Tembec says reduce your harvesting costs

[SwampDonkey]

That's easy to preach, but unrealistic for woodlot owners. The new buyers of the pulp mill in Nackawick have dropped the price of pulp they purchase from $100 per cord before St Anne went bankrupt to as low as $70 per cord when they reopen in the new year. That's less than the price 15 years ago. Isn't it obvious that crown land wood is undercutting costs of production on private woodlots? I think initially they will be flooded with wood, then when the sticker shock sinks in with harvest contractors, they (mill) will be scrambling for wood and have to raise prices.

Interview with Dave Palmer of YSC Forest Products Marketing Board

[Tom]

The mills that are still open here have recently been begging for wood.   The Loggers are eating it up.  They have been treated as 2nd class for years as the mills controlled the wood.  This might not last long but some of the loggers are giving the mills a "come-upence".   Instead of being turned around at the gate and sent back to the woods with logs, the loggers are finding that it's time for a vacation and many have gone to the mountains with their families.  The ones who are hauling are keeping the mills in wood but not enough to stock pile.  Some of the gate crews still don't realize that their mill is dire straights for wood and will try to intimidate the log truck drivers like they have in the past, only to find the drivers leaving instead of arguing.   The next mill down the road will take the wood.

I sawed 8 butt cuts for a logger last Sat. that was turned away from the mill.  He started to take it to another mill when the choice was that or dump the logs back in the woods.  Rather than dump them he took them home and I cut 1800+ feet of flawless 1 x 12's and 2 x 6's  for him.  The mill lost out on that beautiful Southern Yellow Pine because the gate man rejected the load when 2 of the logs were 22" instead of 20".

[Woodhog]

Here the roadside  price of spruce/fir pulpwood is $47.00 CDN per cord...

We just cut it up and let it lay for fertilizer, it is not feasible to bring out of the woods...

However the trucks are running up the road all the time with loads of it going to the mill at that price..

I guess 500,000 dollar machinery cant stop just because it is not making any money, Hmmmmm.. Let me see how that works, Oh yes I'll just increase the volume produced to keep running.... I ll work 7 days a
week 24 hours a day!!!!! gee I wonder if this will flood the market and drive the price down more....!!!

Oh well Ive got to make that big payment no matter what happens....

[SwampDonkey]

woodhog, I saw something last fall I never knew could be happening. There was a 15 year old jack pine plantation that was being felled manually and slashed by machine. The largest stump I seen was 5 inches.  : I think those guys were all starving to death.  :'(

[crtreedude]

SwampDonkey,

There are plantations down here that are 10 years old that are being clear-cut. They weren't maintained so the decision has been made to just clear them. It has people here worried - in about 3 years they say Costa Rica will have to start importing wood. The question, from where?

Also, they have a really problem with loggers coming in and high-grading plantations when they are supposed to be thinning. The loggers of course wan the best trees - not the worst ones.

Another bad sign for the forestry industry here (but not for me), someone contacted me in another part of the country looking for some advice on reforesting his property. We contacted the local forestry school who sent out an email to their alumni - I got more than 20 inquires!  All available now.

I wouldn't come down here for work in forestry.

[Dale Hatfield]

I would love to see Their  reduced prices.   
Here in southern Ohio we get 30 a ton on pulp wood and  28 ish on small scrag logs pallet stock.



Dale Hatfield

[SwampDonkey]

I would love to see Their  reduced prices.   
Here in southern Ohio we get 30 a ton on pulp wood and  28 ish on small scrag logs pallet stock.



Dale Hatfield

Your $30/ton is equivelent to $41.25 CDN per metric tonne, which is more realistic. The former owner of the mill tried to buy cheap wood. But, the US market in Maine brought them to their knees and they had to increase the price if they wanted to keep the yard full of wood.  ;D If they're going to play hard nose, then I'de rather see that mill closed because 100's of woodlot owners trying to make a living have more at stake than 200 mill workers with $25 +/hr jobs. You might as well say the woodlot owners are working for slave benefits while the mill workers have a nice warm cooshy job 365 days a year. It's also important to point out that those mill workers will be paying more income tax than the DanG mill and the profits are absorbed by India.  I for one am not going to be buying their DANG rayon clothes, marked made in India.  >:( And furthermore, the woodlot owners will be paying even more tax on that wood they sold than the mill workers will. How come I can't get these tax breaks?? : I give the place 3 years, then they'll be pack'n.  >:(

[floyd]

Tom, hard to run 22" log thru a mill designed for 20"log

[Tom]

floyd,

I think you will find that most diameter cut-offs at big production mills are arbitrary figures derived from conversations at boardroom tables in an effort to "idiot proof"  the rules.   Because they are hard and fast, and because the employees don't have to think or make a decision when following rules rather than guidelines, the mill can lose a lot of pretty wood and frustrate producers as well.

