{"id":9624,"date":"2012-08-07T13:06:41","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T19:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=9624"},"modified":"2012-08-07T13:06:41","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T19:06:41","slug":"in-lean-times-lumber-companies-look-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/08\/07\/in-lean-times-lumber-companies-look-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"In Lean Times, Lumber Companies Look Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lately, StateImpact<\/em> has reported a series of stories on the timber industry.\u00a0 We’ve reported on a Montana entrepreneur’s effort to start up a small mill in Emmett, Idaho<\/a> with the\u00a0help of federal stimulus funding<\/a>.\u00a0 We’ve also considered the divergent economic realities of counties<\/a> associated with agriculture and counties associated with the timber industry.\u00a0 Next up: timber exports.<\/p>\n

In the pre-recession years, before the housing boom busted, relatively little U.S. lumber went overseas.\u00a0 There was robust demand at home, and prices were good.\u00a0 There was no reason to undertake the effort (or the shipping cost) of sending lumber abroad.<\/p>\n

The recession<\/a> changed that.<\/p>\n

From 2005 to 2009, the price of lumber fell from $387 per thousand board feet to $222.\u00a0 Production fell from 19 to 10 billion board feet.\u00a0 “This is the deepest, longest slump in the North American softwood lumber market,” says Pete Malliris, an associate editor with trade publication Random Lengths<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And since it began, exports have ballooned, as shown in the graph above.<\/p>\n

Facing stagnant demand, U.S. lumber companies scrambled to find other markets.\u00a0 Tomorrow, we’ll air a broadcast story on one such company, Idaho Forest Group, the state’s largest lumber producer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In general, the headline of the spike in exports has been sales to China.\u00a0 In 2011, China overtook Canada as the main destination for U.S. softwood lumber exports.\u00a0 “China was looking for fiber wherever they could get it,” Malliris explains.<\/p>\n

But we’re already beginning to see these trends start to reverse.\u00a0 So far this year, the price of lumber stands at $308 per thousand board feet, its highest level since 2006.\u00a0 Shipments to China — a very price-sensitive market — are off by 30 percent.<\/p>\n

Historically, Malliris says, exports have been cyclical.\u00a0 There are up-cycles and down-cycles.\u00a0 But this time around, it could be different.\u00a0 Lumber companies could be reluctant to give up overseas buyers as the U.S. housing market improves.<\/p>\n

“What producers seem to want more than they did before are options,” Malliris observes.\u00a0 In other words, having just experienced an unprecedented contraction in domestic lumber demand, U.S. lumber producers see that selling in multiple markets gives them greater security and opportunity.<\/p>\n

“They\u2019re paying attention to what\u2019s happening in Russia and what\u2019s going on with the debt crisis in Europe, and how what happens with producers in those regions might affect their market position,” Malliris says.\u00a0 “They\u2019re paying more and more attention to it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, StateImpact has reported a series of stories on the timber industry.\u00a0 We’ve reported on a Montana entrepreneur’s effort to start up a small mill in Emmett, Idaho with the\u00a0help of federal stimulus funding.\u00a0 We’ve also considered the divergent economic realities of counties associated with agriculture and counties associated with the timber industry.\u00a0 Next up: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":9672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[68,52,51,46],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}