Further to Madison’s latest story, about the skyrocketing levels of US softwood lumber exports to China, is equally stunning increase of US coniferous log exports to China.
At the same time that Canadian sawmills are being blamed for the stark rise in North American construction framing lumber prices, in large part due to punishing US softwood lumber duties, US timberland owners — the BY FAR largest contributing group the the US Lumber Coalition lobby group in Washington DC — are exporting multiples of record-breaking raw log volumes.
US and CANADA SOFTWOOD LOG EXPORTS
After a whopping +42% jump for our previous issue, the VALUE of US coniferous LOG exports to China increased the growth rates seen in the year, improving by another +17.6%, in January – June 2018, at US$398 million, compared to US$328 million in full year 2017.
The total VALUE of US coniferous LOG exports to the WORLD combined also increased by a significant proportion, up +11% for the first half of 2018, to US$753 million compared to US$668 million in full year 2017.
US Log Exports Jan – Jun 2018: ‘17 / ‘16
China US$398 million + 17.6%
Japan US$208 million + 14.4%
Canada US$ 78 million – 15.4%