While smaller than in previous years due to goverment cutbacks, the pavilion actually looks better than ever as we have implemented the same fresh design concept that we used at the JHS last fall. This layout also allows for every member to have two sides open (basically a corner booth), thus greatly increasing their exposure to the 270,000 people that will come through over the next 4 days.
So far the members seem to be happy. Now let’s hope we see a lot of happy customers too!
While smaller than in previous years due to goverment cutbacks, the pavilion actually looks better than ever as we have implemented the same fresh design concept that we used at the JHS last fall. This layout also allows for every member to have two sides open (basically a corner booth), thus greatly increasing their exposure to the 270,000 people that will come through over the next 4 days.
So far the members seem to be happy. Now let’s hope we see a lot of happy customers too!
On the positive side, the common consensus from my meetings suggested that the worst is behind them and that the market should experience a slight recovery this year. In fact, one distributor I spoke with commented that sales for February, 2010 were up 62% from the same period last year. Builders in the region are targeting the “Eco House” by focusing on the design and building of high quality energy efficient and sustainable housing. The features of these homes include a smaller foot print (2500 sq ft or less), good energy efficiency and abundant use of sustainable building materials. This is a trend that I have noticed throughout the West Coast of the United States and one that I believe is here to stay. BC manufacturers will need to promote the sustainable nature of their products or risk losing market share to offshore suppliers. An example of this is Bamboo flooring and cabinetry from China when compared to Pacific Northwest harvested and manufactured Red Alder millwork products. When I asked builders which product they considered more sustainable the answer was always Bamboo even though it’s treated with formaldehyde, held together by resin and travels over 10,000 km to reach the Western United States. Work needs to be done to promote the sustainable nature of BC building products and their many attributes.
A potential opportunity to influence the builder and consumer market in Portland is available through the Greater Portland Home Builders Association and their “Street of Dreams” project this summer. They will be building 5 energy efficient green homes and will showcase these homes to over 55,000 attendees August 1st thru Sept 1st 2010. Manufacturers interested in supplying product to these homes should contact me at dfarley@bcwood.com for further information on how to get involved.
I just attended the largest building show in all of Korea with over 700 exhibitors and 150,000 attendees in Seoul this week. The KH Fair had every building product conceivable and some very impressive exhibits from Korea and other parts of the world. Green building construction and healthy living seemed to be the biggest trend and was seen throughout the different exhibits at the show. As a result, the wood construction and building products section was well exhibited with new products and designs.
BC Wood partnered with CMHC International to showcase a variety of wood products at the event and promote companies through advertising efforts. Korea has typically been considered a raw materials market, our exhibit had several finished wood products including a Western Red Cedar Gazebo and some high end finished furniture from British Columbia. The end result was positive and many Korean buyers were impressed by the unique quality products from Canada.
Despite the downturn in the Korean economy, the show was very well attended and our booth attracted a lot of interest. Many of our exhibitors were new to the Korean market, but were very impressed by the people, wood culture and enthusiastic levels of interest in our wood products.
During a week-long tour of the Kootenays, Bell was in Castlegar and met with the mayor and councillors.
Bell said Castlegar is doing well as a Wood First community, following a provincial program that encourages innovated domestic use of wood products.
“You are living it here,” he said. “You are a great example for the rest of communities to follow.”
“As Minister of Forests and Range, I get to tour lots of small communities,” said Bell. He explained the Castlegar’s facilities are some of the nicest he’s seen in the province and make good use of wood construction. Read More
Lumber prices are spiking sharply upward in the U.S. as sawmill curtailments, largely from producers in this province, are finally tightening the supply of lumber heading into the still-fragile U.S. housing market.
“There’s been a dramatic turnaround but it’s taken more than two years,” said John Allan, president of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries.
The mill curtailments have finally “bitten,” Allan said, tightening the lumber pipeline to the United States.
Companies remain cautious. There is an overhang of foreclosed homes in the U.S. to come on the market and new-home construction remains weak.
“It’s definitely bottomed, but it has a long way to go,” said Andy Carr, a sales representative at Westbank’s Gorman Brothers plant, which produces specialty boards one-inch thick for home finishings. “It’s still a fragile economy down there and as long as government programs are in place, things will look like they are getting better. But their economy is not rolling along on its own steam yet.”
At today’s prices, the mills that are still standing in B.C. are cash-positive, Allan said.
On Friday, the price of lumber closed at $317 US a thousand board feet.
A year ago, lumber was selling for $165 US a thousand board feet. The average break-even cost in the B.C. Interior is $260 US. “The price jump is strictly a supply-side response by the market,” said Rick Jeffery, president of the Coast Forest Products Association.
He said it’s prompted by producers here keeping their production down, dropping their inventories of both logs and lumber, and selling more lumber into the growing Chinese market.
B.C. lumber production is down 39 per cent since 2007, according to Statistics Canada. More than 20,000 workers have lost their jobs.
