Consumption of hardwood lumber for pallets has been trending down in recent years. It had climbed fairly steadily, rebounding from the decline spurred by the housing industry collapse in 2009.
However, as the accompanying bar graph shows, it peaked in 2014 and has declined steadily since then. In fact, the figure for the most recent year, 2017, is not much higher than 2009.
It’s no secret that hardwood prices have risen in recent years, and many pallet companies have been moving customers to softwood lumber, so the trend is not surprising.
The graph was contained in a report for the Ohio Forestry Association in early 2018 about hardwood market trends. It was presented by David Caldwell, one of the editors of the Hardwood Market Report.
Pallets are still a substantial consumer of hardwood lumber, according to figures for 2017. In fact, the pallet industry is the leading consumer of hardwood lumber, at 35%.
Making up the top three are exports (22%) and railway ties (12%). Each other industry segment (in declining order: flooring, cabinets, millwork, furniture, and board road and mat timbers) consumed less than 10%.
While hardwood consumption for pallets has declined steadily in recent years, low-grade hardwood consumption by the other industrial markets — railway ties and board road and mat timbers — has remained more or less stable over the same period.
Consumption of hardwood lumber by the grade markets increased for all market segments with one exception from 2016-17. Moulding and millwork had the biggest gain at 10% while consumption for the cabinet industry rose 7%, and for flooring, 2.5%. The furniture industry reported a 2.5% decline.
The same report also charted U.S. Eastern hardwood production. It has rebounded significantly from 2009, but in recent years growth has been flat, a little over 8 billion board feet.
And production is still way down compared to the peak years of 1995-2001, when it surpassed 12 billion board feet.
A copy of the presentation is available as a PDF document at: www.ohioforest.org/resource/resmgr/annual_meeting/Slides_with_Notes.pdf.
