Tag Archives: SLA

Lumber Issues Unsettled

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Issues concerned with the cross-border softwood dispute remain among critical questions facing BC’s lumber industry. A sellout crowd of 225 at yesterday’s annual North American Wholesale Lumber Association (NAWLA) Vancouver Regional meeting heard updates on Canada’s litigation efforts to “vigorously defend the industry” through five separate challenges. A hearing scheduled next Tuesday on the challenge regarding injury is considered to be the most critical of three challenges with NAFTA, all deemed to be significantly more important than two challenges with the WTO ( “a retaliation mechanism”). Colin Barker, Director Softwood Lumber Division, Global Affairs Canada update report confirming dormant cross-border softwood negotiations echoed remarks by US ambassador David MacNaughton at the COFI Convention April 4th.

Provincial government perspectives were shared by Jennifer Burleigh, Director of the Trade and Export Policy Branch with the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. On the heels of Minister of Forests Doug Donaldson’s “new model of forest management” discussion at the COFI Convention, she reiterated this provincial government’s “very different approach”.  Burleigh noted both Donaldson and Premier John Horgan’s “strong passion for forestry” citing the Coast Revitalization initiative and the recently announced Interior process as examples. Softwood lumber meetings with the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) were tempered by acknowledgement of “no public interest” in the U.S.

COFI President and CEO Susan Yurkovich expanded on four challenges in BC’s forest sector today, specifically access to 1) fibre, 2) capital, 3) markets 4) talent. In accessing fibre, she noted increasing constraints on the timber harvesting land base. “We need to find a way to preserve the timber harvesting land base.” Yurkovich also expressed frustration with the punitive softwood lumber duties in the face of a lumber supply shortfall in the US: the lumber supply gap (“delta”) estimated at 14 billion FBM cannot be filled by domestic production.

Andy Rielly, President, Rielly Lumber Inc., and Chairman, Independent Wood Processors (IWPABC), and Executive Board Member, Western Red Cedar Lumber Association, fired up the audience which included majority of IWPABC’s 58 member companies. With an eye to SLA negotiations, Rielly emphasized the influential role of associations (“you don’t need an agent until you need an agent”). He highlighted the “double-whammy” facing the value-added sector: 1) re-manners are independent, non-tenured, non-subsidy companies and 2) the punitive application of the AD/CVD on the selling/border price instead of the first mill price. The association is advocating for a negotiated settlement “sooner rather than later” under a transferable quota-based system, with allocation of quota not based solely on historical shipment volumes (“new jobs here in BC are not coming from the primary”).

Colin Barker, Director Softwood Lumber Division, Global Affairs Canada, and Jennifer Burleigh, Director of the Trade and Export Policy Branch with the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development
Colin Barker, Jennifer Burleigh, Susan Yukovich, Andy Rielly

Sticker Shock

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After hitting a 20-year high in 2017 ($440 October 10), the Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price has snowplowed even higher this winter, reaching $458 Friday. SPF 2×4 #2&Btr is $502, a record high. “Shaking their heads – some in near disbelief..” — that’s how Random Lengths describes ever-wary lumber traders in their Weekly Report on North American Forest Products Markets (19 Jan 2018).

Last week a good U.S. customer, in response to a partial quote, asked: “Where are they hiding all the wood?” I posed the question to Russ Taylor, Managing Director, Forest Economic Advisors Canada. Russ notes Canadian shipments are already limited by tightening timber harvests in the B.C. Interior and Quebec. And with Canadian softwood lumber exports further constrained by cross-border duties, FEA-Canada projects Canadian shipments to the U.S. to shrink even more, up to 7% through 2019. Russ confirmed the additional North American lumber production required to satisfy U.S. demand will need to come from U.S. mills. Russ considers projections for U.S. mill shipments to grow 15%, from 34.0 billion FBM in 2017 to over 39 billion FBM in 2019, “an aggressive target.”

When Russ then reiterated FEA-Canada’s most recent five-year outlook quoted below with permission, I was reminded of the comments John Innes, Dean of the Faculty of Forestry, UBC made back in 2012: “What people seem to forget – and I don’t really understand this – is that there was extra capacity created to process this lumber when the beetle reached its peak. Surely people then realized that this was a temporary thing; that it wasn’t going to last.” See: Firm Offers?