And in their recent conference calls with analysts, the heads of three of the province’s largest forest companies — Canfor, Interfor and West Fraser Timber — all said they intend to keep both curtailed shifts and mothballed sawmills down until they see stronger demand from the U.S.
Smaller producers fear that the big players may restart too soon, swamping the market with two-by-fours.
“There’s been good discipline on supply-side management from the industry, which is unusual because it’s a fragmented industry,” Jeffery said. “Everybody has taken down time, so supply is more in balance with demand.”
China’s role has also been significant in tightening the supply for the U.S. Canadian exports to China are up 135 per cent year over year for the first nine months of 2009.
In his conference call, Interfor CEO Duncan Davies told analysts Interfor is shipping 10 per cent of its lumber to China. Canfor’s Jim Shepard said Canfor is shipping eight per cent. All West Fraser’s offshore markets account for 10 per cent of production, CEO Hank Ketcham said.
The result: B.C. mills are no longer so dependent on the U.S. market.
Nowhere is that more clear than at Gorman Brothers. Before the lumber downturn, Gorman was shipping 80 per cent of its lumber into the U.S. Now, Carr said, the company is shipping 35 per cent to the U.S., 35 per cent to the domestic market and 30 per cent offshore, mostly to Japan and the Middle East.
**This is article is from the Vancouver Sun by Gordon Hamilton: http://www.vancouversun.com/Industry+bounces+back+lumber+prices+spike+sharply/2591038/story.html
However, in the face of this apparent adversity, the tropical plywood business provides a good example of how our industry has embraced change and has adapted to environmental and economic pressures. Whereas first West Africa and later the Far East were the ‘bread basket’ for tropical plywood throughout most of the 20th century, the declining availability of logs and, in some cases, environmental pressures have brought China and South America to the fore as sources of ‘tropical’ plywood alternatives over the past decade.
To date, it is fair to say that these new sources provided part of the longer-term solution in terms of an alternative supply base. However, they fall short on widespread technical and environment credibility and, more critically from a commercial perspective, ongoing supply availability. This is now changing in South America, where companies like Weyerhaeuser are leading by example and driving change that will provide products to meet 21st century requirements, with the establishment of effective timberlands strategies and some powerful product innovation…
…With strong operations already established, South America will be a major player in the coming decades, equipped to provide an array of credible and sustainable alternatives to traditional products in to the global market place.
What may come as a surprise to some is that South America’s tropical alternatives are also set to be widely consumed in local markets, driven by very strong emerging economies. For example, in addition to a population fast approaching 200 million people, by 2016 Brazil will have played host to both the Olympic Games and the World Cup – requiring enormous infrastructure development. Coupled with South America’s growing middle class and large housing deficit, all signs point to there being a sustained construction boom across the region, thus allowing South America to become a major consumer of its own products.
Image from for.gov.bc.ca
In the Kootenays, we live in a very lush, forested valley. Most don’t think too much about what makes up that forest, the many different types of trees. Some are quite common like the trembling aspen and Douglas fir and others quite rare like the yellow cedar. Although rare locally, it’s actually quite common on the West Coast and is an ecologically, economically, and culturally important tree. The yellow cedar has great significance for NW native peoples, dating back at least 3,000 years. They made canoes, paddles, masks out of the wood, clothing, hats, blankets, from the inner bark, and roofing material from the outer bark. Even roots were used to make baskets and cradles. It seems like nothing went to waste. They identified this tree as ‘the tree of life.’
Yellow cedar has experience a dramatic decline in Alaska and British Columbia but not due to insect or disease. The yellow cedar decline has coincided with the beginning of the current climatic warming after the 1850’s. It would appear that this tree is particularly vulnerable to climate change. This is a species that evolved when snow cover was more consistent and early snow provided an insulating blanket for their roots before winter temperatures plummeted. Global warming seems to have produced winters in some areas with less snow and therefore little to no blanket for the roots.
To learn more about Yellow Cedar, click here
But industry players are not prepared to relax their cautious stance quite yet as they search for signs that a true recovery in the critical U.S. housing market – a major buyer of Canadian lumber – is taking hold.
For West Coast lumber giant Canfor Corp., indications of a sustainable recovery of the U.S. housing construction market are not, so far, apparent.
“We still really feel the price increases we have seen are supply-driven,” Canfor spokesman David Lefebvre said.
Prices have increased to reflect the reduced supply but there is no actual upswing in demand.
“The elements we’re looking at include housing starts and an increase in demand, but we’re not seeing that right now,” Mr. Lefebvre said.
The market remains volatile, said Russell Taylor, president of Vancouver-based consultancy International Wood Markets Group.
“In 2009, we hit prices we thought we would never see, at below cost, and housing starts at all-time lows. It was a brutal year. Now, all of a sudden, there is this kind of bubble,” he said. “These prices have no technical support and can only go down, but it will take several weeks.” Read More