Beetles, tariffs and mill closures have cut into Canada’s share of the U.S. lumber market, lifting prices by about a third over the past year and shifting even more logging to the U.S. Southeast. About two billion board feet of annual lumber production has been curtailed by mills in BC, much of it permanently. That equates to about 5% of North American lumber cutting capacity, according to Raymond James analysts. …There is also stiff competition from the U.S. South, the continent’s other major logging region, where a historic glut of ready-to-fell trees has depressed prices and prompted a surge in new saw mill construction. …Brooks Mendell, chief executive of Forisk Consulting… “Basically a quarter of Canada’s ability to produce softwood lumber has come off the market,” he said. “When Canada shrinks, it leaves more business for U.S. based producers.” Among the beneficiaries, he said, should be Weyerhaeuser Co.