Steve Powney, news editor of the industry publication Timber Trades Journal, said supplies could still be obtained but firms needed to be prepared to wait longer than usual for shipments. Home improvement chain B&Q said there had been an industry-wide "short-term shortage of timber for this type of fencing" and a rise in customer demand after the storms. The UK is experiencing a shortage of traditional lap fencing panels just as the busy spring season gets under way, a trade organisation...

The main reason there were not any shifts in the industrial side of the softwood market is because the market already has found sellers resistance levels. The Western grade softwood market has behaved in very hit-and-miss fashion so far this year, and the grade market has not yet begun its traditional spring upturn. This has kept industrial grades of softwood in abundant supply. Industrial softwood pricing has been very steady despite supply-demand fundamentals that would seem to point the...

Papua governor Barnabas Saebu said he would revoke licences of timber companies unless they were proven to have contributed to the preservation of the regions' forests. Aceh governor Irwandi Yusuf said his administration would enforce a moratorium on logging pending a review of forest sustainability. About 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forest is found in Indonesia, which has a total forest area of more than 90 million ha (225 million acres), according to Rainforestweb.org, a...

With Longview-area employment totaling 1,800, the pulp and paper company is believed to be the largest private employer in southwest Washington. Reid Carter, a managing partner of Brookfield who handles forest products, said the company plans to keep Longview's employment and assets stable for the foreseeable future. The company followed the trajectory of the Northwest forest products industry. Rising costs and low prices for its commodity paper products frustrated investors, fueled...

The demand for materials like softwood at the mills is way down. Loggers pay property owners for the stumpage, harvest it and sell it to pulp and paper mills and wood processing plants. A majority of those responding said they are in danger of downsizing or going out of business because of the current business climate in the logging sector, Gene Francisco, GLTPA executive director, stated in a press release. In the past few years fuel prices increased 100 percent, stumpage prices are up 75...