But I thought we were running out of timber because of the MPB? How many billion board feet of raw logs have been exported this year? As with most importing of raw material they do, China will import and stockpile and then cut off all imports when the price goes up, and wait untilt he price goes down to renegotiate. Where were they when the price was good? Building with brick and mortar and will go back to that when lumber goes up.

China is stockpiling on the docks while firesale prices exist..

China is about to have a domestic housing bubble pop..

And do tell Pat Bell, how come so many mills are still shuttered?

Pat pledge pin Bell..

Could you please release the silvaculture numbers?

Shouldn`t those planted tree numbers also be at record highs?

but they aren`t, less and less each year.

Desperate for a channel change eh Pat?

Sheesh

The province is reporting today that as of November 30th, BC had shipped 4.28 billion ft of lumber into China

How much of that is board feet and how much is raw log. Mr. Bell if lumber sales are so good then how come there are mills still shut down. Or the truth is, there is NO middle man anymore.

Yeah, I’d like to see the numbers for raw log exports as well, just to fully understand how the B.C. government is frittering away our raw resources, and denying valuable jobs to B.C. residents in the process.
metalman.

“The monster surge in sales of B.C. lumber into China will start to tail off, forest industry observers are warning.

As of the end of September, $835,233 million worth had been shipped into China, a nearly 110-per-cent increase over the year-to-date figure for 2010, according to B.C. Stats numbers released this week.

But Russ Taylor, president of International WOOD Markets Group, said exports into China have been almost doubling every year since 2007 and the days of that kind of “unsustainable” growth will be over by early next year.

“The pace of increase is slowing fast because there’s a huge inventory of wood now in China,” Taylor said. “The building’s been slow, the government’s trying to curb inflation, they’ve restricted the amount of money available for the real estate sector, they’ve restricted mortgages to individuals to having only one additional property and that’s cooled the housing market.”

That said, the long-term growth for lumber demand into China will be about 20 per cent a year.

“That’s still a good growth rate but everyone seems to be unhappy if it’s not 100 per cent growth rate,” Taylor said. “It was never sustainable, that was always our comment.”

Keta Kosman of Madison’s Lumber Reporter had a similar position, saying the Chinese government has clamped down on the availability of credit.

“The government building is going forward – the community housing and the re-roofing and the demand for the trusses is going to stay – but the private building of apartment blocks for private sales is definitely slowing down in China right now,” Kosman said.

In September, $103.9 million worth of softwood lumber was sold into China from B.C., a 53.7 per cent leap over the same month last year. However, that’s down from a peak of $130 million in June.

Exports into the U.S. for September added up to $137.1 million, a 13.2 per cent jump over the same month last year, but both Taylor and Kosman predict that burst will be short-lived and are anticipating extended shutdowns for sawmills over the Christmas break.

“The whole of the U.S. housing market fundamentals are sick, just sick,” Taylor said. “And until we get through these mortgage foreclosures and getting the housing prices to bottom out and inventories back into balance, we’re not going to get there.”

The year-to-date figure for the U.S. now stands at $1.2 billion, 16 per cent lower than the third-quarter total in for 2010.

Sales of raw logs into China amounted to $29.2 million, raising the year-to-date total to $232 million, a 189-per-cent increase over last year”

[url]http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/article/20111116/PRINCEGEORGE0101/311169997/-1/princegeorge/growth-in-lumber-sales-to-china-to-level-off-analysts-say[url/]

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/article/20111116/PRINCEGEORGE0101/311169997/-1/princegeorge/growth-in-lumber-sales-to-china-to-level-off-analysts-say

And what isn`t being sold as raw logs is going out as “cants”…a cant is a log thats been cut on 2 sides for easy stacking, it`s real close to being a raw log

For those interested in raw log exports, I have posted the link on several occasions. Time you guys get off your behinds and do it yourselves.

The same with the rest of the wood product exports.

I mean, the details are right down to the lumber tha Jason Smith packed at the Houston Mill……. ;-)

Why do we have to go through the same olde, same olde every month when the figures come out in a media release?

This isn’t always about you, gus.

I really never thought anything is “about me”. Nor “about you”.

I really thought it was about the topic and a discussion about those topics.

I also thought that over time, with the same topics, there would be an increase in the level of knowledge as everyone contributes their knowledge base to the topic.

So, I am hoping that if I take you questions and give you my opinion about them, it is not about me, not about you, but about the subject of your questions.

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1.But I thought we were running out of timber because of the MPB?

Not yet, depending on the utility of the dead, standing pines as feedstock for a variety of uses as well as the accessibility of the wood and distance to existing plants. The annual allowable cut has been reduced to 12.5 million m3 for the next 10 years which is more than the norm of around 10million for the PG TSA.

The reason is that the Chief Forester wants to get the dead trees cut while they still have an economic value. The downfall will come around 2020 when the “mid term” supply is expected to drop to around 6million. That level of timber supply is expected to last about 40 years before it starts to go back up over a few decades.

2. How many billion board feet of raw logs have been exported this year?

Go to the Statscan site which has the information broken down in many ways such as province, material types (including raw logs and species of wood), months, years, etc. For anyone really interested in understanding the topic, I suggest bookmarking some of these sites and visiting them every few months. Imports are shown as well, including imports of products such as bamboo from Asia.

3. As with most importing of raw material they do, China will import and stockpile and then cut off all imports when the price goes up, and wait until the price goes down to renegotiate.

Stockpiling logs for long has problems associated with it. Depending on use, it is a perishable item. I understand that if watered, logs can be stored in a yard for 2 to 3 years, again, depending on use.

4.Where were they when the price was good?

It was more a matter of where were we when the price was good. We were selling all we could produce to the USA, Canada and Japan. We were not marketing to China in a big way.

5.Building with brick and mortar and will go back to that when lumber goes up.
I doubt they are changing for that reason. True North American western platform wood frame construction is a miniscule fraction of building in China. It is something they are trying. There was an effort in the 1970s to promote that type of structure and house design in European countries. It never took off in a big way. As you imply, it is difficult to change what is indigenous to a culture.

It is just as difficult to introduce prefab panel construction to the Canadian building technology culture. The Chinese are just being like any other culture in the world.

Oh, one thing I forgot, this is not all about the Prince George Timber Supply Area, even though I gave those fiogures since I happen to know them without looking them up. It is about the provincial timber supply and the exporting of timber, including Fir, Cedar, and those types of species preferred by some countries.