U.S. demand will be leaning more heavily on expansions in U.S. production and European lumber imports in the 2018-19 period. Production increases in the U.S. will be subject to many factors, including lumber prices, log supply and costs, financing, supply chain dynamics (including loggers and sawmill workers) etc. This means we could see varying supply responses in different regions of the U.S., and at different times.

As we have been forecasting for the last few years (and again this year), there does not seem to be nearly enough available softwood lumber capacity in North America to meet U.S. demand by the end of the decade. While the slower pace of housing starts has somewhat delayed any potential ‘supply gap’ in the last few years, the burden of import duties on Canadian lumber shipments to the U.S. has now exacerbated this situation (starting in 2017). We predict that incremental supplies of logs and lumber will be required each year, and that high lumber prices will result and attract more supply; in 2020 and beyond, there is strong potential for even higher lumber prices.

 

Breaking: SLB-funded initiatives generated 1.02 billion board feet of incremental softwood lumber demand in 2017.

https://giphy.com/embed/3ohs4w0cY60YNTinIY

11 Questions for 2018

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Here are 11 questions that Harderblog will be watching in 2018, in search of answers:

1. Will rhetoric of military strike pass the ‘tipping point’ into war with North Korea?
2. Will the Bitcoin excitement be fading, or prove to be a bubble?
3. Will the extreme weather patterns evidenced in 2017 be as pronounced in 2018?
4. Will Trump take steps to call a halt to the special prosecutor’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election?
5. Has integrity lost some of its lustre as a perceived prerequisite for leadership success?
6. As higher lumber prices effectively offset impact of duties, will Canadian major producers’ newly-hedged investments in U.S. production assuage any further concerns companies such as West Fraser and Canfor might have about the ongoing Softwood Lumber dispute?
7. Will Germany repeat as FIFA World Cup champions?
8. Will the powers that be acknowledge that the remanufacturing (value-added) segment of the Canadian forest sector is being unfairly penalized in the application of the AD/CVD?
9. Will softwood lumber be incorporated into NAFTA?
10. In view of the fractured supply chain, will lumber buyers abandon the “just-in-time” model in favour of securing coverage that satisfies longer-term projected needs?
11. Will broccoli, the least-trusted vegetable of 2017 among lumber traders and the general population, retain that notoriety in 2018, at the same time as the world watches broccoli’s favorability surge to number one in Scotland?

Answers

Year-end Answers

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As we approach year-end, you’ll recall 17 questions for 2017 we posed one year ago at Harderblog:

1. (See Question #1 from 2016)
Yes.

2. Will Trump really build a wall and have Mexico pay for it?
No. It’s reported the promised border wall amounts to eight prototypes sitting in a desert outside San Diego. Mexico hasn’t contributed a peso and no funding has been appropriated by Congress to advance the project beyond the testing phase.

3. Will the softwood lumber dispute have found a satisfactory resolution?
At the 2017 COFI Convention in Vancouver, David Emerson, B.C.’s Trade Envoy to the United States, described the ongoing softwood lumber dispute as “a mutating form of bacteria that has all but become antibiotic-resistant.” In the face of a dwindling resource and increasing demand for softwood worldwide, effective today the combined CVD/AD duty paid by most Canadian importers to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency will be 20.23%, calculated on the selling price.

4. Will anticipated countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber shipments to the U.S. be applied retroactively?
No. While the USDOC concluded in April that “critical circumstances” existed (justifying the charging of duties retroactively 90 days), by early December the USITC had announced a negative finding concerning critical circumstances.

5. Will Trump really pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement?
Yes.

6. In the face of “Fake News” and misinformation that poses distraction to sound decision formulation on many fronts, will lumber dealers lean more heavily than ever on trusted wholesale relationships to interpret market changes?
A poll of traders in Dakeryn’s office says “yes” to this question.

7. Will Trump really pull the U.S. out of the Iran Nuclear Deal?
No.

8. Will there be 100 million consumers shopping in augmented reality (AR) by the end of 2017?
Maybe not yet. However we’re told here “shoppers are beginning to give AR more attention, particularly when viewing function-driven, feature rich, high-consideration purchases such as furniture. Voice technology, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence are transforming the retail industry to make buying products quicker, easier and more enjoyable.”

