I think timber supply should be allocated to communities and not to publicly traded Forestry companies / corporations.

Very old mills first to go

Seems when the Pulp Mills first located in the Interior, back in the days when Ray Williston was the Minister of Lands and Forests, the understanding was. **Trees for jobs**

Seems 45/50 years later, we are losing the jobs and they are keeping the timber. Hmmmm.

When one looks at the number of mills that have closed in BC its devastating. What has her Highness Christie have to say about the lost jobs?

Posted by: People#1 on October 24 2013 4:30 PM
I think timber supply should be allocated to communities and not to publicly traded Forestry companies / corporations.

————

Huh?

The timber around Quesnel will still be processed in Quesnel. The timber around Smithers and Fraser Lake and Houston will still be processed in those towns. How much more “community” can you get?

I take it you’ve never been out in the bush between Quesnel and Vanderhoof? It’s desolate; there’s not a whole heck of a lot left there. This is pretty much a decent solution to a major problem; a problem that is only going to get worse.

“Seems when the Pulp Mills first located in the Interior, back in the days when Ray Williston was the Minister of Lands and Forests, the understanding was. **Trees for jobs**

Seems 45/50 years later, we are losing the jobs and they are keeping the timber.”

That long ago, they delivered milk to homes in glass bottles. In other words… Times have changed.

probably a solution that can be described as the best of all the evils. Houston will suffer, which I think it already is.

Your right JohnnyBelt. But the difference was the milk was produced in Prince George at Dairyland. These plants have been closed all over BC and the milk now comes to you from Edmonton/Calgary, or Vancouver. So we lost all the jobs.

Same thing for the lumber. Don’t think for a New York minute that this is anything other than a switcheroo by West Fraser, and Canfor, which will allow them to continue to make humungous profits, while the communities who had some control over the timber before the Liberals allowed the logs to be milled any where in BC, take a huge hit.

A few years ago lumber was selling at $150.00 per fbm. It is now selling for $350.00 per FBM. Huge increase, and profits are looking good. They will look even better once they get rid of a bunch more jobs.

Note that the above story does not make any reference to the amount of timber that is left in these TFA’s nor does it indicate when they might actually run out of timber. No mention of the huge profits available by getting the beetle killed timber for twenty five cents a sq metre.

All in all it looks like a good deal for Canfor and West Fraser, and not so good for the effected communities.

As usual BS baffles brains. They get the elevator, and we get the shaft.

Have a nice day.

No matter what the industry, companies don’t owe anybody a guaranteed job for life. I’m not sure why you think this should be so.

I have a great job, but I don’t think for a new york minute that things will never change in that regard. That would be foolish on my part.

The reason that West Fraser and Canfor are doing this is because it will allow the Canfor mill in Houston and the WF mill in Quesnel to have the timber to run the mills in the future. Do you really think they are doing this by choice given current lumber prices? They are making the best of a bad situation.

The alternative would have been to run the 4 mills on a part time basis as the AAC goes down as a result of the beetle kill.Within a few years there would be 4 mills that are not economically viable as they would not produce the cash flow to do necessary upgrades.

Although we will never know for sure but if the tree huggers had allowed logging or a prescribed burn in the park as the RPF’s from Canfor and WF had advised there would be enough feedstock to keep the mills slated for shutdown running.

BTW I am going to double down on my forestry stocks if the price is **$350.00fbm**…(current price in Chicago is $373.80 Mfbm USD) Also I think you mean cubic metre not square:)

I just want to say I will never work for Canfor again. They don’t give a hoot about their employees

A little more on the topic

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/pine-beetle-problem-forces-canfor-to-close-sawmill-in-quesnel-bc/article15065968/

Well, lonesome, through cold winters, mother nature kept the mountain pine beetle population in check for hundreds of years.

Your example of cutting and burning trees to tackle a burgeoning Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) population is a “human intervention”. Most of us realize the MPB epidemic was caused by unusually warm winters (our normal ones now). Winters use to have minus 30 to 40 degree celsius weeks. These “cold snaps” or “Arctic Expresses” killed off a majority of MPBs keeping their population in check.

In other words, global warming’s milder winters caused the MPB epidemic. In a sense because global warming is anthropogenic, we are responsible for our devastated forests not the MPB.

