Labour strikes shut down Canada’s ports from East to West, as the BC Maritime Employers lock out BC workers. In Company news: Boise Cascade and Louisiana Pacific report Q3, earnings; Domtar acquires Iconix paper’s label operations; Finland’s Ahlstrom closes sale of Aspa pulp mill to Sweden Timber; and more on International Paper’s mill closure in South Carolina. Meanwhile, the US is set to surpass Canada in lumber production; and what’s at stake for Canada in US election—quite a lot, apparently.
In Forest Product news: Sweden’s Timber City leads on mass timber; BC Fire Chiefs push back on stairway code changes; Japan launches world’s first wooden satellite; and surprising research on biobased vs plastic microfibres. In Forestry/Climate news: UN biodiversity talks stall; Drax welcomes Clean Power 2030 report; and Oregon’s Forestry second-in-command-firing is explained.
Finally, Global Wood Summit delegates take front row seat at Lumber Word Podcast.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News
B.C. business leaders are bracing for the potential economic impacts of another Donald Trump presidency. Trump has promised to implement new tariffs of at least 10% on all American imports, an attempt to promote made-in-America goods and boost the U.S. manufacturing sector. That could hurt BC manufacturers and the province’s forestry sector, contracting already stagnant economic growth, says Laura Jones, of the Business Council of BC. Tariffs “are terrible for consumers,” Jones says. They could raise the price of certain products — including softwood lumber — for Americans, forcing them to look elsewhere. …David Frum believes Donald Trump could ‘mess up’ the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement and hold those countries ‘to ransom’. …A report released last month from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce found that a 10% tariff would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
To get a sense of the potential impact of Donald Trump’s plans for sweeping tariffs, look no further than the Canada-U.S. softwood dispute. …Since 2017 in the latest phase of the long-running trade war over lumber, companies based in Canada have paid more than $10-billion in U.S. duties. Production from U.S. sawmills, including those owned by Canadian-based companies, is exempt from the lumber duties. Canadian-based producers have descended on the U.S. South over the past dozen years and set up shop in the lumber region, and thereby found a way around the punitive duties for the U.S. portion of output.
Key ports on Canada’s West Coast, including its largest container port in Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert, were shut down by a labor strike on Monday. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship & Dock Foreman Local 514 began striking on Monday morning, stopping containers and cargo immediately. According to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, $800 million in trade flows through West Coast ports every day. Approximately 20% of U.S. trade arrives in the Canadian ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, where strikes broke out after union leadership and industry representatives failed to reach a deal before a cooling-off period expired. …This strike comes on the heels of a recent strike still impacting the country’s second-largest port, the Port of Montreal. Montreal processes 40% of all East Coast container traffic. Two terminals have been blocked since Thursday when a strike was announced by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 375.
A second-term David Eby BC NDP government is “marginally better” than the alternative that appeared to be in the cards on election night, business leaders said last week. …In an open letter to the new government, seven business associations… urged the new government to take B.C.’s flagging economic health seriously, and get its fiscal house in order. …At last week’s Global Wood Summit, Rob Schuetz, president of Industrial Forestry Services, said 16 sawmills, three pulp mills and four paper mills have been shut down in B.C. since 2020. He gave a laundry list of NDP government policies that have reduced access to timber and increased costs and bureaucracy. …Don McGregor, VP for Western Forest Products, summed up a sentiment that may be shared by the wider resource business community. “If it sticks, the NDP have a majority and they don’t need the Green Party,” he said. “I would take that as a positive.”
BURNABY, BC — Interfor Corporation recorded a Net loss in Q3’24 of $105.7 million compared to a Net loss of $75.8 million in Q2’24 and a Net loss of $42.4 million in Q3’23. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $22.0 million on sales of $692.7 million in Q3’24 versus a loss of $16.7 million on sales of $771.2 million in Q2’24 and Adjusted EBITDA of $31.9 million on sales of $828.1 million in Q3’23. …In Q3’24, lumber production totalled 904 million board feet, representing a 130 million board foot decrease over the prior quarter. This decrease reflects the temporary production curtailments announced on August 8, 2024. …On October 16, 2024, Interfor announced plans to exit its operations in Quebec, Canada, including the sale of its three manufacturing facilities and the closure of its Montreal corporate office. …The Company sold Coastal B.C. forest tenures totalling approximately 125,000 cubic metres of allowable annual cut.
