NZ August 2026 market update [NZ]Friday 28 Aug 2026
August, the peak of the ski season and last month in our winter. There is a lure that spring is only just around the bend as lambs start emerging in paddocks and daffodils pop up all over the place. Sometimes, however, this can be a false sense of security as September can prove to be one of the wettest and windiest months on the calendar which can, in turn, create a few issues for foresters with windthrow and infrastructure damage. NIWA expects an 80% chance that El Nino will reach or exceed strong intensity by the end of September which will likely result in unusually windy conditions. This is great for drying things out but not so great for keeping trees vertical. We have seen considerable wind damage over the past few years, starting with Gabrielle in 2023 and latterly with the 2025 events in the Nelson Tasman region and 2026 event in the Southern north island. This has resulted in an out-of-cycle increase in harvest volumes in these regions and pushed supply into markets when it was not necessarily needed. While these salvage operations have wound down in the North Island, the Nelson region still has some distance to go. Even though the market has not needed the extra slugs of volume resulting from the salvage operations, there has been a reasonable balance in terms of supply and demand which has kept prices on a relatively even keel for the past 12 months. While we saw a 7% drop in June; July and August have seen a rebound back above the 12-month average with A Grade 3.9m at around $125/JAS in North Island ports and around $115/JAS in South Island ports. Economic data out of China isn’t painting a rosy picture with the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) dropping to 49.2 from 50.3 in June indicating a softening in manufacturing activity. Probably nothing to see here as July and August are historically fizzers for PMI data. It is important to note, however, that the quarter 2 economic growth rate was the lowest in three years at 4.3% and, when combined with increased in tech exports and decreased construction activity, wood-based products are probably fearing worse than reported. On the bright side, in market log inventories have dropped slightly to around 2.47 million cubic metres with daily offtake a shade under 60,000 cubic metres per day. NZ supply has been somewhat subdued with weather issues and problems berthing vessels in Gisborne due to successive long wave events. These events are especially frequent during southerly conditions and result in vessels being held at anchor and unable to load. This creates a backlog as the port fills quickly and stock begins to build in the forest which takes time to clear. More >> Source & image credit: Forest360 / Stand  | ||
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