9. Will a measure of sanity return to the Vancouver housing market?
No, although, as a major news story, rental-housing woes in Vancouver eclipsed angst over the climbing cost of homeownership. In 2017, it’s reported the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment listing in this city surpassed $2,000 per month.

10. Will the record number of homeless people identified in the City of Vancouver’s 2016 Homeless Count be broken again in 2017?
Yes. The record-breaking 2,138 homeless people counted in Vancouver this year is 291 more than the previous record of 1,847 homeless people counted in 2016. At 448, Aboriginal peoples are once again over-represented in the number of homeless people living in Vancouver.

11. Will tensions with China escalate over trade and Taiwan?
Trade issues loomed large on many fronts in 2017. The U.S. opting out of the Trans Pacific Partnership headlined trade-related news in Asia.

12. In light of increased hacking of connected products, will questions surrounding cybersecurity have become a make-or-break issue by the end of 2017?
Yes. In fact 2017 has been described as “the year of cybersecurity wake-up calls”. Recent examples show disturbing trends.

13. Is there any indication that by the end of 2017 a future of driverless transport trucks could promise enhanced just-in-time lumber deliveries?
See Corrections.

14. Will anybody care if the Vancouver Canucks fail to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
Vancouver Canucks attendance figures are said to be the lowest since 2001.

15. Will BC Premier Christy Clark’s Liberal Party secure a fifth term in May?
No.

16. Will the global crises surrounding issues of displaced peoples/refugees have eased anywhere?
See: Why nothing will stop people from migrating.

17. Will general predictions forecasting a “bumpy ride” for 2017 come to fruition?
See: Are you day trading?

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees (Guest Post)

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I have to admit, I am not smart enough to totally understand all the concepts within the softwood lumber dispute. It is beyond me how a small group of people (U.S. Lumber Coalition) can continually try to hold a whole country hostage in spite of the fact that International Courts have proven them wrong time and time again.

It is also beyond me how the U.S. Department of Commerce can not only continue to support what seems to be a money grab but also seem to be able to differentiate the amount of alleged damage each company has contributed to the U.S. Lumber Coalition through mysterious, arbitrary numbers and selective testimony.

Be all that as it may, everyone both inside and outside of the industry understands that the only real damage being done is to the little guy. It is not a shock that this continued dispute only drives up the price of lumber to both U.S. and Canadian consumers and all the while the rich guys on both sides of the border get richer.

What my simple mind does find shocking is that with all the smart people involved in this process, nobody is talking about the “unintended” consequence of the anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) as it is applied.

In March of this year, I had a long conversation with Wendy Frankel, Director, U.S. Customs & Border Protection Liaison Unit, International Trade Administration (ITA), U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC). I took great pains to explain to her that by applying the AD/CVD on the selling (border) price, the DOC is actually subsidizing the U.S. Secondary Remanufacturers as opposed to creating a level playing field. Applying the AD/CVD to the first mill price would be far more appropriate as that is where the alleged damage exists and it would not affect the competitiveness of the secondary market. Ms Frankel was clear that subsidizing the U.S. remanners was not the intent and I will try to take her at her word.

The math is simple:
A Canadian independent remanner buys 2×8-20’ SPF on the open market from a mill in B.C. at $639/M delivered Vancouver. This remanner turns that wood into 2×8-20’ Fascia Combtex Prime and sells it to a U.S. customer for $1000/M. At the rates announced November 2nd in the final determination, the Canadian company will pay approximately $208/M in duties (calculation simplified for presentation) thus “grossing” $153/M before processing costs. A U.S. remanner buying the same lumber and selling to the same customer at the same price would pay $133/M in duties thus “grossing” $228/M before processing.

It seems undeniable to me that this significant difference is a clear subsidy.. a subsidy that would not exist if the duties were applied to the first mill price.

Since my conversation with Ms Frankel in March, I have approached fellow remanners (too expensive to fight), industry associations, and Government officials and nobody will take the time to have the conversation with me (although one individual did offer to meet me in the parking lot for suggesting he was not doing his job).

After all of that, I am left with a few questions:

1. Is this dispute legitimately about levelling the playing field – or just a recurring disguise for greed?
2. If somebody like me who admittedly is not the sharpest knife in the drawer can see this so clearly, why can’t the smart people?
3. Do the negotiators actually see the consequence – but both sides are holding ‘first mill’ as a negotiating point in spite of the fact that it was the basis of taxes in the previous agreement?
4. Do politicians just accept that there will be collateral damage in disputes like this and are willing to potentially sacrifice the small independent remanufacturers?
5. Am I missing something?

