b'14American Journal of Transportation ajot.comTimber!!!The ups and downs of the volatile forest products marketFOREST PRODUCTS 2021In the past twelve months, prices for lumber and forest products hit a historic high and then pricing crashed. Whats next? By George Lauriat, AJOTItwasBunyansque,forsia,VietnamandIndonesia, over a year lumber prices rosealongwithcountrieslike likewell,likearedwoodNewZealand, Australiaand treeandthencrashed,asiftheEuropean,Africanand Bangor,MainesownPaulSouthAmericannations Bunyanhadyelledtimber.the latter two often supplying What happened? exotic woods. Theshortanswerisalot. And it takes a bit of a looko hc AnADA , r eDuxback to understand the unusualTheU.S.andCanada market dynamics that causedhave for nearly four decades boththegrowthspurtinbeen embroiled in a lumber lumber prices and the subse- (VOLATILEcontinued on quent crashand the poten- page 15)tial rebound.Itsnotsurprisingthatthe U.S. is the worlds largest lumber market.However,evenwith a vast inventory of domestic foresttosupplylumberand relatedproducts,theU.S. isalsotheworldslargest importer of lumber. Imported lumber generally accounts for 30% of the U.S. consumption in any given year. And with the vast resources of lumber-producing Canada next door as a near-shore supplier, the U.S. has relied on its north- CLOSERern neighbor to fill in a large portion of the gapparticu-larly in softwoodsbetween domestic production and con-sumption.Descartes-Datamyne (a company that tracks U.S. importsandexports)data on U.S. lumber imports and exports (see charts) observedON THE COLUMBIA RIVER IN WASHINGTON STATEthattheU.S,dwarfsotherFASTERtop countries as primary des-tination country for Canadian exports. But also noted that theTopcountriesofdesti-nationforU.S.lumberare China (1) and Canada (2), illustrating the complexity of the lumber industry in North America. DIRECT CONNECTIONS TO MAINLINE RAIL & INTERSTATE HIGHWAYStheAndwhenitcomestoSMARTERlumber, the relations between U.S.andCanadaarent good.Lumbersalesfrom Canada to the U.S. have been trendingdownwardforthe past five years.Ofcourse,forestprod-ucttradebetweentheU.S. and Canada doesnt exist in aSTORAGE OPTIONS & FOREIGN TRADE ZONE SPACEvacuum. There are many otherBETTEReconomicforcesinfluencing tradetrends.Takentogether, the trade in forest products is a complex weave of suppliers and producers that can change on a moments notice.Naturally, Chinaas the Descartes-Datamynedata pointsoutfigurespromi- ON-DOCK RAIL & DUAL-SERVED BY BNSF & UPnentlyintothemixasa largely raw material importer andforestproductexporter. And there are other exporters like Russia, and the Scandi-naviancountries,SoutheastCONTACT US AT [email protected] | PORTOFLONGVIEW.COMAsian producers like Malay-'