Timber import volumes for Q3 of
2024 were encouragingly ahead of Q3 2023 for softwood, OSB and engineered wood
products, but these increases were counterbalanced by falls elsewhere in the
market.
While softwood imports in Q3 2024 were 1% higher compared to Q3 2023, and
OSB and Engineered Wood Products (EWP) also recorded growth, there was still an
overall deficit of 1.2%, due to volume reductions of the other main products,
especially hardwood plywood and MDF.
Average prices of timber and panel products slowly edged upwards in the nine
months to September 2024, confirming the end of a sustained period of price
volatility between 2000 and 2023.
During the first nine months of 2024, solid wood imports were 1.7% lower
than over the same period of 2023, while imports of panel products were 5.2%
lower. In fact, across the first three quarters of 2024, UK imports followed a
very similar pattern to that seen in the nine months of 2023, with the
exception of March 2024, which saw a significant fall that accounted for most
of the 2.9% volume deficit.
The cumulative volume reduction of 2.9% for the first three quarters of 2024
was fairly evenly spread across the main imported timber and panel products.
More than 90% of the volume of softwood imported to the UK is sourced from
just five countries – Sweden, Latvia, Finland, Germany and the Irish Republic.
Despite this, during 2024 there has been a growing trend of sourcing more
volume from countries outside of this core group.
During the three quarters of 2024, the volumes supplied by the top five fell
by 3%, whereas volumes coming from other countries increased by 18%. In total,
softwood imports from the top five fell by around 120,000m3, while
volumes from other countries grew by around 60,000m3.
The value of softwood imports in the first nine months of 2024 was 2.7%
lower than during the same period in 2023. The value of planed softwood fell by
1.1% compared to 2023, while the value of sawn goods was 4.3% lower. In the
first three quarters of 2024, the average price for a basket of softwood
imports stood at £254m3 compared to £258m3 during the
same period of 2023.
Meanwhile, tropical hardwood imports were around 6,000m3 lower in
the first three quarters of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. Cameroon
alone accounted for nearly 5,000m3 of this total, while the
Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) and Malaysia also supplied around 4,000m3
less over this period. Hardwood import growth in 2024 came from the Congo
Republic, which increased its exports to the UK by 2,000m3, and
Poland, which enjoyed a 3,000m3 volume increase.
Imports of temperate hardwoods in the first nine months of 2024 were also
around 6,000m3 lower. The USA was the largest contributor to this
decline, with Germany and Croatia also exporting around 2,500m3 less
to the UK. A small increase in volumes from France raised its share of supply
to 22% of the total of all temperate species supplied, as did a 14% increase in
volumes from Romania. Outside of the leading groups of supplying countries,
Poland, Canada, Lithuania and Italy all also increased their volumes during
2024.
The volume of mixed hardwoods imported to the UK in the first nine months of
2024 fell by around 9% (8,000m3). It should be noted, though, each
of the top three supplying countries actually increased their supplied volumes
by a cumulative total of 2%. The 9% total reduction in volume comes from the
smaller supplying countries, which collectively recorded a 33% fall in volume
in the first three quarters of 2024.
TDUK Head of Technical and Trade,
Nick Boulton, said: “It’s
encouraging to see prices continuing to stabilise, albeit at a low level, and
the overall import deficit shrink to just 1.2%. Going forward there are likely
even more significant challenges ahead for timber businesses, with softwood log
availability and very low stocks being most pressing on the agenda. While
construction demand remains subdued these issues have little visibility.
However, as the housing and RMI markets push demand upward, buyers will become
increasingly aware of the pressures in the system and should be careful not to
assume current stable price levels can remain in the longer term.
“Timber, with all its low-carbon and
sustainability benefits, should not be a commodity product in terms of pricing,
and it’s important that the entire built environment industry recognises the
importance that timber has to play in the road to net zero. This gives timber
an intrinsic value that should be acknowledged if we are to help the entire
timber supply chain to recover from the last few years’ uncertainty and build
strong foundations moving forward.”