I guess only time will tell.

Roy Falletta, VP Finance & Administration
Dakeryn Group of Companies

Final AD/CVD Rates

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Hard to rationalize. Where does the characterization of ‘dumping’ come in as a rationale in the prevailing supply-demand scenario?
Here is today’s report from Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online (2 Nov 2017):

With the U.S. and Canada unable to reach a long-term settlement, the Commerce Department on Thursday announced affirmative final determinations in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of softwood lumber imports from Canada.

The announcement prompted Canada to threaten litigation through the North American Free Trade Agreement or the World Trade Organization.

“While significant efforts were made by the United States and Canada, and the respective softwood lumber industries, to reach a long-term settlement to this on-going trade dispute, the parties were unable to agree upon terms that were mutually acceptable,” Commerce said in a statement. “As a result, the investigations were continued and Commerce reached its final determinations.”

Commerce said it determined that exporters from Canada have sold softwood lumber in the U.S. at 3.20 percent to 8.89 percent less than fair value. It also said Canada was providing unfair subsidies to its softwood lumber producers at rates from 3.34 percent to 18.19 percent.

The department will instruct Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits from lumber importers based on those final rates.

A fact sheet issued by the department noted that it found “critical circumstances” in the AD investigation for certain Canadian exporters but not others. “Consequently, Commerce will instruct CBP to impose provisional measures retroactively on entries of softwood lumber from Canada, effective 90 days prior to publication of the preliminary determination in the Federal Register, for the affected producers and exporters,” the fact sheet states.

It also notes that certain softwood lumber products “certified by the Atlantic Lumber Board (ALB) as being first produced in the Provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Prince Edward Island (the Atlantic Provinces) from logs harvested in these three provinces should be excluded from the scope of the AD and CVD investigations.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said that while he was “disappointed that a negotiated agreement could not be made between domestic and Canadian softwood producers, the United States is committed to free, fair and reciprocal trade with Canada.” He said the U.S. decision was “based on a full and unbiased review of the facts in an open and transparent process that defends American workers and businesses from unfair trade practices.”

Ross had been negotiating with Canada in the hopes of reaching a suspension agreement and pushed the final determination deadline from late August to November.

“I remain hopeful that we can reach a negotiated solution that satisfies the concerns of all parties,” Ross said on Aug. 29, announcing the extension through Nov. 14, which he said “could provide the time needed to address the complex issues at hand and to reach an equitable and durable suspension agreement.”

But Ross in June received criticism from the U.S. lumber industry when he tried to negotiate with the Canadians because, sources said then, the positions he outlined ran counter to the longstanding U.S. demand for a quota-only approach and would therefore undermine the U.S. negotiating position.

One source told Inside U.S. Trade in June that Ross “would like to get it off the table one way or the other,” before NAFTA renegotiation talks began in August. But, the source said, “Ross doesn’t know how complicated this is.”

Industry and government sources claimed Ross’s department was lacking the expertise needed in dealing with the file and doubted that Ross would be able to reach an agreement before the final determinations were set to be made.

Softwood lumber from Canada were estimated to be worth $5.66 billion in 2016, Commerce said.

The U.S. Lumber Coalition, which kicked off the case in November 2016, lauded the Commerce determinations. “We are pleased the U.S. government is enforcing our trade laws so that the U.S. lumber industry can compete on a level playing field,” the group’s co-chair, Jason Brochu, said in a statement. “The massive subsidies the Canadian government provides to their lumber industries have caused real harm to U.S. producers and their workers. With a fair-trade environment, the U.S. industry, and the 350,000 hardworking men and women who support it, have the ability to grow production to meet much more of our country’s softwood lumber demand.”

Canada, meanwhile, blasted the move in a statement issued by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr.

“The Government of Canada will continue to vigorously defend our industry against protectionist trade measures,” they said, calling the duties “unfair, unwarranted and deeply troubling.”

“We will forcefully defend Canada’s softwood lumber industry, including through litigation, and we expect to prevail as we have in the past,” they added. “We are reviewing our options, including legal action through the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, and we will not delay in taking action.”

Carr and Freeland also said they would “continue to engage our American counterparts to encourage them to come to a durable negotiated agreement on softwood lumber.”

