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WorkSafeBC Reopens BC Sawmill Explosions Investigation
In January, 2012, a sawmill in the community of Burns Lake, British Columbia, exploded, killing Robert Luggi Jr. and Carl Charlies. In April of that year, a similar blast consumed a Prince George, BC, sawmill, killing Alan Little and Glenn Roche. Many of the survivors suffered life-altering injuries – some are still unable to return…
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US Home Sales, House Prices: March 2019
A flurry of data on US real estate was released this week, with new housing starts, and new and existing home sales and house prices, all coming out Monday and Tuesday. Of great importance to the sawmilling industry is US new home sales: seasonally adjusted annual rate according to estimates from the joint release of…
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Canfor to Curtail all British Columbia Operations for One Week
Canfor Corporation announced April 24 it will be temporarily putting restrictions on operations at all of its British Columbia dimension mills. The restrictions will take effect on April 29 due to low lumber prices and the high cost of fibre. The curtailment will reduce Canfor’s production output by approximately 100 million board feet. Canfor has…
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US Housing Starts: March 2019
US new-home construction unexpectedly fell in March, said the US Commerce Department Friday, decelerating to the slowest pace since May 2017 and suggesting builders remain wary even as lower mortgage rates and steady wage gains offer support to consumers. For housing starts, this was the fifth negative Year-over-Year reading in a row (with March’s result…
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Softwood Lumber Prices Continue Dropping, US Housing Data Troubling
The latest data of US new housing starts and of home sales, for March 2019, is not encouraging. At a time of year when wood sales would normally be hot, this housing market softness is doing nothing to improve already dropping North America construction framing softwood lumber prices. Last week, Canadian sawmills and companies were…
