Our newest feature – Heard in the Lumber Yard – puts SFPA members’ expertise and insight forefront! Each month, SFPA will ask all members in one of our six membership categories the same open-ended question related to their line of business. SFPA will then compile – and share – the responses! Our most recent question went to SFPA’s lumber exporter, dealer, or distributor members…
What are some of the main questions, comments, and concerns you’re getting from customers about Southern Pine domestically and internationally?
Customers in Europe want to know about EUDR (European Union Deforestation Regulation) compliance that will be in effect at the end of this year.
Randy Barsalou
BCH Trading Company
For Europe in particular, the EUDR (European Union Deforestation Regulation) requirements to prove legality, as it stands now, will make exporting SYP there very complicated. There are efforts by all to get ahead of that, but unless there are some considerable changes, European business will be risky at the end of the year.
Joel Osterloh
Mexico is the single largest softwood lumber export market for the U.S. and SYP is the number one in-demand species for this market. There is a lack of labor available to manufacturers in Mexico because so many of their younger workers have come to the U.S. to earn more money than they can make in Mexico. So, the industry in Mexico is starting to automate more and they are also asking for more cut-to-size pallet and crating components instead of buying U.S. dimensional lumber or timbers and remanufacturing it themselves. We have also seen the trend where it isn’t low-grade Southern Pine going to Mexico now. It is 2&BTR and in many cases, it is 1&BTR that is in demand. When we ask our customers about this shift in overall quality demand, they say that their end customers who are buying the pallets and crates are requiring them to be wane-free with no knot holes and smaller knots.
David Stallcop