If the U.S. International Trade Commission makes affirmative final injury determinations in the softwood lumber case, Commerce said, the department will issue AD and CVD orders. A negative final injury determination will terminate the investigation with no duties assessed.

The ITC is set to make its final determinations by Dec. 18

Bigfoot Blame

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Clearcut logging in BC’s Bigfoot country is the latest explanation ascribed to trackers’ inability to pin down sasquatch in the woods. According to reports in today’s Vancouver Sun, a sasquatch tracker out of Golden, BC aims to take the provincial government to court to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt (or a guy in a gorilla suit) that the legendary creature roams the BC wilderness.

In a civil lawsuit filed in BC Supreme Court on Monday, it’s reported the BC Ministry of Environment and BC Fish and Wildlife Branch is charged with “dereliction of duty pertaining to the interests of an indigenous wildlife species.” The plaintiff suggests that logging played a role in disappearance of the hairy beast’s natural habitat. Some wonder if impending Halloween tricksters might scare the creature into view. Just sayin’.

Meanwhile, for traders returning from back-to-back Forest Products Conferences in the Northeast this week, sometime seemingly invisible realities shaping lumber markets may be coming into view. When the busy LBM Advantage show concluded Tuesday in Baltimore, vendors boarded rail cars for Philly to attend a jampacked LMC Expo Wednesday and Thursday. Key takeaways from the Dakeryn tabletop visits? The market’s hot and the supply chain is fractured. No Halloween costumes can disguise it. Moreover, rumours are swirling the duty timeline is aggressively moving up. Traders wonder if countervailing duties on cross-border shipments will now be in effect as soon as mid-November. In midst of the unprecedented wildfire season in BC, could free-of-char (FOC) lumber be tax-exempt? While perception among some US lumber retailers suggests that duties are beneficial to their bottom line, at least one major dealer struggling for supply described the ongoing softwood lumber dispute as “bizarre”.

All Aboard! Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore) – 24 Oct 2017
Dakeryn Specialties Manager Brad Taylor with Mike Jones, Hampton Lumber – 25 Oct 2017

Lumber Market Pricing

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“What’s going to stop this market?!” is among the questions that lumber traders are pondering these days. Could softwood negotiations be the determining factor? What if the U.S. Department of Commerce throws out the case? More weather-related factors? This time, snow? Salvage logging? Traders taking a position, a stand, …or, a knee?

Back in 1994, when Michael Carliner was Staff VP for Economics at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), he wrote What’s Driving Lumber Prices?. In the article, it’s noted that changes in inventory levels create expectations on future levels of activity. It’s accepted that expectations about future supply and demand are key determinants in short-term behaviour of market participants. We’re told that rising prices, such as have been experienced, may of themselves create expectation of further price increases, causing speculative behaviour.

Carliner points out that historically, prices of lumber have not increased gradually with increased demand and constrained supply. Instead, data suggests an erratic pattern of booms and busts that are largely attributable to changes in expectations about future supply. Historically when supplies were not so uncertain, changes in housing statistics and other demand factors were reportedly less pronounced in their impact on short-term market pricing. We’re told that price spikes occurred when market participants were subject to uncertainties in policy, litigation impacting trade, plus the many additional factors that historically impact timing between a tree being felled and being delivered as lumber to market.

What’s different now?

The run-up in lumber prices over the past few months contains some short-term speculative elements, but the underlying trend is toward higher average prices.
– Michael Carliner, Housing Economist (January, 1994)

On this National Tree Day, any image of a tree is music to our ears! Hat Tip: Al Harder (Source: boredpanda.com)

An Accident of Circumstance

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Some participants on both sides of the softwood lumber dispute are seemingly struggling to understand basic tenets of supply and demand. A global market is in play in the long run to influence supply and pricing. However, as this Bloomberg report demonstrates, imposition of duties on Canadian softwood lumber is mostly hurting U.S. consumers these days.

This unexpected boon for Canadian lumber producers is essentially an accident of circumstance. The attacks on Canadian lumber exports combined with serious wildfire issues in both Canada and the U.S. have served to reduce lumber supply. Meanwhile, the recent hurricanes that impacted the U.S. have led to a spike in construction – causing lumber demand to soar.

