Comment | 3
COMMENT
The TTJ Awards trophies, resplendent in English hardwoods, will be proudly lined up at the Nobu Hotel on September 17 for the first physical TTJ Awards event in two years. As arguably the first physical
major wood industry event to be held since early 2020, it feels like a return to some kind of normal.
There has definitely been a desire by many in the
sector to meet up again face to face and eschew the purely digital environment we have been forced to adopt in the past 18 months. As well as physical attendance, people will also be
watching live online for the first time – giving people an option of participating if they don’t feel ready yet to return to in-person events. We are limiting capacity, but several hundred will still be in attendance. It will be a great opportunity to come together and
celebrate after such an intense and uncertain period. Our annual TTJ Awards supplement in this issue contains further details. In this issue we have a string of market reports covering
fencing, pallets, chipboard, and plywood and OSB. For plywood and OSB, both products are still in
extraordinary demand but OSB availability has improved, partly as the US market has eased, and prices have softened slightly. The change in the US market means the price of
Brazilian plywood has come off a bit, with elliotis pine plywood prices down 20-25%. Meanwhile birch plywood, which was slower to feel the impact of the heightened
TTJ – the voice of the timber Industry
global demand, is now following the same trajectory as other panels and prices soared in May-July. In Chinese plywood, there are reports of shippers
renegotiating signed contract prices – something one contact said he’d never seen before. Looking at fencing, one manufacturer told TTJ it had
adopted a trade sales only policy at the start of 2021, as well as not taking on new customers from April and taking its first ever summer break to manage stock levels. A 33% increase in customer numbers was recorded by the company between January and April. Contractors have told TTJ they’d barely had any let up in demand since the start of the pandemic and have orders going into early 2022. Scotline’s Peter Millatt gives an experienced ports
sector viewpoint also in this issue – his comments about timber overflowing in many timber ports and difficulties in securing haulage to keep the wood flowing was something I saw for myself when passing a southern UK port recently. Sally Spencer has also compiled our annual focus
on British timber. “Phenomenal and prolonged”, is how one UK sawmiller described demand, saying he had not known anything like it in 30 years. “A huge kick” in demand for British C16 was being experienced, as well as the expected high volume for items like sleepers.
GROUP EDITOR
www.ttjonline.com
► MARKET UPDATE – SOFTWOOD Latest news on the softwood sector and how it is faring during this period of high demand
► MARKET UPDATE – IRELAND We catch up with some of Ireland’s sawmills and update on the felling licence issue
► SECTOR FOCUS – PANEL PRODUCTS The second of this year’s focuses on the wood-based panels sector
► SECTOR FOCUS – HANDLING & STORAGE
More news from the logistics sector, including case studies
► SECTOR FOCUS – TROPICAL TIMBER An update on trends in the tropical timber sector
► COUNTRY FOCUS – GERMANY The latest from the solid and engineered timber powerhouse
► TTJ AWARDS REVIEW A review of the 25th TTJ Awards, which was held as a hybrid virtual and physical event
► PLUS REGULARS
Latest UK and world news; technical news; comment from industry figures; and latest appointments.
www.ttjonline.com | September/October 2021 | TTJ
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