| 21
“Margins, of course, will be important, but volume is a major focus for us,” they said. Traders canvassed also brought up the widely discussed recent difficulties of a couple of large timber operations as indicative of the competitiveness of the market. However, one importer-distributor commented that their sales were “ticking over a bit more steadily” than earlier last year. “Margins are still difficult, but we’ve seen more activity since October and picked up volume. We’re seeing increased demand from stair and door manufacturing while sales into shopfitting aren’t booming but are going up. To what extent this is wider market improvement or us growing share is uncertain, but the words ‘green shoots’ have come up,” they said. “The challenges faced recently by [two particular businesses] have also created churn in the market in sales opportunity and personnel. Some small to medium local businesses have been very cute in picking up the trade available as a result and some of it will no doubt come to bigger operations like ours.”
A question mark hanging over North American hardwoods, said traders, was the potential impact of US trade tariffs, notably on China.
“If the Chinese respond in kind with tariffs and that includes higher duty on timber, that could hit their consumption of the lower grades of US hardwood, which effectively underpin supply of higher grades preferred in the UK and the rest of Europe,” said an importer.
An importer-distributor said that currently they were not having any issues with US hardwood availability generally. “You can get large volumes of American white oak for instance in eight to 10 days,” they said. But some said it was a challenge to get hold of particular grades and dimensions. “The backdrop is that supply, depressed by a global downturn in demand, has been at historically low levels since 2023,” said an importer. “And it’s reported that in 2024, production was only around 5 billion board feet. So basically, there is a smaller pool to pick from.”
“Customers are increasingly precise in what they demand on length, width, grade, particularly door manufacturers. But when you go to the supplier and say I want this and this, but not that and that, that’s when you have problems,” said an importer. An importer-distributor said they were facing issues getting thicker lumber, mentioning eight and 12 quarter as examples. “We’re also struggling to get the ripped to width strips we want for our mill,” they said. “Availability of FSC-certified US is also an issue for us.”
As for North American prices, white oak and ash are reported as stable, with walnut
“creeping up because we’re all after the best grades” and hard maple and tulipwood also rising.
On African, one importer reported it becoming more difficult to source FSC sapele and iroko. Another commented that there was more non-FSC sapele coming on to the UK market. “We’re having difficulty sourcing sipo and
iroko with sufficient legality verification,” said an importer. “There is wood out there, but not the sort that comes to the UK.” There is news, however, that supply of African FSC hardwood is set to increase. Rougier has announced that the 600,000ha concessions operated by its Republic of Congo subsidiary Mokabi SA are undergoing their second audit in May (see pp54-55). The company is hoping the certification process will be completed in the third quarter. This will take its certified concession area in Gabon and the RoC to1.48 million ha. The company has also been certified in the scope of Land Management: chain of custody by Preferred by Nature, which bills the certification as aligned to EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requirements. West African prices are reported stable to firming marginally.
Asian timber prices at source are reported to be stable too, but import prices are anticipated to come down, reflecting falling freight rates. “At their peak in the pandemic we were paying well over US$10,000 per container,” said an importer-distributor. “For our latest shipments we paid between US$6,000 and US$6,500 and it’s probably now around US$5,000.”
On meranti, an importer said demand is very specific. “The days of random/random are gone. It’s fixed sizes for specific jobs.” Price, they added, is creeping up. Demand for bangkirai decking is reported to be slow, with Europe “flooded with decking”. Availability of European oak and beech is said to be sufficient, and prices are stable, although there is said to be pressure from suppliers to increase them. “Suppliers are keen to sell what they’ve got but are operating against the backdrop of increasing log prices,” said an importer. “At the same time, they’ve got a customer- base not giving them what they need. It’s a challenge.”
The 12-month push back on introduction of the EUDR to 2025 year end, and end of June 2026 for SMEs was welcomed. But traders stress the industry must use that time to get ready. “Awareness of the EUDR is still sketchy,” said an importer-distributor. “I’m getting next to no enquiries from customers about it.” An importer also said there’s a lack of
understanding of it, counter intuitively, on the part of European suppliers. ‘We’re keeping the pressure on them to prepare,” they said.
An importer-distributor said they were not seeing “fantastic growth” in their engineered products, in grandis, European oak and red hardwood.
But others felt engineered was building momentum.
“The UK is playing catch-up with Europe on this, but there’s a growing realisation that there’s a lot of technology out there they should be benefiting from,” said an importer.
An importer-distributor said that growth in demand for engineered was still slow among small to medium-sized joinery businesses. “But bigger operations are converting, and once they’re tooled up for engineered, they stay with it,” they said. “It’s not just the uniformity, predictability, increased yield and less waste, it helps deskill processing.” Market interest in lesser-known species seems to remain poor.
“It may be a good idea to use them environmentally, but it’s not easy to convert joiners,” said an importer-distributor. “One issue in African is that these species tend to be denser and heavier and that’s a deterrent. On the face of it, kosipo for instance looks like a good alternative to sapele. But you soon realise the difference when you machine it. And generally, UK wood processing is bit of a tanker to turn around and probably won’t switch to something different until their usual species are really scarce or unavailable. But change can happen. It’s a bit different, but for instance in the pandemic, when people couldn’t get red hardwood, they switched to engineered softwood which they’d resisted previously.”
Meanwhile modified Accoya and thermo- treated Abodo are reported continuing to make inroads into the hardwood market, with the latter proving increasingly popular for cladding.
As for the outlook through 2025 and beyond, hardwood traders said they did see the market getting easier, with the building sector increasingly responding to lower interest rates – and the CPA predicts total construction output will grow 2.1% this year and 4% next year. Private housing output, which contracted 14.3% in 2024, is forecast to grow 6% this year and 8% in 2026. The consensus is, however, that
improvement will be slow and business would remain competitive. “We expect to continue to be micro-managing every aspect of everything,” said an importer. An importer-distributor predicted they would sell more wood this year. “But a prime focus will continue to be growing market share and being aggressive,” they said. ■
www.ttjonline.com | March/April 2025 | TTJ
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69
