Get the latest softwood industry news in the Softwood Forest Products Buyer! This issue features stories on the FenceTech 2024 convention, the NAHB International Builders' Show and the NKBA Kitchen & Bath Show, Prime Lumber Products, lumber shipping trends and much more.
ONTARIO/QUEBEC TRENDS -
ONTARIO/QUEBEC TRENDS - Continued from page 26 are going to be good and the lumber mills are going be quite happy at the end of 2024. A lot more happy than they were at the end of last year, that's for sure." “In the Pine business," noted an Ontario producer, "it's been a quiet winter. There has been a lot of excess White Pine being sawn, as the hardwood market is in the tank. A lot of those mills have taken on some White Pine and Red Pine. Overall, I still think that a lot of the market woes are interest-rate related. It's finally filtered down and taken hold. But, if the government would drop the rate a couple of times, it would, put some confidence back out there again." A Quebec wholesaler figured “with some hardwood mills sawing more Pine, there's more lumber on the market. There could be more low-end White Pine in the pipeline this year than in other years. I'm not sure just how that's going to play out with inventories down the road. In general though, we are thinking with some optimism that the markets will open up, maybe in the middle of the month, or the end of March and things will start to get going again." “In my opinion," according to an Ontario wholesaler, "we need a lot more demand, like over the COVID years, because during the pandemic was when people were looking for things to do. We are pretty much at pre-pandemic levels right now, other than the market slope." An Ontario producer said, “There's some pushback on some items on the retail end, price wise. But we're maintaining our prices. We're not dropping ours. We're not getting any relief at our end, so we're kind of in a bit of a spot anyway. Interest rates are still the big unknown, holding them steady for longer, or even dropping them, will make for a more certain environment that will give people some hope." “I don't know, it could be kind of a funny year perhaps," noted a Quebec wholesaler. "When we start seeing some interest rate drops happening, people will get a little more confident about the marketplace. Maybe they'll start doing some projects and get things back to normal again, but it's been kind of stalled for the last four months approximately, I'd say. It's not like there's nothing moving. It's just that you're certainly not moving any volume. According to a Quebec wholesaler, “The countervailing duties announcement does impact the Pine market, at least to some respect. There's not a lot of manufacturers that export to their market. Unless they're a bordering mill, where there is sometimes a trade-off, they'll exchange logs for finished product. They kind of get around that. There's really very few up in our region that export to the US. The duty announcement is kind of a non-issue, that is how I tend to think of it." “I think things will probably get better in the last two quarters of the year," noted a Quebec producer. "Looking ahead, I think we're kind of in a zone right now where it's wait and see. Things will obviously pick up a little bit as we come into the spring, but I don't think it's going to be the typical spring that we normally see. But, I would say that a lot of it has to do with the interest rates out there. If we can get a couple of rate cuts going, it will change the dynamics for sure." “The weather has certainly been on people’s minds," said an Ontario mill. "They are still logging but it's been an unusually warm winter. Usually things are frozen up pretty good, but there's not a lot of frost in the ground. We are in good shape and a lot of the guys in our area are still okay. But as of late, maybe this past week, with the warmer temperatures, the guys will run the roads in the morning, but then stay off them in the afternoon. They'd be breaking them up." Noted an Ontario wholesaler, “It's really been mild. We've only had a couple of cold days all winter, so it's been strange. It hasn't been below minus 10 for quite some time. The long and the short of it, I think it's probably going to be an early breakup and those that are logging are going to probably try to wrap things up a little sooner than later. Usually the half loads come on at the start of March, so they try to have everything at least to where they don't have to travel half loads. They forward the material to a point so that at least they can get it out. But towards the end of February, they're definitely going to be winding it down this year." • Innovative Clean-Burn Design Manufacturing a full line of biomass fired combustion systems backed with fifty years of innovative clean-burn design. Diverse in every way with multi-fuel blending capability. Hurst stokers utilize hundreds of common and abundant solid biomass fuels. Large or small scale, project management is eased with the impressively short installation time required with prefabricated modular components. 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