National Hardwood Magazine - June 2015

Lumber Sources Share

Lumber Sources Share Mixed Reviews On 2015 Market Activity Compiled by Joshua Smith and Sue Putnam Editor’s Note: As the first quarter of this year approached an end, National Hardwood Magazine polled representatives for various lumber companies in order to gauge recent activity in the Harwood market. Overall, these sources report the market is moving in a gradual positive direction, and they also identify issues that continue to present challenges to growth. To follow are their comments. 18 JUNE 2015 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE

Mista Feist Holmes & Co. Inc. Columbia City, IN Currently, we’re low on inventory. We had a bad 2014. Our mill was down and we lost a pre-dryer to 16 inches of snow on it, and it collapsed. That took us about a year to get it all back up and running, so we’re kind of not in our normal flow of business. We had to turn most of our kilns into pre-dryers because we had lumber in that predryer, so it slowed our kilns down and our turning of lumber. We were kind of coming out of that at the beginning of the year in January, and we’re turning kilns and having things moving, so we’re out of our normal flow and not a lot of inventory available. At the end of March, we just started turning kilns again and getting back to normal. We were glad to see 2014 to be over. We specialize in thick stock (8/4, 10/4, 12/4, and 16/4) and, of course, without a pre-dryer that really put a crimp in what we do. So we tried to turn thinner stock, but that doesn’t really work for us. Our whole business was turned around because of that, but we survived it and we’re still here and we’re gearing up. I think the people in China are coming back from their long, New Year vacation. It’s not as brisk as it was, but I think that will come. I think a lot of people shipped lumber to them right after they got back from their vacations so I think we’re seeing some increase of inquiries as a result. Of course we couldn’t take advantage of that because we just didn’t have the stock available. We’re just not in our normal mode of business. Regardless, White Oak and Walnut seem to be the biggest movers for us right now. Red Oak slowed down a little. We’re a high-grade mill so all our lumber is upper grade. Relating to transportation, once again, we did something different. Ours is different than anyone else’s. We truck ours into Canada and then containerize it there. And we’re a backhaul for a company that comes into this area and delivers, so we haven’t really had the normal transportation issues, but a lot of my customers have. They’ll have issues where they’ll sit on lumber here for quite a while before they can find someone to come here and get it. And we don’t have a transportation department, so we let our customers do their own arranging of their trucking needs. But I’ve heard that a lot of people are having difficulties in transportation. And I think that strike on the West Coast caused a big mess. Now you can probably get transportation if you’re doing containers, but they’re tacking on all sorts of surcharges. For us, though, we don’t arrange our own transportation so we haven’t experienced much of that, but I’ve heard from customers that it is an issue. As for our facility, we had to replace a pre-dryer and address some computer upgrades in the mill. D Brandon Ferman Meridien Hardwoods of PA Inc. Pittsfield, PA I’d say that our sales have really slowed up after the first six weeks of the year. The export market carried our sales volume through January and February, and the domestic market has not been busy enough to pick up the slack left behind after the initial rush to export at the beginning of the year. Currently there are many sawmills in our area that are searching for places to sell their lumber as all of the yards have drastically slowed their purchasing. Of the items that are moving best I’d say 5/4 No. 2 Common & Better Ash is moving well, along with 4/4 2 Common & Better Soft Maple, 4/4 & 5/4 No. 2 Common & Better Walnut. D David Boythe Lawrence Lumber Co. Inc. Maiden, NC This year sales are off from last year. Low-grade lumber is very slow, and our backlog on orders is less than a year ago. Poplar in 4/4 through 8/4 in all grades is moving quite well. White Oak 4/4 through 8/4 all grades are still strong. Lumber prices are dropping in our market. Red Oak is especially weak with 4/4 the weakest. Transportation this year is better than last year. Lately, due to the West Coast port strike, containers have been a struggle, but with the strike being over, things will get back to normal. We have installed a new boiler and are in the process of adding Walnut to our product mix. D Michael P. Johnson Johnson Brothers Lumber Co. Cazenovia, NY Our year-to-year sales are very similar from the first quarter of 2014 and 2015. I think we have slightly more inventory than normal for this time of year and face some challenges moving lower grade KD Hard Maple moving forward. Ash (in all thicknesses) and Hickory (4/4), all grades, remain strong sales items for us. Lumber pricing in our market has been softening in most species over the past 30-60 days. In regard to transportation, container loads seem to be sitting, on average, slightly longer in our warehouses, but we contributed the Chinese New Year to this issue. D Please turn the page JUNE 2015 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE 19