Lonesome. Yup I meant cubic metre, and yes lumber was trading at $373.80 Mfbm. Which just supports my points.

Lets keep in mind, that at this point in time we have no information as to how much marketable timber is left in either the Quesnel or Houston areas. What we do know is that the Quesnel Mill has an AAC of 640000 m3/yr. The Houston mill has 589836 m3/yr.

Are we to believe that with the price of lumber as high as it is, that Canfor and West Fraser would just leave whatever wood is left in the bush, and not market it. Highly unlikely. What will probably happen is that they will upgrade the mills that are left, increase production, add shifts when necessary, and market whatever timber is still available, and still get the benefits from closing two mills.

As an example Canfor has plans to upgrade its 100 Mile House mill, and it Smithers mill. (((I guess these mills were overlooked by the MPB))

Without knowing how much timber is left in these areas and how long it will be viable to log the tree’s we really have no information to make any good predictions.

If there is still marketable beetle kill timber in these area,s then it should be logged now, before it gets any worse.

All I can say is it isn’t a indefinite shutdown and these folks won’t have to wait for their buyouts.

I thought forestry was in great shape and BC had lots of trees!

You park your car and boat yet people#1 to save the planet?

So no one gets too confused when talking about just how humungously profitable companies like West Fraser and Canfor really are, just cancel an equivalent number of zeros from their reported overall sales and profits.

When you do that you’ll see that last year, (a ‘good’ year for both firms, compared to those immediately previous), Canfor would’ve had to sell $ 23,000 of product to make a profit of $ 414. That’s not even a 2% return.

While its competitor, West Fraser, was considerably more efficient. They made a whopping $ 867 profit on $ 30,000 of sales. Almost 3%!

When they’re reporting sales in the billions, and profits in the millions, they indeed seem humungous. But the profits of both, taken as a percentage of their sales, are not at a level many small businesses would find very worthwhile even staying in business for.

And lets not forget that both these companies grew by buying out other companies that found it more worthwhile to sell out than stay in a business where the profits *as a percentage of sales* continue to decline. I believe in anyone cared to look, you’d find most other companies are experiencing exactly the same thing. And far from growth being driven by corporate greed, as is often alluded, it’s more likely than not a necessity for survival under our current financial structure.

Palopu

As far as I know Canfor does not have a mill in 100 Mile or Smithers not sure about WF-map must be a few clicks deeper on their website.
http://www.canfor.com/our-company/operations/manufacturing

The foresters that work for these companies know what the fibre supply basket will be for the next few years but I’m sure it is adjusted yearly in consultation with the MOF. They cannot simply head into the bush and knock down every tree in their TSA because the price is up,it is dictated by the AAC. The basket is shrinking and they have to act accordingly.

From what I understand the standing dead timber will not last 10-15 years for sawlogs as originally thought and will soon only be good for things like pellets and pulp logs. Spiral checking is making it all but impossible to cut lumber.

One of the main reasons that Canfor bought and are pouring money into the mills in the Kootneys is that there are still green trees to feed the mills, much to the chagrin of No SeveranceNoway.

The Quesnel Canfor mill had a major refit not that many years ago but was also one of the first that got squeezed for logs because of BK. I really doubt that they would shut it down if there was an alternative.

Palopu – Saputo (Dairyland) products come from Armstrong trucked daily

Beetle population increased mainly to poor forest management. Planted forests all close to same age, more susceptable to being affected by the beetle. Forest fire suppression allowing beetle population to expand.

People1 forgets we had a spruce beetle epidemic in the 1980s when the temp in the Bowron Valley Provincial Park was a balmy -50 celcius. The Social Credit party of the time took opened up the whole area of the attack to clearcuts. Brinks even opened their portable sawmill right in the heart of the attack while the rest of the companies trucked.

Socreds created a clearcut you could see with the naked eye from outer space and public backlash helped them lose the next election but say what you will, we still have spruce trees in BC.

