Oregon: Forests rejoice for the collapse of the housing market!
“We’re in the midst of the deepest downturn in the history of the
timber industry,” said Butch Bernhardt of the Western Wood Products
Association. “It was ugly enough, but now it’s very, very ugly.”
Sawmills across the region are eliminating shifts, curtailing
operations and even shutting down, said Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon
Forest Industries Council. “It’s just impossible right now to even
move any lumber products.
The markets have almost just seized up,”
Wilkeson said. “It’s grim.” The economic impact is rippling through
logging communities, affecting truckers, suppliers, even restaurants,
Bernhardt said. That, in turn, will affect state tax revenues. Last
year, lumber production at Western sawmills fell for the second
straight year, to the lowest annual volume in more than a decade.
Mills in 12 Western states produced 16.3 billion board feet of lumber
in 2007, decreasing 9.3 percent from 2006. A board foot is equal to
144 cubic inches of wood, or a piece 1 foot long by 1 foot wide by 1
inch thick. The association expects production to fall to 13.4 billion
in 2008 and 11.8 billion in 2009. “The market’s bad. Things are very,
very challenging in our business right now,” said Steve Zika, the
chief executive officer of Hampton Affiliates. Hampton’s dimension
lumber mill in Willamina is one of the largest in North America.
Meanwhile, prices are down to near-historic lows, Bernhardt said. The
price of Douglas fir, the predominant species in the West, dropped
from $404 to $250 per 1,000 board feet between 2005 and October 2008.
Hemlock fell from $394 to $204 per 1,000 board feet during the same
period. “It’s even worse than 1981-83, which was a depression for this
industry,” Bernhardt said. In Oregon, the nation’s largest
lumber-producing state, sawmills cut 6.2 billion board feet of lumber
last year. That’s down 12 percent from 2006 and the smallest amount
since 2001. http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090104/NEWS/901040323&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
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