Once upon a time, when common sense was the rule, these mills even had splitter crews who broke down large logs to allow them to enter the production line. 

[floyd]

That depends on where you are.

Mills "here" (PNW) are designed for smaller wood now that we have cc, burned n paved most of it.

Mills that buy wood by the ton, still DF, have diameter limits.

Southeast is cornfield forestry. Plantations" here" row cropped are hybrid poplars for pulp. I have not seen hybrid poplar harvested, but I have seen CCA, I believe they are in your neck of the woods, log it, rip out stumps, plow it, bed it & plant.

[Tom]

Your posts and  the use of initials leads me to believe that you are one who reads headlines for your opinions.  You certainly give the impression that you have ruined your Pacific Northwest, a viewpoint that you may find disagreement from others in your area.

Chromated Copper Arsenate is the CCA with which I'm familiar.  Since it is not a "buzz word" associated with Poplar, I suppose you are talking of something else.

We do have pine plantations in the Southeast and have probably provided you with the bulk of your paper over the years.  It's grown as a row crop but not with the disregard and animation associated with your description.  Actually those trees grown on private plantations are grown with as much love as Granny's vegetable garden.

I suppose that is the reason that so many of us don't understand the artificial cut-offs that discourage the use of some of the larger trees.  It's in our favor if we can get the logs though, because of the ever-growing portable sawmill industry.  It's getting to where log owners are not having much difficulty in finding a sawmill for their personal logs anymore.

While I dislike your description "cornfield forestry"  there may be some resemblance to the arrangement of the plants.  Contrary to an agricultural venture of corn planted in rows, where the ground is kept devoid of other growth, some under-story in a pine plantation is encouraged.   There are hardwoods that can grow satisfactorily in this arena as well as palmetto, gall berry, black berry and other plants which are encouraged for wildlife.   Minimizing the planting procedure with terms like "rip", "plow", "log", etc. without allowing for the image of the love and care of the land to be formed is a disservice to the land-owners here who look upon their plantations as a credit to their life.

[Gary_C]

Tom

Don't hold back now. Just go ahead and say whats on your mind.   ;D ;D

It is just amazing that the save the trees groups all think that plantations are really evil and we should not manage out forests in any way, so that the forests can all return to the much misunderstood and loved "old growth forests." It is pure fiction and is a theory that denies the facts. The old growth forests were created by intensive management by Native Americans over many years and will not return if we do not find some way to manage with out the fire tool that was used.

On the subject of mills, I learned a long time ago to not trust them nor anything they say. Too many times they claim to only be able to pay some measly amount for pulp and then go out and bid more than that for stumpage.   >:(

[SwampDonkey]

AS I pointed out on another thread, there is a sawmill that takes softwood with up to 28 " butt. If you haul bigger wood, they just gather it to make a load for their veneer plant. Also, the KRAFT pulp mill that went defunct last year would issue special tickets through the marketing boards to control the volume of 'oversized' poplar. Oversized was greater than 24 inch butts I beleive. Either way, neither mill would refuse wood. But, their are some other mills that are real sticky making you put more effort into your product.

Here's some specs, they might not seem too fussy, but consider having to mark each log length. What a pain is the ash. Never heard tell of such foolishness in my life.  :

Lengths must be marked on the top end of each log.

GRADE # 1:                        Spruce & up to 10% Fir by piece count

GRADE # 2:                        Spruce & up to 30% Fir by piece count
                                               (5" top - up to 20% by piece count)

GRADE # 3:                        Jack Pine
                                               (5" top - up to 20% by piece count)

They're going to pay less for the load because of fir and pine content, but the A-holes are going to sell it marked SFP on the open market at a set price. Just another method they 'pimp' the private producers. Any of you guys with lumber grade books ever see lumber graded as #2 because it has 30 % fir in the bundle? Maybe I'll learn something here.  :  ;D

[floyd]

CCA, Container Corporation of America, you may know about them. They are in northern Florida. In the 70's they had 550K  ac, sorry 550,000 acres of year 0  to 30 pine plantations.

Since this might confuse you, this means they actually had a 31 yr rotation.