NDP sat on their hands for fear the public would do the same and now we have 75% of the pine trees in BC standing dead. The beetles flying across Ootsa lake looked like a fog until they hit you in the face. that was in the 90s and we had plenty of -40+ weather back then, even in the 2000s we had temps cold enough to kill them but once you have trillions, killing a few billion with cold makes very little difference

If the NDP had the guts to firebomb tweedsmuir park in the late 90’s and not listen to the ranting and raving of the treehuggers. We would have a viable forest industry today.

seamut – two thumbs up (and a pinky)

I agree.

A well respected Canadian scientist had these words to say about the MPB epidemic;

“A tiny insect about the size of a grain of rice, the mountain pine beetle, has devastated British Columbia’s interior pine forests, threatening enormous social, economic, and ecological upheaval. The infestation, which is expected to kill close to 80 per cent of B.C.’s mature pine forests, was caused in large part by global warming and is now seen as a contributor to the problem that caused its outbreak in the first place.” ~ David Suzuki

http://www.straight.com/news/david-suzuki-how-mountain-pine-beetle-devastated-bcs-forests

Unfortunately he wasn’t on the ground. So what did he say about the spruce beetle outbreak? Probably nothing as it was controlled with a massive logging operation and he didn’t have to blame it on the weather

Slinky, you could have Nuked Tweedsmuir and it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference.

I was up around Takla lake in about 1990 and there were already thousands of Beetle killed trees. So it would have ( and a lot probably did ) come from there anyways.

It was a done deal anyway you looked at it.

“If the NDP had the guts to firebomb tweedsmuir park in the late 90’s and not listen to the ranting and raving of the treehuggers”

The words of people who know nothing about the science of forestry and the practice of forestry.

The link is to the USDA site dealing with the MPB infestation of forests in Colorado and Wyoming. There were multiple points of origins. Tweedsmuire was but one.

The outbreak had a lot to do with our forest practices of suppressing natural fires and climate change.

from the web site:

“Mountain pine beetle infestations continue to grow on public and private lands in Colorado and Wyoming. More than 1.5 million acres of forest in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming are affected by the mountain pine beetle epidemic, which was triggered by an extended drought in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

– Mountain pine beetles are killing pine and spruce trees throughout the Rocky Mountains and western U.S. at an unprecedented rate.

– Extended droughts, warm winters, and old, dense forests have enabled this epidemic to become vast.

– Although bark beetle outbreaks are natural, the current outbreak is a major threat to regional economics and public safety.

– The mass of dead trees following beetle epidemics create severe falling and fire hazards.

– This infestation cannot be stopped. The Forest Service and numerous partners are working to reduce hazards in affected areas and to promote healthy forests in areas that have not yet been impacted.”

We are trying to manage forests the way mommy nature does it while reaping the benefits of the fibre content for commercial purposes.

Humans are strange that way. They think they are in charge, when they really are not.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mbr/home/?cid=stelprdb5139168

I don’t think the demise of the BC forest industry can be blamed on the mountain pine beetle. I blame the banksters on Wall Street.

Sure the pine beetle took its share of fiber and the big multinational forest companies got a huge economic boost accessing the cheep wood, and we have a lot of wood still rotting in the bush.

The biggest problem was Wall Street with cheep money from fractional reserve debt consolidating the industry into super mills where the only thing that mattered was the lowest cost, driving up the contribution margin to profits by using volume to spreed out the fixed costs. This is why the Americans fought back with tariffs. Lets not kid ourselves in that this was devastating for any independent producers… it limited a true market competition and created an oligarchy of a Wall Street financed BC forest industry.

People say Canfor doesn’t care about its employees… Canfor forces contractors to take a 15% cut in pay… the big forest companies control all the fiber… consolidation means we now have company towns and cities… the forest companies now control our politics in relation to forest policy. This story above is just a continuation of that consolidation of control of the resource for bankers and a monopolization on the relationship with its contractors.

In another story earlier in the day we heard about the rash of logging truck incidents… we also heard some great responses dealing with contractors up against the wall with mills that tighten the noose on them to the point that something has to give… they only have one customer now… and we had the industry reps putting the blame on the contractors and the drivers. Its all par for the course when you have bankster finance and not free enterprise running the show.

Mill closures due to lack of feedstock. We should not be surprised. It was projected and the Quesnel based cutting area was projected to be the first to go.

