Firmer Lumber Prices on Lowered Inventories
The beginning of November brought a slight firming up for lumber prices, due to recent sawmills curtailments — especially in British Columbia — and ongoing reasonable sales volumes. Customers found inventories in the field quite scarce thus had to come back to producers for their purchases. As the usual seasonal slowdown is upon us, and lumber demand historically starts to wane at this time of year, sawmills start to plan for lowering manufacturing volumes into the winter and year end. As such, suppliers were able to pop prices up a little bit, to satisfy the immediate needs of buyers.
Popping up slightly from the previous week, in the week ending November 4, 2022, the price of benchmark softwood lumber item Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2x4 #2&Btr KD (RL) was US$490 mfbm, said weekly forest products industry price guide newsletter Madison’s Lumber Reporter.
This is up by +$10 or +2% from the previous week when it was $480, and is up by +$28, or +6%, from one month ago when it was $463.