Log Prices?

[Hogdaddy]

@nativewolf   Naw, I don't think so. If anyone cuts them, I will.  I found out that he doesn't want me on the white oak farm because that's his primary deer hunting farm and season is just around the corner. 

[nativewolf]

Oh, yes we get that one a lot. Well all's good then.  You should be there in the winter/spring?  Veneer should still be strong I'd think.

[Hogdaddy]

Anyone have any updates on log prices? We seem to be holding pretty steady, from what I hear anyway, I haven't cut in 3 weeks. They think I tore my meniscus in my knee. Going to find out for sure tomorrow.

Anyways, White oak is still flying, red oak is holding for now, poplar going down some, walnut is back to a half way decent price and hard maple is in the dumpster.

[stavebuyer]

Maple is gaining, so is good Red Oak. Walnut and Qtr saw logs are falling. Hickory is a dirty word. Sawn ties, especially 6x8 are getting hard to move. Flooring markets have all the lumber they really want. Staves are great but getting a purchase order for 8/8 white oak lumber takes calling in a favor despite the crazy prices. Maybe a few holidays and raindrops will help. Production is well below last year and the market is still tepid. Was a half million bd/ft timber bid sale just east of us last week with 60% W. Oak that only attracted 1 token bid and didn't sell. The big players are content to muddle through. Probably wise to follow suit.

[ehp]

I have not seen it yet but I am told we will see 2018 prices on logs here shortly  now think back to what logging cost was in 2018 and you will find at least and average of 70% higher logging cost so that is really going to cut into your bottom line , we got some bigger mills up north that are closing or going to be closing so that is going to kill those towns up north , it's up to everyone to do what they feel is best for themselves but I can tell you I'm not sticking my neck out very far cause it will get cut off . I have zero payments on machines to make and I donot like how things are , It would bother me quite bad if I had a million or 2 million dollars of equipment I had to pay for at this time 

[Walnut Beast]

A guy had a retirement auction of a sawmill operation a month ago and had 500+ various Cedar packs that people got some good deals on stored inside that went through the kiln that was around 350k in wood 

[Firewoodjoe]

Pretty much what I'm hearing. Everyone switch to cut tie and flooring, stave, stuff that was selling and bringing ok money. So now those are getting full wonder what the next wave of sorts will be. The big pine mill is offering a bonus on a sort. Pretty much everything can be moved here, just decide how low you want to sell it. I'm finding some prices have come down. Some oil is only up a little. My chains are only up a little. I'm very content as long as it all keeps moving out. That's what hurts the bank account. When the ball stops. 

I wouldn't want to owe a million in any market. Unless I had 5 crews. Then the million would prolly be the small headache. 

[nativewolf]

Yeah the equipment payments suck right now, especially as the freaking machine has had enough downtime to get it recalled as a lemon.  Oh well, Ponsse sending a crackerjack mechanic to stay until we say leave so that's something.  Finally.

Pricing is what Stave says in our view.  WO still the thing to cut.

Stavebuyer did the sale have issues?  Or the seller just wanting top dollar?  

[Peter Drouin]

I buy logs, Maybe not a good place to put this,
Just showing what log prices are here.
In NH good W pine was up to .53 a bf. from a low of .35. bf. It was at .35 for a long time.  I'm buying some nice W pine for .45. I think it will come down to .40 soon.  Hemlock was at .25  for a long time. Up to .30 to .35 now. I have some coming this winter at .30 bf.
R oak 3 good faces I can get at .65- .70 a bf. I need good logs for the grade stakes and trailer decking all kinds of stuff.


All logs with a 12" + top.

 What hurts is the Canadians looking for a back hall.
If you can load them at the landing. They cut out the local trucking guys. :
Maybe they pay more, I don't know.

[chep]

Peter
 The Canadian prices are competitive,   and the trucking is "free" You load them and off they go. If you can get those beauty queens in and out of the landing easily sometimes it pays better. But when you got a quebecois in slippers stuck in the mud/bushes screaming at you in french it eats up the "savings" quickly...
Local log trucks are getting scarcer in my neck of the woods that equates to higher prices for the wood to be delivered to the mill.  Drivers are aging out or finding easier truck work. More work in our valley for truck farmers and they don't stop for the mud...

