20 | Country Market Update: Ireland
◄ The extra customs procedures are
“common practice” now, he said, adding that the mill hadn’t lost any sales or volume because of it. However, he said, the frustration was that uncertainty and debate is still ongoing and that “when we don’t know how things are going to play out we can’t plan for permanent fixes”.
Another major sawmiller said they had automated the process so that all the necessary customs declarations are passed automatically to the hauliers and “they aren’t allowed to leave the yard until all the paperwork is completed”. Taking responsibility for the declarations had been welcomed by the mill’s customers, he said, and the mill is already well prepared for the next round of changes on January 1.
Above: Logs are available, although prices are high
The third of the triumvirate of thorny issues is felling licence delays but this has improved quite significantly since the last report – which is just as well, with one contact describing the situation as “shambolic” and “much more complicated than it should be or needs to be”. He does concede, though, that no production time had been lost as a result of this particular crisis and that his procurement team “have done a great job”. Coillte had been badly impacted by felling licence delays but reported in October that more than 50% of its 2022 programme had felling licences and that it had “reasonable confidence” that the full programme would be licenced by the end of this year. “By the early part of next year we will be operating somewhat as normal where felling is concerned, which is fantastic,” said a spokesperson.
Above: Sawmills are operating flat out
The one fly in the ointment is the issuing of road licences, where delays continue. “We have about 15% of our programme for 2022 on the road side and I have little or no confidence that will change by year end,” said Coillte’s spokesperson. “However, roads only affect a quarter of our programme, so the fact we have all our felling licences in place gives us some security. Even if we don’t have road licences we can still move logs around until they become available.”
Coillte restarted its auctions in April and has held six this year, offering the volume agreed with industry.
“It has been extremely challenging to get the volume in place by the time the auctions happened but we managed,” said Coillte’s spokesperson. “Thankfully the licencing was coming through at a pace that allowed that, even though it might have been just-in-time.” Eight auctions are being scheduled for 2022, which should bring Coillte’s operations back to “pretty much business as usual”. The state forester’s normal offer is 1.65 million m3
is offering just over 1.8 million m3 Above: Demand has been such that stock building of sawn timber is unlikely TTJ | November/December 2021 |
www.ttjonline.com
of sawlog per year and this year it .
“We are trying to make up the shortfall we had in 2020 [when Coillte brought 19% less
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