The log market is in the toilet

[Kodiakmac]

As far as pulp goes, the Eastern Ont. and Western Quebec mills are are pretty well finished:  Smurfit-Stone in Pontiac County; Abitibi in Gatineau and Domtar in Cornwall closed.  There may be a few survivors on the Quebec side but they're on borrowed time.

And the few sawmills that are still open either aren't taking or aren't paying. 

[barbender]

It's getting tough around here too-I haul mostly to Sappi in Cloquet and Savanna Pallets in McGregor, there just aren't many places to bring wood. It makes it a lot tougher to coordinate delivery, all the mills that used to stay open late are shut down or have rolled back their hours. NewPage in Duluth still takes wood 24/7. Sawlogs I take to a small mill in Isle, I don't know what they are paying. The Potlatch stud mill is about out of room from what I hear. UPM Blandin is getting stuffed full too. We've lost a lot of mills in the last 5 years, about half it seems like. Losing all of the OSB mills is probably what hurt the most in our area, because there was always a mill close to the job when they where running. Now, most of my runs are 80-100 miles 1 way, it's tough to move much wood when you have to run that far.

[rebocardo]

> Hey, anybody got some good news?

My tree climber is working out well and I am getting $80-$100 a cord for green firewood cut and split.

[Ironwood]

Frickman, Give me a call if'in you see some wallynut.

Ironwood

[jim king]

Here in the Amazon we have a thriving market for high end tropical hardwood flooring and we are building a new flooring plant.  If we can get others to put in more factories we could employ up to 25,000 people by chainsaw logging and carrying out the cants by hand.

That is not to say that we in the Amazon would be a big producer as the total production of the Amazon amounts to nothing in the world market . 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Smurfit stone filed for bankruptcy protection. They say it will remain operation as usual......... But the local mill is laying off employees and has no plans to reopen. So our good local pulp mill will probably fold up shop pretty soon. Like domino's one by one they fall....

[roger 4400]

    Hi all. Over here in Québec I cannot find 2 vans of hard wood for firewood. I called over 40 carriers no one have firewood. I live 30 miles north of Montréal and 100 miles around the only ones that saw timber have to take their wood to the Domtar company for pulp. I'll have to call my customers and cancel. I have my own firewood because I have 2 lots and most of the bad quality wood is already cut. What is remaining is good quality logs that I will not use as firewood. Next winter I don't know how people are gonna heat themselves. Only one guy offered me a van of firewood $600 higher than last year........I don't know how much a cord of firewood will cost next automn but I'm happy to have mine....  See you Roger.

[Woodhog]

Here in the Maritimes of Canada, forestry entered the toilet bowl about 2 years ago, passed through the bowl and is now mired in the septic tank, however  I still see loads of logs moving, being sold at a price that stinks badly.

[SwampDonkey]

Wood never stops flowing bye here, going to Maine at the crossing. The local Marketing Board wood yard is stuffed. I don't know what deal they have going there. But if it's a mill gathering inventory, and slow on payment, I'd rather it sit there than a mill yard on poor footing. I don't know that is the case, but we lost several $100,000 in the past 8 years from defunct mills.

[thompsontimber]

We have been experiencing that problem down here too SD.  Plenty of small mills have went under oweing money to many suppliers.  However, those issues have now spread to some of the big boys too.  A couple of years ago the slow down really started hitting here, and one of the large pine log markets that was sawing upwards of 300 MBF per day started having cash flow problems.  Quotas got stiff, and the open market started drying up, but for some of us that were bigger suppliers the company would continue to take our wood provided we were willing to wait a bit longer on getting paid.  I thought nothing of it at that point, and the money always trickled on in.  By a year ago however, the delay in pay was running a month behind, and you could put in a lot of wood in a month.  Some folks were claiming to be owed several hundred thousand.  We never let them get into us for that much after the delays started increasing, trying to market our logs elsewhere and avoid the whole situation.  They were into us for about $60 thousand in May and we quit hauling them anything. They did get us paid, and we started hauling a few loads to them sporadically.  Then they started bouncing checks...bounced 3 to us, did make them all good and covered the fees.  Sure not much for keeping your suppliers confident though, and seems they were destined to go under.  They are still running now though, still attempting to buy logs, and sadly, are still the best market for the product around. They don't owe me but a couple thousand right now, but no telling what they owe others who have continued to supply them with logs.

[WDH]

Pulpwood prices here are dropping fast.  A large independent sawmill  operation (pine) with two large mills just announced a shutdown.  Things are getting bad.

[thompsontimber]

Up until last week we were selling pine logs to a small independent mill in South Carolina in order to avoid dealing with that big mill that was bouncing checks.  We started hitting them with logs last summer and were pretty much able to keep them all they needed by ourselves, so it was working out pretty good for us.  We got to sell pine logs and get paid while others were left looking for a place to market some and get paid for them.  He was selling his pine lumber to a company in Georgia, and they cut him off completely on the lumber last week.  That niche log market that was providing us with a little relief dryed up overnight.

[Frickman]

Ron W. posted that the quality of our timber here in PA has helped us out alot. I'll second that, as we're exporting some of our upper grades of logs and lumber. Another thing that is of benefit to us is that our forest products industry is highly fragmented. Most mills, even the bigger ones, are family owned and managed. And there are alot of them too, more than any other state I believe. What this means is that we are not dependent on one or a few large mills and markets, there are abundant niche markets here. Being situated within a few hundred miles of half the nation's population doesn't hurt any either. There many, many small orders out there that pay quite well if you hunt around and find them.

[chevytaHOE5674]

Michigans western UP grows some of the best sugar maple around. Our high end veneer, birdseye, and curly maple still sells well. Its scary how much of it gets put on a train and shipped to the west coast where it is put on a boat and shipped over seas.

But not every log is veneer or specialty, and since we generally practice "cut the worst first" and thinning from below much of what we cut is lesser quality so it is a tough sell, with the prices the way they are.

But most of the hardwood mills are still hanging on, just buying less and at much lower prices.

[pasbuild]

I have been on the road between the central UP (Marquette) and western UP (L'anse) the last three days and I have seen more trucks then normal.

[Cord-n-8R]

New member here, been reading the forum for several months, looking for good info.

Tahoe, I have a property in your neck of the woods, (central U.P.) that I need to start manageing... will probably be asking alot of questions.
One for now, can you tell me how to identify Birdseye and/or Curly Maple? Just would like to know if I have any.

Must be alot of logging going on up the Peshekee.

[chevytaHOE5674]

I have been on the road between the central UP (Marquette) and western UP (L'anse) the last three days and I have seen more trucks then normal.

Not sure about other crews, but some I know haven't been able to keep some of their woods roads open the last few weeks with all the snow and drifting. They caught a break early this week and plowed some snow and started trucking.

[pasbuild]

Not sure about other crews, but some I know haven't been able to keep some of their woods roads open the last few weeks with all the snow and drifting. They caught a break early this week and plowed some snow and started trucking.

That would explain the numbers I was seeing,  mostly hardwood pulp

[The-Burl-Hunter]

here is a "dumb" question,    but what is pulpwood, I mean its probibley for paper, or isn't it, and it must be like poplar or aspen or what kind of tree?

[Gary_C]

That's not a dumb question at all. Problem is it is not easy to answer. Mostly around here it is any log 100 inches long, smaller in diameter than the mills maximum limit, and whatever species they want. The most popular species around here is aspen and second would be maple. Other places they use tree length and more pine than aspen.
 
Could be used for paper, OSB, manufactured siding products, fibre mats for various uses, etc.