[SwampDonkey]

Has not been much wood cut on my road for years. Once in awhile a load or two of aspen pulp or fir, the fastest growing and cheapest woods up here. Quite honestly, I would prefer fir over spruce, nice straight grain. Grows twice as fast. All same grade stamp. ;D Sure, you have a wider harvest window with spruce because it lives 3 x as long. That just means you manage your woods more closely with fir, and don't expect too much from old suppressed stuff. If you didn't space it long before this, don't be looking for much nice fir. ;) White pine prices are nothing to brag about either. There's so much junk pine, that all you end up doing is high grading and leaving more % of junk. : Hemlock up here is worth less than aspen pulp, it all stands behind after harvest until the next big fall wind storm. One time a lot of hemlock went to Maine, maybe still does, but it was never a money maker for the seller. I don't think very many cedar mills are left now, the last one of any size closed in 2020 in Hainesville. A lot of the other ones are boom and bust operations.

[stavebuyer]

Yeah the equipment payments suck right now, especially as the freaking machine has had enough downtime to get it recalled as a lemon.  Oh well, Ponsse sending a crackerjack mechanic to stay until we say leave so that's something.  Finally.

Pricing is what Stave says in our view.  WO still the thing to cut.

Stavebuyer did the sale have issues?  Or the seller just wanting top dollar?  

Some fire damage and the man we had look was uneasy about one boundary line. Was a little too distant for us to be competitive. Seller had realistic expectations just no interest.

[nativewolf]

Courthouse time on property boundary lines can eat profits, then survey on top.  We are working in a very developed county outside of DC, in WV but Charlestown/Harpers Ferry area which is now a commuter community for DC suburbs.  One of the great things about it is the clear property lines, marked and blazed and signs every 10-20'.  Over a mile from Shenandoah up to the National Park so it's nice to have some help on those.  Downside is that on a 15 mile drive off 4 lane road there are 7 private forests property owners with more than 50 acres, just 7.  Oh well.  White oak is cutting ok, a bit of rot that clears up.  Not much veneer lots of stave.  

[barbender]

 Donk, I'm with you on the balsam fir, I'd take balsam fir over spruce anytime. It's nice and straight grained. On my sand property, the balsam grows quite nicely but the spruce always has a lot of red rot. I don't know if the soil is lacking a mineral or what.

[ehp]

I'm hearing pretty strong rumors of other mills up north closing as well and one of the largest hardwood companies in the States is strongly thinking their going to be closing down . This is going to weed out a lot of logger and mills plus the companies that build the machines to do the logging , There is a Ram dealer in PA that with pickups parked side by side their line up is over a mile long , No one is spending their money . Other thing is how come our log prices are the same as 2018 but when you go to the lumber store they sure are not 2018 price. Yes that price is down a but but a hell of a long ways from what they charged for lumber in 2018. If this keeps up they will have to buy all their lumber from other countries cause no loggers will be left at this cost

[ehp]

I pay way more for white pine standing than what your buying it at already cut. Real nice big tall white pine goes easy $750/1000 on the stump here

[nativewolf]

AWP is for sale, bank asked the family to put money Back into the business or sell.  Bailie (who owns Wagner and who is owned by Bain capital - private equity group) does not want to buy it all, Northwest (old weyerhauser hardwoods arm) is not interested in buying it all.  These are the two players that could, but won't, but it.  If they go under it would be a gigantic hit to WV forestry.  They have a dozen mills there and I would rank them as the second largest hardwood mill company- maybe Stavebuyer knows more. 

[nativewolf]

I also think it is too big for the Amish in Ohio . 

[Hogdaddy]

I know that there is less of a demand for hardwood products now days, and the US is producing way less hardwood lumber than lumber than 15-20 yrs ago. Is it finally going to dwindle down to where most of us are out of a job? What do you guys think?

[stavebuyer]

There is no labor to run old hardwood mills and not enough margin to automate them. Always be some empty containers headed somewhere to load since there is nothing built here to fill them.

[logbyr]

Hate to wish hard luck on anyone.   I know a few AWP guys well and have bought lots of logs from them in past from PA mill but the only thing that's going to turn this market around is less lumber production.   Unless it's wo or wal my log suppliers say they face downward pressure on lumber/sawlog prices.   Inflation missed most hardwoods.    Some mills are taking down time just to reduce production.   Others refusing to buy timber/logs until prices adjust.  World is using much less hardwood than it did 10 yrs ago and production hasn't adjusted.  We have this huge resource and infrastructure and not enough outlets for it.  Sad to see the decline.  The Chinese overbuilt and now see less wood demand.    High interest rates probably don't translate to increased home building in US.   Lumber production has to adjust for the industry to keep going.  Mills in NE are in a real pinch with competition for timber still high and no competition for their product.   