They grow pine. I remember seeing some slash, longleaf, loblolly & 1 other species I cannot recall at the moment. I visited this company as well as others in the southeast US as part of my senior year at Colorado State U. oh U stands for university, sorry. See the head forester at that time was a graduate of Colorado State University with a degree in Forest Management

At that time they were doing alot of research in the wood products lab testing the viability of southern pine with mean annual increments of as much as 1 ". Opps, my bad again. mean annual increment- the amount of fiber put on a stem in 1 calender year.

Rip - some call it vertical tillage. in this case it was used to remove more of the root mass of trees just harvested. There art some diseases that may manifest themselves if old roots are left in a plantation.
It was a single ripper pulled behind a rubber tired skidder.

Bed- picture 2 cones welded together at the points. Also pulled behind a rubber tired skidder. This device formed a bed upon which seedlings were planted. Operation I saw was using a jd(sorry) John Deere 350 crawler tractor. This was used to keep the seedlings from drowning during the rainy season.

Artificial cut offs on diameter -huh?. A head saw designed to take no larger than a 20" log will not take a larger log.

I am glad the portable sawmill business is booming. However mosr stationary mills are designed to produce lumber for the construction industry are probably not considering portable sawmills as part of their business plans. I think they generally think in rail car lots ot lumber.

I apologize for the long post but trust me it will be my last.

[Tom]

Ah yes, Container corporatin.  I know them well.

OK.  See you around.  Come back and visit sometime, ya hear?

[Lud]

Did we fail to recognize his genius??  Last post?  Oh well..........

I don't think he can see the forest for the trees!

[SwampDonkey]

Yah, his tone was little off, musta been in the sun too long. ;)

[Tillaway]

The PNW is too steep to pave.  We are pretty much limited to 28" large end although a 32" is known to squeeze through from time to time.  The big wood resides on National Forest, since that supply has been cut off the big head rigs have been replaced, except at a couple of mills in Oregon, Zippo and Bald Knob come to mind. 

[Cedarman]

Some of these posts sure show what happens when you take life too seriously.  Ignorance can be manifested in many ways.

Corporations box themselves in with there business plan.  Look at what they can't do. That makes a world of opportunities for the rest of us.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, another day at the mill and another step closer to conflict with woodlot owners over pricing.

http://www.cbc.ca/nb/story/nb_woodlotfight20060117.html

Wouldn't be surprised if there's a march on the legislature by summer. People can only take it up the ***hole for so long.  :

[Jeff]

Thanks Donk, I don't know how I missed this thread. I thought it was me that caused floyd and his admirable presence to give the farewell and fond ado on another issue. Kinda sucks I gotta share the reward with Tom. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

 ;D :D ;D :D Glad to be of service oh 'Grand Exalted Poohbah' ;D

[Black_Bear]

Does Crown Land operate with an allowable annual cut?

Could the private woodlot owners forego cutting their timber and create a shortage?

It seems as though the mill has all the bargaining power, that is not good for the landowners or contractors.

[SwampDonkey]

Does Crown Land operate with an allowable annual cut?

Could the private woodlot owners forego cutting their timber and create a shortage?

It seems as though the mill has all the bargaining power, that is not good for the landowners or contractors.

I think the Minister said their allocation at Nackawick is 90,000 m^3 /year off crown, they were also given 10's of thousands of acres of freehold and they are 'suppose' to buy somewhere from 26 - 33 % off private. Listening to the Minister he bounced from 33, to 26, then 28 % in 3 consecutive answers.  : He says let the markets determine the price, but it's not as much market driven as it is below market crown wood prices, which just dropped 25% recently.  >:( If we see that $100/barrel oil they are predicting because of the Iranian crisis, no one is going to be cutting wood, sawing or making pulp period.  :

The private producers are now boycotting deliveries to their mill, and it's going to Maine. I'm talking about the situation in Carleton-Victoria counties at least.

'Primary Source of Supply' was strickened from the Crown Lands and Forests Act by the McKenna Liberal government. The prices dropped over night, and the woodlot owners lost bargaining rights.  >:(

[Black_Bear]

If the bargaining powers are not equal the market will tend to not function as we expect it to. I'm no economist but I saw what happened a few years ago over here between the mills and the contractors.

Is any of the wood going to Baileyville-Woodland? Better hope Domtar (or any other company for that matter) doesn't decide to close anymore of their mills. It's interesting that the Baileyville mill survived the cuts; apparently they are one of the more efficient Domtar mills. I'm interested to see what the closing of the Cornwall mill does to the upstate NY market.