The result of these simultaneous supply/demand pressures has been a sharp surge in lumber prices. According to The Globe & Mail, Canadian softwood lumber producers have seen gains in their share prices of more than 40%. In contrast, U.S. lumber producers are averaging gains of only 10%.

The end result of the latest harassment on Canadian companies is that these companies have become more profitable, while U.S. consumers are paying significantly inflated prices for lumber – even as natural disasters have created an imperative need for new U.S. construction.

– Stockhouse Newswire 09-20-2017

Talk About the Weather

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On the heels of the worst wildfire season in memory, a continent braces for reportedly the most dangerous hurricane ever. There’ll be time later to cast all this talk of weather in relation to climate change. For now, the impact on human lives is of foremost concern. Even so, lumber traders try to make sense of the variables that shape lumber markets thrown into unpredictability by virtue of trade talk uncertainties and subject to more volatility by forces of nature.

The reporting of Random Lengths since July (see excerpts from Random Lengths Lumber Market Reports below) suggests that traders sensed greater downside market risks heading into September. Pricing trends in evidence this week suggest the opposite to be true. We’ll share buyer caution in interpreting the changes that shape lumber markets this fall. Hazarding pricing forecasts seems especially risky for the remainder of this year. A recent posting we noted on a Vancouver church sign this week might have been aimed as a caution at bloggers and lumber reporter forecasters: “If pride comes before a fall, we should see humility by winter.”

July 21
“Some traders pointed to the gap in the application of the preliminary CVD on Canadian imports that starts August 26, hoping that prices would ease with no CVD in place.”

July 25
“While some quicker loads developed, mills widely quoted shipments for the weeks of August 14 and 21. Buyers were leery of booking into or beyond those weeks. They cited the coming pause in the countervailing duty, a steep discount in September futures, and quicker shipments from secondaries.”

July 28
“But the coming pause in collection of countervailing duties starting in late August, and the possibility of a lumber trade deal between the U.S. and Canada, left traders sensing downside price risk in the weeks ahead. Many turned to secondaries to fill holes in inventories.”

Aug 1
“With the preliminary CVD only in effect through August 25, buyers of Canadian S-P-F showed an increased fear of downside risk. The futures market’s huge discount to cash gave buyers another reason for caution.”

Aug 4
“Buyers maintained the view that purchases at current levels in advance of the onset of the gap in the countervailing duty carried risk. Producers, meanwhile, were largely content to limit sales to the U.S. until the gap starts, if not stack production until then.”

Aug 8
“Buyers anticipated downside in Canadian lumber amid the gap coming in the CVD. Reports circulated that shipments could be CVD-free as early as August 14.”

Aug 11
“Trading slowed as buyers’ sense of the market turned more bearish. Numerous factors weighing on the market generated uncertainty, which in turn led to a cautious approach. Topping the list was the coming pause in the countervailing duty, and anticipation that Canadian mills could lower prices with the nearly 20% CVD suspended.”

Aug 15
“A bearish tone grew more prevalent in softwood lumber and structural panel markets. Near record prices in many markets kept buyers only purchasing enough to fill in inventory, amid increasing fears of downside risk. Traders awaited next week’s countervailing duty gap period.”

Aug 18
“Dealers, distributors, and office wholesalers were reluctant to purchase more than immediate needs. They cited current price levels, the suspension of the preliminary CVD, and a slowdown in consumption as key reasons to hold back.”

Aug 22
“Buyers grew more concerned about downside risk and delayed purchases as long as possible. The pause in the countervailing duty on Canadian shipments to the U.S. takes hold at the end of the week, causing further fear.”

Aug 25
“Buyers anticipated opportunities to buy Western and Eastern S-P-F at lower levels with the August 25 arrival of the CVD-free period. Producers, however, proved to be far less vulnerable than buyers anticipated.”

Aug 29
“Monday’s announcement by the Commerce Department of a two month delay in the final determination of the countervailing and anti-dumping duty cases drove many buyers to the sidelines, waiting to determine a market direction.”

Sept 1
“Activity in S-P-F markets picked up Wednesday and Thursday once buyers digested news on the CVD case and returned to the market.”

Sept 8
“Many buyers.. scrambled for coverage, having held off for weeks in anticipation of a pullback once the pause in the countervailing duty on Canadian shipments to the U.S. commenced. Many were wary of booking loads past September at current prices.”

Log flume – Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve (North Vancouver, BC)