Australia’s raw wood resource exports continue to explode, with total woodchip exports rising 6.6% for the year-ended March 2016, topping 6.001 million bone dry metric tonnes (bdmt) for the first time in eight years. Over the same period, log exports rose a massive 43.5%, reaching 3.119 million m3 for the year-ended March 2016.
The following two charts, presented together, show a complete story that is not immediately apparent from the first alone. True, Australia’s exports of wood and wood products are booming. However, as expected, the boom is linked only to the nation’s truly massive exports of raw wood products – woodchips and logs.
Measured by volume, as the charts below show, there are few exports of any relevance other than woodchips and roundwood.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
Exports of woodchips reaching above 6.000 million m3 is obviously significant, with the rise of 6.6% being as much as the domestic industry could sell to its mainly Chinese and Japanese customers. As expected, hardwood chips dominated the 4401.00 exports, accounting for 89.7% of the total or 5.384 million bone dry metric tonnes (bdmt).*
For exports of roundwood (440300), the picture is similar in terms of volume increase, but with a different species composition. Roundwood exports were dominated by softwood species. Of the 3.496 million m3 exported for the year-ended March 2016, 89.2% or 3.120 million m3 were softwoods, with the remainder made up of hardwood species.
As described at the outset, log exports grew a very strong 43.5%, with softwood exports lifting 31.8% and hardwood exports rising more than 500% to hit 0.370 million m3.
It is relevant to consider the same total export data from a value perspective, noting that even more detail is available from the FWPA data dashboard, showing, among other things, the value of exports across longer periods and including other products.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
For the year-ended March 2016, Australia’s total wood and wood products exports were worth a total AUD1.684 billion, up 19.8% on the prior year’s AUD1.406 billion. Of this total, 88.6% or AUD1.492 billion was made up of woodchip and round wood exports.
It is hard to escape conclusions that Australia’s raw wood exports are booming under a set of conditions that could hardly be better. The ‘wall of wood’ from the hardwood plantation estate has come on line at precisely the same time as global demand for hardwood fibre and a lower exchange rate have increased the competitive position of the Australian product. For roundwood, it’s a similar situation, with strong ongoing demand joined by an exchange rate that makes exports of sawn softwood financially advantageous, for the time being.
