viking Lumber complaining about high lumber prices. That's all they ever know there.

Do you know David? He his the hemlock king around here. Couple yrs back he told me they were sawing over  a million ft a yr.

[HemlockKing]

Ironic of all places Viking Lumber complaining about high lumber prices. That's all they ever know there.

Do you know David? He his the hemlock king around here. Couple yrs back he told me they were sawing over  a million ft a yr.

You got it mixed up, I'm the hemlock king. I'm no David either lol lol lol 

[Southside]

No, I don't know him. Only ever been to the retail store there outside of Belfast back when I worked on Islesboro, before they really expanded. Nice material, but always top dollar. 

[Skeans1]

Really pretty area from pics online (never been to that corner of the world).   Colville is harvesting 100 million feet a year?  Is this a long delayed and needed fuel reduction harvest?  

That's a lot of wood moved?

The Wenatchee-okanogon is 3.5 million acres and the colville is 1.5 million. Not much for wilderness area I don't think either.

Just made me think what someone like Weyco has go through the Longview yard a month is over 10 times that amount.

[SwampDonkey]

Free fall by end of summer like I told the last hardware store I was in.

[WDH]

Interestingly, unlike softwood, which shot up like a rocket, hardwood prices crept up a little bit along.  I expect that if they come down, they will also creep back down, not like softwood which goes up like the rocket and come down like a crashing rocket.