Remember when China would open their PO books and buy hundreds of millions of board feet of Canadian SPF and it would send shock waves through the entire market and you would see lumber futures and market prices skyrocket overnight?
China’s extreme Covid lockdowns are over. That major wood consuming machine is firing back up as soon as Chinese New Year is over in about 3 weeks and it will need a lot of lumber arriving at main ports in China shortly after they get back from holidays.
I have heard from a dozens of sources in both Europe and China in the past 24 hours that most of the major Chinese importers including Chinese government owned buying groups are starting to approach major European sawmills who are producing 2x4 for the US market to buy large blocks of #2 Premium and regular 2&BTR 2x4 that was produced and destined for the US market and asking them to ship it to China.
China is now suddenly willing to pay more for European Spruce and Pine 2x4 dimension than the US market has been willing to pay out of US ports over the past few weeks. In a very short amount of time, sawmills in Europe will expect the US to pay more moving forward for new shipments or a lot of it will end up going to China instead.
This is a game changer!
:prices could stay in a range longer than most can deal with .