NZ log monthly report - November 2025Friday 28 Nov 2025
All of this tells me we are in a nice balance where wood usage in China is now in a more stable furniture and mouldings space. This compares to high price volatility over the previous 5 years, when the construction sector dominated, with the China Government providing plenty of incentives to keep building apartments. In that previous world, fortunes were made at about the same rate shirts were being stripped off backs. The consequences of that were harvesting contractors and transport companies in NZ were in a constant status of either over or under resourced Whilst export log prices netted back to NZ remain slightly below preferred levels at present, they are both stable and predictable. This combined with a good demand profile across our domestic sawmills, means everyone goes to work each day not having to worry if they will still be doing that in a weeks-time. The major wind storm events in Nelson and Southland/South Otago are now seeing a production ramp up to recover fibre before deterioration. As at mid-November the biggest challenge facing us all appears to be finding Logging trucks or rather Logging truck drivers. At time of writing I know of 9 trucks in 3 companies sitting in yards for the want of a driver. One of the issues stated is finding competent and sober class 5 drivers. There have been many stories good numbers of applicants for driving positions but some struggling to speak through a drug infused haze or walk a straight line to the interview, let alone drive a 50+ tonne Logging truck. The NZ public can be comforted by the fact the forest industry takes safety and sobriety in the work place extremely seriously. We have a Log Transport Safety Council and a NZ Forest Industry Safety Council full of great people doing great work to the extent we now see an industry wide safety culture par excellence. Across the China Eastern seaboard, daily Radiata pine log sales have been in a 55 – 60,000 m3 band, slightly down on October levels. Radiata pine inventory levels are sitting at 2.7 million m3 up 150,000 since mid-October. Cautionary economic tones remain the order of the day in China. The handbags at dawn spat over US/China tariffs seems to be abating with the illustrious (not) President Trump seeming coming to the realisation he is driving rampant inflation in to the US own economy. This is the direct consequence of US consumers ultimately paying the tariffs, something most predicted many months ago. Clearly, Donald is not a good listener. More >> Source: Laurie Forestry  | ||
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