Residential building construction costs increased 0.9% in the third quarter, following a 1.0% increase in the previous quarter. Non-residential building construction costs rose 0.5% in the third quarter, following a 1.4% increase in the previous quarter. This marks the slowest quarterly growth since the second quarter of 2020 for residential building construction costs and since the fourth quarter of the same year for non-residential building construction costs. Year over year, construction costs for residential buildings rose 4.0% in the 15-CMA composite in the third quarter of 2024, while non-residential building construction costs increased 3.9%. Builders noted that the industry continued to face cost pressure from skilled labour shortages, land prices and availability, and building code changes.
VANCOUVER – Western Forest Products reported a net loss of $19.6 million in the third quarter of 2024, as compared to a net loss of $17.4 million in the third quarter of 2023, and a net loss of $5.7 million in the second quarter of 2024. Other highlights include: Lumber production of 127 million board feet (versus 126 million board feet in Q3 2023); Lumber shipments of 138 million board feet (versus 130 million board feet in Q3 2023); Average lumber selling price of $1,378 per mfbm (versus $1,388 per mfbm in Q3 2023), primarily due to a slightly weaker sales mix of specialty lumber products; and Average BC log sales price of $113 per m3 (versus $118 per m3 in Q3 2023). …As previously announced, we plan to reduce lumber production in our BC sawmills by approximately 30 million board feet in Q4 2024, following reductions of approximately 30 million board feet in Q3 2024.
MONTREAL, Quebec – Stella-Jones announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2024. Sales in the third quarter were $915 million, compared to sales of $949 million for the corresponding period last year. Excluding the positive effect of currency conversion, sales were down $44 million, or 5%. Net income for the third quarter was $80 million, compared to net income of $110 million in Q3, 2023. “Despite strong long-term demand tailwinds, we witnessed a slower pace of purchases by our utility customers. Though total sales were lower than anticipated, we delivered a solid quarter EBITDA margin of 17.7% and strong operating cashflows,” said Eric Vachon, President and CEO. …“Utilities continue to forecast meaningful increases in infrastructure investments, evidenced by the longer-term sales contracts secured from new and existing customers.”
Sales picked up in many framing lumber species, especially in the West. A lack of supplies in Canadian S-P-F led to buyers switching to other species. As a result, in the middle of the week markets like the Inland and Coast saw more demand and price gains than have been evident for several weeks. The Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price notched its fifth consecutive weekly gain and hit $430, its high so far this year. …Gains in the cash market were supported by strong upward movement in lumber futures through Wednesday. The November and January contracts traded in the green much of the week, with double-digit gains posted across all contracts on Wednesday. Despite an overall rising market, Southern Pine was a laggard. Supply-driven strength that fueled the recent run in the South faded or stalled as mill order files dwindled and prompt loads surfaced more frequently.
The BC Building Code (BCBC) was changed recently to allow single egress stair (SES) designs in low- and mid-rise buildings. The B.C. government says it means “families and people will soon have more multi-bedroom apartment options available to them.” But the province’s firefighters are worried about safety and say the move needs to be paused. …The province says in the interest of safety, new single-exit buildings will require automatic sprinklers (including on balconies), smoke detectors and wider stairwells. The changes put a limit on the travel distance to the exit. They also limit the occupancy load to 24 people per floor. …The Fire Chiefs Association of BC (FCABC) second vice-president Jason Cairney says there is no evidence the BCBC changes are safe. …“The proposed changes should be paused or reversed and instead put through the rigorous National Building Code process, which is based on research, evidence and data.”
SEATTLE — As candidate for Commissioner of Public Lands, Republican Jaime Hererra-Beutler has consistently asserted that, according to “the science,” it’s necessary to log our legacy forests to keep them from “burning up.” She asserts that “too many of our forests have been undermanaged or outright neglected, and they’ve turned into crowded, diseased tinderboxes, just waiting for a spark.” They’ve “fallen into disrepair,” she says, and need “cleaning up.” But is it true? Is there really a scientific consensus saying so? And what type of forest is she talking about? Washington is a big state. Legacy forests are identified only on the west side of the state and then only below 3,500 feet. There, you have to differentiate between forests that are naturally regenerated (legacy forests) and those already converted to timber plantations (managed plantations).
