Paul MacDonald

West Fraser is now number one!

First off, welcome to my blog for Logging and Sawmilling Journal and the new website for Logging and Sawmilling Journal.

The blog is a new feature for our website, but I hope to be able to bring news and information about what’s going on in the Canadian forest industry to Logging and Sawmilling Journal readers and website visitors.

A recent newspaper headline tells the story for the industry these days: The Canadian forest industry continues to be hit with trying times. Now there is an understatement. Temporary mill closures continue to be announced across the country. That said, there is no doubt the forest industry is going to survive, though it will be in a different form.

One of the changes we’ve seen in the industry is in the title of Canada’s top lumber producer. The full details will be in a story soon to be posted to www.forestnet.com (and running in the April issue of Logging and Sawmilling Journal) but West Fraser has now topped Canfor as the top lumber producer in Canada, and Tolko has taken the number three position, nudging out AbitibiBowater.

The annual listing of the top Canadian lumber producers—done by Russ Taylor and his very capable group of folks at International WOOD MARKETS Group Inc., Canada’s largest wood products consulting firm (www.woodmarkets.com)—clearly shows the severe impact of drastically reduced softwood lumber demand on 2008 company production volumes.

With that decrease have come changes in the rankings of the top lumber producing companies in Canada, with West Fraser now on top, replacing Canfor.

The survey shows total Canadian softwood lumber production dropped from 29.95 billion board feet in 2007 to 23.8 billion board feet in 2008 (down 20.5 per cent) and has decreased by over 32 per cent from the peak Canadian lumber production of 35.1 billion board feet in 2004.

Due to considerably less scheduled downtime and lower operating costs in 2008, the survey notes that West Fraser was Canada’s largest softwood lumber producer in Canada at 3.4 billion board feet (3.5 billion board feet in 2007) compared to Canfor at 3.3 billion board feet (4.1 billion board feet in 2007). This is significant—it marks the first time since 1999 that Canfor has not been #1 in Canada. Tolko jumped to the #3 position as curtailments caused output at AbitibiBowater to drop by 36 per cent in 2008.

Watch the www.forestnet.com web site for the April issue of Logging and Sawmilling Journal and the full details on Canada’s Top Lumber Producers.

If you haven’t already, you may want to add www.forestnet.com to your favourite websites on your browser, for easy reference.

And watch this blog space for further forest industry news and views!

Paul MacDonald
Editor