NZ Industry Report - October 2026 [NZ]Friday 23 Oct 2026
The positive vibes are an interesting phenomenon, when there is so much bad news out there, mostly promulgated by Donald Trump’s stupidities. It appears the rest of us are just getting on with it. Amazing isn’t it. Donald can announce a wonderful new diesel purchase of initially 300,000 gallons of diesel from Putin and he thinks he is wonderful. This volume of diesel will sustain US consumption for about 4 hours, so I am uncertain how this, and future sales, can be viewed as a good thing given the sales will only serve to assist Putin’s war efforts. Meanwhile, your average Russian citizen is facing shortages at the pump. Perhaps the “stupid is” statement by Forest Gump might be changed to “bizarre is bizarre as” when one attempts to describe that which surrounds Donald T. Meanwhile in the world of normality, both China and India are experiencing good demand with sales prices firming albeit not wildly so. China eastern seaboard softwood log inventory has increased by about 120,000 m3 to 2.5mil m3. But this was entirely expected as the China golden week holiday took place whilst vessels filled with NZ logs continued to arrive. The very positive news out of China is threefold. Softwood log daily usage post-holiday is running well over 60,000 m3 per day as at mid-October. This was expected, but the fact it is happening is improving the air of positivity. China manufacturing numbers are continuing to improve. This has been described by one market commentator as a clear signal China’s broader manufacturing base is “returning to expansionary territory”. Wood use is a very large component of China manufacturing and the resulting exports which in turn is positive news for Kiwi-forest owners. China trader margins have closed reflecting some domestic price improvements. To reiterate, trading margins reflect what traders buy the logs for versus what they sell them for. Trading margins have more typically been about negative US$6 – 7 per m3. As at mid-October the CFR price, being the price landed at a China port, is US$132 per m3. The selling price by traders is currently averaging US$128 with a US$4 loss viewed as positive. I was asked recently what the impacts of diesel cost increases were across the forestry sector. My research suggests, on an average day there are about 515 logging crews operating in NZ and about 2,500 logging truck and trailer units taking the logs to market. More >> Source & image credit: Laurie Forestry | ||
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