26 | Country Market Update: Ireland
SUMMARY
■Demand has dropped by up to 30% across the board
■Construction timber has been particularly hard hit
■Log supply is plentiful, if expensive ■The war in Ukraine has not had the expected impact
BUT NOT OUT DOWN It’s certainly been a year of two halves for Ireland’s timber sector, with the gains of early 2022 being eroded by falling demand. Sally Spencer reports
What a difference six months makes. Conversations with timber suppliers and processors back in mid-April for TTJ’s last Ireland market report (TTJ May/June 2022) revealed an industry concerned by rising energy and fuel costs but still buoyed by record breaking production and sales during the Covid years and a strong start to 2022. Flip over a few pages of the calendar to early November, however, and while the concerns over energy and fuel costs are still there – and magnified – demand has dropped right back by “up to 30% across the board” and production is being tailored to meet it. Construction timber has been the hardest hit, with demand dropping very quickly in Ireland in around April/the start of spring.
“It was a sudden dip in Ireland, whereas the same didn’t really happen in the UK until later in the year – maybe July,” said one of Ireland’s major sawmillers. Another added that demand for
construction wood “hardly exists at all” and is “very challenging” and laid part of the blame for that on “the Scandinavians, who are dumping C24 into the UK, with prices a long, long way down”.
Fencing has also taken a dip, dropping off significantly in May/early June and not really recovering since.
Fencing doesn’t seem to be ringing too many alarm bells at the moment, however. “We had a great start to the season because of the storms in the UK, which made us very
busy for a couple of months,” said a contact. “Then when Covid restrictions were relaxed people were determined to travel this summer and I think there was less demand for fencing as a consequence of that.
“Square fencing at this time of year slows
anyway,” he added. “It’s not lively but it’s adequate and we expect it to be sort of ok in the spring. And round posts are going along fine.”
Above: Demand is down but there are hopes of better time ahead PHOTO: GP WOOD TTJ | November/December 2022 |
www.ttjonline.com
A fencing and pallets sawmiller agreed that the storms had effectively “papered over the cracks in the market that was beginning to show signs of slowing down”. He said the fencing season had been “normal”, although without the anticipated kick around spring and again in autumn. “August was a slow month and then you would expect a little kick in September/ October and that didn’t come,” he said. When it comes to pallets and packaging, sawmillers are reporting very different scenarios. For one contact, demand for pallet wood has “held up remarkably well” and while production of other products has been pulled back, pallet wood output is still “going really well”, although he anticipates it slowing in the next two or three months. Another said “pallet wood is going along just fine” and that the mill is “probably producing a little bit more than we would have in the past”. However, another major sawmiller has had the polar opposite experience. “As a rule, packaging and pallets tends not to be as impacted by markets as other products – if one market is slow there is generally a pick up somewhere else,” he said. “But this year it seems to be quiet in every sector, which is quite alarming. And when
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 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85
