Canada plans to challenge US duties on softwood lumber despite US announcement that the key rate will fall by half. In related news: Canadian producers and local government express frustration, while the US Lumber Coalition supports US duty action. In other Business news: Interfor and Resolute report positive Q2, 2022 results, Catchmark Timber reports a loss; and more on Drax’s BC wood pellet acquisition.
In other news: BC’s wildfires to rise as hot weather returns; Oregon withdraws controversial wildfire risk map; California’s carbon offset program is undercapitalized; and wildfire updates from BC (Okanagan and Kootenay regions); Northern California; Montana; and Oregon. Elsewhere: wood building highlights from the Governor General’s Medals in Architecture; Wisconsin’s AIA Design Award Winners; and BC Wood’s upcoming Global Buyers Mission.
Finally, BC’s Environment Minister blasts latest old-growth and climate change protests.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
The UK-based power producer Drax Group is increasing its hold on BC’s wood-pellet industry with an agreement to buy Princeton Standard Pellet, [which] will add 90,000 tonnes-a-year of capacity to its existing capacity of 1.57 million tonnes in B.C. That will bring its total capacity to 78 per cent of B.C.’s total… putting Drax in a favourable position in the global market for pellets, which gets credit as renewable energy, said consultant Russ Taylor. …The Centre for Policy Alternatives argues… that provincial forest licences give Drax’s plants too much latitude to take whole saw logs to be ground down to make pellets. …Climate scientist Werner Kurz. “One of the problems of using wood for bioenergy is that the carbon is released quickly into the atmosphere.” …In that perspective, biomass harvesting has a role in helping thin out forests at high risk for wildfires, said Kurz. “It would be most ideal could be used locally to power remote communities that are served by diesel-generated electricity.”
Government of BC
The US Department of Commerce has issued a final determination on countervailing and anti-dumping duties for Canadian softwood lumber. The Commerce department has lowered the duties, but is maintaining them – frustrating Canadians’ hopes that they would ultimately be dropped altogether. The new combined rate for the duties is 8.6%, down from preliminary rates of 18%. “While the reduction in duty rates from this third administrative review is welcome, the fact that we are required to continue to pay duties on our lumber products sold to the U.S. market remains frustrating and disappointing,” said Susan Yurkovich, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council. …BC Forests Minister Katrine Conroy said, “at a time when we need to work together in the face of rising costs related to global inflation, these tariffs are making housing and lumber more expensive on both sides of the border.” …Canadian companies have paid about $9 billion in duties, which are held in trust until final determinations.
Interfor Corporation recorded net earnings in Q2’22 of $269.9 million compared to $397.0 million in Q1’22 and $419.2 million in Q2’21. Adjusted net earnings in Q2’22 were $280.2 million compared to $392.5 million in Q1’22 and $433.5 million in Q2’21. Adjusted EBITDA was $428.6 million on record sales of $1.4 billion in Q2’22 versus $570.1 million on sales of $1.3 billion in Q1’22. Notable items in the quarter: Lumber production totaled a record 1.0 billion board feet. …This growth was mostly driven by the first full quarter of contribution from the Eastern Canada Operations; these operations produced 211 million board feet versus 96 million board feet in the preceding quarter. The U.S. South and U.S. Northwest regions accounted for 467 million board feet and 163 million board feet, respectively, [and] the B.C. region decreased to 174 million board feet from 196 million board feet in Q1’22, in part due to the sale of the Acorn sawmill during the quarter .
The U.S. exported 832,092.2 metric tons of wood pellets in June, up from both 740,605 metric tons in May and 603,794.9 metric tons in June 2021, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. …The U.K. was the top destination for U.S. wood pellets at 518,904.3 metric tons, followed by the Netherlands at 249,065 metric tons and the French West Indies at 36,019.5 metric tons. The value of U.S. wood pellet exports reached $141.32 million in June, up from both $131.78 million the previous month and $82.97 million in June of last year. Total U.S. wood pellet exports for the first half of 2022 reached 4.32 million metric tons at a value of $731.2 million, compared to 3.58 million metric tons exported during the same period of last year at a value of $514.83 million.
