The 3Q 2017 issue of Madison’s Forest Pulse is almost ready to be sent to subscribers! Don’t miss out on this vital and timely information.
Much is being made of current high softwood lumber prices, as opinions abound about the near-future supply-demand balance. Forestry has been a seller’s market from the very beginning of this year, and all signs point to continued, ongoing strong wood demand in the US for real building projects.
This week Madison’s takes a look at the most-often used wood construction framing commodity prices compared to the all-time highs of mid-2014 to mid-2015. There are some very interesting changes to the movement of those prices against each other from that time to present.
Current Softwood Lumber Prices Compared to Historical Highs
As the table above illustrates, western and eastern spruce-pine-fir — produced largely in western Canada and Quebec respectively — prices are rising now compared to the soaring highs of 2Q 2004.
For it’s part, southern yellow pine — manufactured mostly in the US south — matched those increases of SPF until about June this year then started to lose ground.
On the graph above it is clear that, into 3Q 2017, the previously consistent rise of southern yellow pine lumber prices has retreated while western and eastern SPF continue to climb.
Current Softwood Lumber Prices Compared to Historical Highs
The latest data, meanwhile, shows steady upward trends in softwood lumber manufacturing across Canada and the US, as the upcoming issue of Madison’s Forest Pulse will show.
Even at writing, North American sawmills are reporting to Madison’s that their order files are past the beginning of December, which is quite unusual. Normally at this time of seasonal low for construction and building, sales would be slowing down and sawmills would be getting ready to empty out their log and their lumber yards for year-end.
For the very first issue of 2017, Madison’s noted quite strong demand for softwood lumber which doesn’t seem to have abated much over this year. Come the first week back to work for January 2018, it is reasonable to expect similar high demand, and therefore prices to remain on the upside.