No news here, other than it is the expected scenario and we still have not prepared for it. Remember the Omineca Beetle Action Committee? This is what it was/is about. Can we have a look at its purpose and see how well it has done?

Or, perhaps, we should let sleeping dogs lie as we typically do.

Bottom line is business strategy has replaced stakeholder value with shareholder value.

Stakeholder value would find innovation and sustainability for the community and company stakeholders.

Shareholder value will maximize profits today at the expense of stakeholders long term sustainability.

The Omineca Beetle Action Committee was a farce from the get go and I said as much at the time. Last I heard they were pinning their hopes on mining.

As for the dead pine wood… why can’t that be an opportunity as well? We all pay carbon taxes in the billions. Charcoal is a huge market much larger than softwood lumber ever will be. How many charcoal plants do we have today? The pellet industry is going all gang busters keeping equipment in the bush working. I think PBEC alone does 80 rail cars a day out of PG in fiber… much more than any sawmills I’m aware of. Why do we have no innovation in the market and the soft wood oligarchy still has control of the fiber when they are winding down operations? The OBEC was a failure for sure.

if the wood is so bad why does west fraser want it ? it is all very political i work at the last remaining sawmill not owned by west fraser in quesnel and we make lumber everyday out of some very dead pine as does west fraser . i spend alot of time in the forrest there is plenty of wood out there. bad deal for bc eh

David Suzuki, baaaa haaaaa haaaaa!

“i spend alot of time in the forrest there is plenty of wood out there. bad deal for bc eh”

I don’t mean for this to sound rude, but try spending some extended time in an area where there are lots of healthy forests, then head back to the PG area and take note of what you see.

There are two experiences I had that jump to mind to help explain what I’m talking about:

1) When I was still living in PG (conditioned to the forests around there), I flew up to Whitehorse and was in actual awe remembering what a green forest looked like as I observed them from the airplane window in the Atlin and Tagish Lake area.

2) After living in Ottawa for a year and coming back to visit PG, I was immediately struck by not only the lack of trees in the area (due to the dead stuff being cleared out), but also the condition of what was left standing. Again, it was the shock of seeing something so vastly different from what I had become accustomed to.

The forests that have been impacted by the MPB in BC are dead and the healthy trees that remain can in no way sustain the type of forestry operations that BC was historically used to. That’s the reality.

Posted by: eiowe on October 25 2013 2:00 AM
if the wood is so bad why does west fraser want it ? it is all very political i work at the last remaining sawmill not owned by west fraser in quesnel and we make lumber everyday out of some very dead pine as does west fraser . i spend alot of time in the forrest there is plenty of wood out there. bad deal for bc eh

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I hope your resume is polished and ready to go because the useable dead pine isn’t going to be around that much longer.

Posted by: eiowe on October 25 2013 2:00 AM
i spend alot of time in the forrest there is plenty of wood out there. bad deal for bc eh
– – – – – – – – –

Lots of wood? There may be lots of stems but what about the profile? Pretty tough to profitably harvest dead wood at

(continued from above. Not sure what happened there)

…

I give up…

David Suzuki is saving the planet while dumping millions of pounds of pollution into the atmosphere (unless he quit flying to public appearances and nobody told me).

This is a simple choice by 2 companies. The Canfor super mill in Houston is state of the art. Makes sense to keep her fed. Canfor’s mill in Quesnel is not as updated or efficient.

Hey Palopu, Did you ever do a calculation on how much money did not go to the coffers in Victoria as a result of the $0.25/cubic meter versus $ 20.00/cubic meter before the pine beetle. What gets me they still make lots of lumber out of this wood with very little return to us taxpayers

You got that right poor gold miner. With the high price of lumber and the low stumpage on a lot of beetle kill that would still demand the high price, someone is making a bundle.

Haven’t heard any talk of increasing the stumpage rate, nor any talk about the reduction in the export tax to 10% plus the lower Canadian Dollar. All these factors increase the profits for lumber companies.

Perhaps the Government thinks that those 400 plus people who lose their jobs in Houston and Quesnel, can go to work for the LNG Plants in Kitimat.

Previous post should have said West Fraser are making upgrades to their 100 Mile, and Smithers, operations, not Canfor.