Every two years, the prestigious Governor General’s Medals in Architecture recognize and celebrate outstanding design in recently built projects by Canadian architects. The competition, established 
Delegates registered for the WoodTALKS program at the Global Buyers Mission this September will be treated to a collection of presentations. Join us and learn more about how buildings like the Tsawwassen First Nation Youth Centre were created. This building stands out for its commitment to the embodied carbon in our built environment. …Located on treaty lands south of Vancouver, the waterfront site is part of a unique cultural and ecological area, the meeting place of cultures and ecologies. …Leading architects, engineers, designers and developers in North America are increasingly seeking high-quality, custom mass timber products to create sustainable, safe and stunning energy-efficient architecture. In this session you will also hear from a local BC based mass timber manufacturer, Kalesnikoff Mass Timber and Lumber on how mass timber is being utilized across North America today. …From opportunities to incorporate mass timber elements to projects utilizing full scale mass timber structures, you will hear about varies examples of how you could engage with mass timber suppliers and utilize mass timber in your designs.
Hungary waived environmental regulations protecting native forests from logging, showing the increasingly extreme steps the government is willing to take to prepare for next winter’s energy shortages. The rise in energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have forced the government to partly scrap one of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s signature policies, the generous subsidies on household consumption. Hungary risks having shortages despite Orban’s maintaining the closest links to Russian President Vladimir Putin among European Union members. An emergency government decree published late Thursday eases the way for the clearcutting of native tree species – which include oak and beech – in protected forests, while also relaxing other restrictions on loggers. The government has also instructed schools to check if they can switch to wood from gas for their heating. The retail price of firewood climbed 18% in June compared to a year ago, according to the Hungarian statistics office.
Wildfires have depleted almost all of the carbon credits set aside in reserve by forestry projects in the US to protect against the risk of trees being damaged over 100 years, a new independent study has found. As a result of fires, six forest projects in California’s carbon trading system had released between 5.7mn and 6.8mn tonnes of carbon since 2015, the non-profit research group CarbonPlan estimated. That was at least 95 per cent of the roughly 6mn offsets set aside to insure all forest projects against the risk of fire over a century-long period. In principle, the offsets represent a tonne of carbon avoided or removed from the atmosphere. Offsetting projects, such as forestry schemes, contribute some of the credits to a so-called “buffer” pool that acts as an insurance mechanism, and are cancelled if the carbon absorbed by the trees is released, for example when they catch fire.
Researchers have found that California’s forest carbon buffer pool, designed to ensure the durability of the state’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program, is severely undercapitalized. The results show that, within the offset program’s first 10 years, estimated carbon losses from wildfires have depleted at least 95% of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years. This means that the buffer pool is unable to guarantee that credited forest carbon remains out of the atmosphere for at least 100 years. The results, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, illustrate that the program, one of the world’s largest, is likely not meeting its set requirements. …The study shows a fundamental design problem with California’s forest carbon offset program. The 
In the Klamath National Forest in Northern California, where the McKinney Fire has killed four people, residents have been confronted by a raging inferno and flooding rain. On Tuesday night, slow-moving severe thunderstorms unleashed downpours near the McKinney Fire, which has consumed more than 57,000 acres and is California’s largest fire of 2022. The heavy rains helped slow the growth of the blaze but triggered flooding and mudslides in parts of the burned area. The National Weather Service reported … flash flooding on the eastern side of the fire. It also issued a severe thunderstorm warning and a flash flood warning for Siskiyou County. The Siskiyou County sheriff reported a possible mudflow near Mount Shasta and urged residents to be ready to evacuate. …fire behavior analyst Dennis Burns reported that some areas affected by the fire received three inches of rain in just over an hour, leading to debris flows that compromised roads in the fire zone.