By Sam Sherrill, Deputy Editor, Crow's, RISI
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 25, 2008 - For much of the last two years, economic conditions in the U.S. have encouraged exports while discouraging imports. This can be applied as generally true for most products. It is especially true of wood products, as statistics of both lumber and panels indicate. The collapse of the housing market set in motion a number of forces that, combined, have reduced imports sharply and led to increases in exports, some of them of significant proportions.
In concert with the housing collapse and its domino effect on demand for wood products, the fluctuations of the U.S. dollar against other major currencies have played a major role in the import/export picture. Together, these forces have reduced both domestic and offshore suppliers in number and the volume of products available to the American consumer.
According to Western Wood Products Association data, apparent lumber consumption through the first five months of 2008 amounts to 17.994 billion board feet (bbf). This is a drop of 21.8% from the 22.997 bbf consumed through the same period of 2007. Domestic producers have supplied 12.237 bbf of U.S. lumber demand so far this year, as opposed to 14.683 bbf in 2007, a drop of 13.1%. This compares with a decline of 30.8% in total lumber imports through May and implies an increase in domestic market share for U.S. producers.
This is an excerpt of a story that appears in Crow's Weekly Market Report, the longest-running source of pricing and market reports for the North American lumber and panel industry.
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