Australian timber market update

Australian timber market update

Friday 18 Jul 2025

FWPA has just released a number of key stats, trends and updates on Australian timber markets.

The latest forecast of agricultural commodities indicates an increase in the total value of forestry products

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) has released its Agricultural Commodities Report for the June quarter of 2025. The total value of forestry products, which includes both softwood and hardwood, is now estimated at $2.5 billion for FY2024–25, marking an 8% increase from the previous forecast in December 2024. Looking ahead, the value is projected to rise further to $2.7 billion in FY 2025–26, reflecting a 9% year-on-year increase.

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Insights from FWPA’s new Australian dwelling forecast dataset

As part of FWPA’s ongoing program to enhance the functionality and value of its Data Dashboard, the Australian Dwelling Forecast Dataset has now been incorporated into the platform as a downloadable file. This dataset is updated monthly, following the release of the latest dwelling approval figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), to ensure users have access to timely and relevant information.

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Housing approvals continue to improve

The monthly approvals data for May continues to show progress being made compared to April with total approvals of 15,212, up 3.2% from the previous month. Confirming that the trend year-on-year for approvals is up 6.5%. Importantly for the timber industry, detached house approvals were up 0.1% for the month and 3.2% when comparing the May 2025 to May 2024.

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EWP imports – up. Most wood panel imports – down

The latest data on engineered wood product (EWP) imports for the year ending April 2025 shows mixed trends across product categories.

Key highlights include:

Annualised EWP imports were valued at AUD311.2 million, year-ended April 2025, up 2.1% compared to the prior month
Declared LVL imports totalled 150,548 m3 over the year (but will have been higher due to some LVL imports being classified as ‘Other EWPs’)
Particleboard imports down 41% over the year
Plywood imports up 4.5% over the year
MDF imports down 13.6% over the year
OSB imports down 20.2% year-ended April 2025

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Woodchip trade softens but prices largely stable in Asia

Australian woodchip exports totalled 382.8 kbdmt (thousand bone-dry metric tons) in April 2025, down -8.5% on the prior month

Annual exports slipped to 5.008 million bdmt
Month-on-month, hardwood chip exports fell 12.4% to 303.4 kbdmt while softwood chip exports rise 10.4% to 79.4 kbdmt
In April, the average hardwood chip export price was AUDFob267/bdmt, or a calculated USDFob171/bdmt, while the softwood chip export price totalled AUDFob227/bdmt or a calculated USDFob146/bdmt. (Note that in export Fob/bdmt stands for Free-on-board per bone-dry metric tone).

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Softwood sales volume

Softwood sales in October 2024 show (on the less volatile year-end basis) a continuation of the softwood market, which has declined every month since November 2021. In October, 2024 the year-end sales were 2.68 million m3, down -3.2% over the previous period.

The monthly data is more positive with sales for October of 245,061m3, up +7.3% over the previous month. Over the past six months, monthly sales have seen four positive months and two negative months.

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Source: FWPA

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