USA Raw Log Exports To China Up Sharply
Thursday, April 5, 2012 @ 4:37 AM
Prince George, B.c. – Exports of wood pellets from North America reached a record high of over two million tons in 2011 according to the latest edition of North American Wood fibre review.
The report says that while Canada has long been the main exporter of pellets, in the second half of 2011 the US producers caught up and exported an equal volume to Canada.
The report also says that in 2011 while Canada has drastically raised lumber shipments to China, the USA on the other hand has instead dramatically expanded its exporting of raw logs to Chinese lumber manufactures.
In 2011 US west coast log exporters shipped logs worth about 1 billion dollars , up from just 42 million in four years.
According to Hakan Ekstrom, producer of the report, while Canada drastically raised lumber shipments to China in recent years, the US instead has increased its raw log exports.
Shipments of softwood lumber from the two countries reached an all time high in 2011.
The greatest increase in those shipments has originated in the central interior of BC.
Comments
So let me see. Could this report have been conjured up to open the door for a “sharp” increase of raw logs by us to China?
Most of the logs in the states are private. Most of the logs in BC are public. There’s a big difference and I think we’ve go the better system.
Trees are a 100% renewable resource (contrary to oil, gas, coal and minerals) so it’s a great way to make money and provide jobs. It’s like farming. Too bad not more secondary manufacturing of wood products is done here, but nobody has come up with ideas to improve that.
“Could this report have been conjured up to open the door for a “sharp” increase of raw logs by us to China?”
Actually what you are probably not aware of is that Canada has found a way to sneak logs across the largest unguarded border in the world to the USA. The USA is paying half the value for them due to NAFTA, and is selling those suckers to China …..
biggest scam going …… ;-)
“Most of the logs in the states are private. Most of the logs in BC are public”.
Logs are logs.
Both private logs and public logs can be turned into products providing a greater return to the community or can be shipped off to other countries that know how to do that more effectively and convert them into products they need rather than those which the originator of the logs tells them they need.
It’s like buying vegetables to make you own salad, soup, etc. rather than buying them in a bag or a can all preprocessed for you with too much salt or preservatives or tomatoes added.
“Too bad not more secondary manufacturing of wood products is done here”
I think we have been using the wood that is available to us to its best advantage. We do not have the hardwoods, other than birch, that are commonly required for more durable wood products such as furniture, and flooring.
Birch around here, for instance, seems to be junk wood, once great for fireplaces, which also seem to be declining.
Trees are a 100% renewable resource (contrary to oil, gas, coal and minerals)
They sure are, just drive out towards Purden and have a look at the “Planted Sign”. Might need another 50 years before it can be logged again. If the replanted area isn’t thinned it’s a disaster.
It’s too bad BC doesn’t jump on the pellet burning band wagon like Germany has. But what do they know?
“Most of the logs in the states are private. Most of the logs in BC are public. There’s a big difference and I think we’ve go the better system.”
It depends on your viewpoint. In BC cheap logs have been used to subsidize lumber companies and unions for years. At least the softwood battle has limited this. When we sell a log to Canfor cheaply it means less money to the Province and therefore to the taxpayer while Canfor and the unions benefit.
In the end the softwood lumber agreement has helped average BC residents by limiting the amount of subsidies that can be handed to specific companies and special interest groups (such as big labor).
“Too bad not more secondary manufacturing of wood products is done here, but nobody has come up with ideas to improve that”
The only idea that will work in BC is if the workers accept the same type of wages here as they do in the offshore slave labour market.
Business in BC makes way too much money having their products produced in other countries to change their practices.
To hell with the citizens of BC. They want fair compensation for their work. Shame on them all!
Union members in BC would never buy finished products made locally.
That would be to expensive, they would rather buy junk made in China.
“buy junk made in China”
You know, I am, and I suspect there are a few others on here as well, who remember the phrase “junk made in Japan” …..
One of the things that I never hear is:
“junk made in Germany”
“junk made in Sweden”
“junk made in Norway”
“junk made in Switzerland” ……
There are a number of Canadian manufacturers who can hold their own against world competition, such as Bombardier to be sure.
I doubt that outside of Canada we are especially noted for poor or great manufacturing quality ….. We are just not a manufacturing nation.
Like I always said:
Product of Canada, Made in China
Pathetic, what a sell out!
Stihl, Husqvarna ….. why do we not have a world class chainsaw company with its home offcie in Canada?
How about a harvester, forwarder, etc? why are we not known the world over for those products? Why is Japan, that has to buy much of its wood from the rest of the world, competitive in that market and we are not?
When will it be time to do somethng about that? When we run out of natural resources that our mom nature has given to us?
Bombardier is only competitive due to the millions of dollars they get from the Gov.
“When will it be time to do somethng about that? When we run out of natural resources that our mom nature has given to us”
Yeah probably. Heck, just look at our education system for proof. Much of the population would rather have that system focused on developing “workers” instead of “thinkers”. Why not focus on the latter so that we will ensure we always need the former?
I wondered how long it would take before someone blamed it all on unions. The usual suspects, you guys are a laugh riot.
Some of the biggest exporters of raw logs are natives off their so called private land, just saying don’t mean nothing by it.
P Val wrote: “Bombardier is only competitive due to the millions of dollars they get from the Gov.”
And if you think that we are the only country doing that with our industries, and you think that is the only company we are doing that with … have I got a deal for you!!!! …
It is the way business works on an international scale.
You want to keep your citizen’s working and paying tax, and buying some local services? Or do you want to put everyone on welfare and go billions in the hole and have the IMF and the countries that play the game by the rules bail you out …..
Your choice …… ;-)
Natives are smart. They know there are only so many dugout canoes they can sell and so many totem poles they can carve. Nobody wants lumber anymore.
And they know that if you don’t use some of the timber to make some money, like the non-natives do, then the stuff will just waste away from bugs, fires, blowdowns, etc.
P Val the German ship building industry is heavily subsidized by the German Government. It was despicable of the fibs not to have the three ferries built here. Now Chrusty says the fibs support shipbuilding in BC. What a piece of work.
Bombardier isn’t in Canada it’s in Quebec.
We have the Bay and Roots!
Nice try NoWay. The Bay is now owned by Americans and Roots outsource most of their production. Canadians don’t even own many of the companies in the oil patch. Canada has been sold to the highest (or was it most government friendly) bidder.
Comments for this article are closed.