[customsawyer]

I guess it has to do with what part of the country you are in. Two of the biggest hardwood mills in North America, Beasley forest products and Battle lumber co., are less than 60 miles from me in opposite directions and both are expanding. They both cut pine as well so maybe that is the difference. I was down at Beasley's last week and they showed me where they are putting in a whole new mill and down stream line at their sister mill, Thompson hardwood. The info I received, estimated somewhere over 100 million being spent on it.
They just spent close to that at the Beasley mill just across town in Hazelhurst a few years ago.
I hear you guys on here talking about mills closing in your areas and down here the big guys are expanding. I don't get it. Ehp mentioned a Dodge truck place with rows of trucks on the lot. Folks down here are placing orders and waiting several months to get them. My business sales are off about 30 percent from last year but last year was one for the record books. I can't expect that to happen every year.
I'm not doubting any of what you guys are saying. I just find it nuts to be so different from North to the South. Maybe it is just my little neck of the woods.

[nativewolf]

We spent far too long ignoring the values and beauty  that hardwoods offer so it is no surprise when things like vinyl flooring are gutting the hardwood flooring industry or that plywood and metal painted cabinets replace wooden ones.  The industry has no marketing, NONE.  Like stavebuyer says, older mills get depreciated by owners looking to milk every dollar and whose only competitive advantage is managing COGS- the price of timber.   

For every big mill expanding you have a half dozen smaller ones closing.  Forests that are not clearcut are high graded. The timber basket declines in quality and value the longer the local mills degrade the resources, 30 years later a good sized mill has cut 2000 acres of hardwoods a year and that 60000 acre woodbasket around them looks awfully poor so they truck further and need to pay less or steal more. 

It's a vicious cycle and won't stop til hardwoods are properly marketed at scale, forests are managed in long term manner, and mills invest in advanced manufacturing processes.    If Tesla can get electric vehicles off the ground at scale you'd think we could get people to stop putting crappy vinyl flooring into homes (that has 20x worse impact on the greenhouse gases, that is ugly, and has potential long term health issues) or cabinetry that is not ...cardboard with paint.   

It's a very complex issue, not simple.  Procurement, manufacturing, marketing.  The hardwood industry has failed en masse.

[mudfarmer]

It's a vicious cycle and won't stop til hardwoods are properly marketed at scale, forests are managed in long term manner, and mills invest in advanced manufacturing processes.    If Tesla can get electric vehicles off the ground at scale you'd think we could get people to stop putting crappy vinyl flooring into homes (that has 20x worse impact on the greenhouse gases, that is ugly, and has potential long term health issues) or cabinetry that is not ...cardboard with paint.   

It's a very complex issue, not simple.  Procurement, manufacturing, marketing.  The hardwood industry has failed en masse.

Sorry, but we let money take over our political system and the folks that make the plastic flooring have VERY deep pockets to buy politicians with.


"The Vinyl Institute has long been a powerful force in Washington, D.C., but its dealings are rarely scrutinized. Founded in 1982, the group describes itself as "the voice for the PVC/vinyl industry" and represents vinyl, vinyl chloride monomer, and vinyl additive manufacturers, with an industry valuation of $54 billion."

"One of the Vinyl Institute's stated priorities is to "promote and defend the image and reputation of vinyl and the industry from those who make false claims and disparage our products in the public discourse." To accomplish this, the group spent $540,000 last year — its highest spend on record, up from $336,000 just two years ago."


How much is the Hardwood lobby slipping into politician's pockets? It is not enough to get them to vote to hold the companies making the vinyl flooring accountable for what they are doing to the world: https://theintercept.com/2023/02/18/east-palestine-plastic-industry-lobbying/  They will even use Uyghur slave labor in China to make the vinyl flooring: https://theintercept.com/2022/06/14/china-uyghur-forced-labor-pvc-home-depot/

Until these big mills start buying politicians like everyone else, nothing will change. If they are already buying them they aren't buying enough. Cost of doing (or staying) in business. That's the way we've set the system up.

[SwampDonkey]

The reason those truck lots with lots of vehicles lined up for sale aren't selling is they are about double the price of 4 years ago. A $40,000 truck has a sticker price of $89,000-120,000. So they will sit right there until the place closes down. I've seen lots of videos of guys going around lots showing sticker prices, lots full of trucks.