In a booming global market, continued support from international sawnwood producers and importers has been vital for the Australian market. Year-ending August, imports totalled 587,370 m3, a rise of 3.6% on the prior year.
The continuation of import supply, and some stability and growth for a few grades is all the more significant in a period when supply disruptions are so dramatic and timelines are difficult to organise. The tyrannies of distance have played havoc with supply chains into Australia, making the decision to provide supply all the more challenging, especially with freight costs rising by the moment.
So strong has supply been that August 2021 saw imports hit their second highest level in a decade for the eighth month of the year, with imports totalling 67,081 m3, up 19.0% on the prior August, as the chart here shows.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
Of course, one month does not a story make, so here, we can see the extent of the monthly and annual uplift in imports that commenced around April 2020 as imports fell to their lowest point in the decade. It is important to recall that imports were trending down at that time because the Australian economy was very soft and housing demand was only just beginning to see some unstimulated growth. Then came the stimulus. Those eighteen months ago seem like years now, of course.
In any event, the growth in imports, on an annual basis in particular, has been consistent since that time.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
The cost of supply in a global boom – just as observed for the international log market – is higher prices. Simple as that.
Prices for all imports are higher, which we can observe here, showing the total weighted average price of sawn softwood products skyrocketing to record levels that hit AUDFob696/m3 in August 2021.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
In August alone, weighted average prices lifted 12.7% to reach the AUDFob696/m3, but here we have to take stock. These are not landed prices, this is just the goods price without the incredible and off-the-wall costs of shipping included to get the goods to the Australian wharf, let alone the additional costs of land-freight to get the goods into warehouses.
In that context and with the additional costs in mind, these are massive price increases.
The last almost five years, the import classifications have included some new products split out and separated from previous codes. Most of the changes were to better identify species and sub-species and one of those – perhaps the most important – is Dressed Fir or Spruce.
Its importance is that it is structural timber and it makes up between 35% and 40% of all Australia’s imports of sawn softwood. As can be seen here, the monthly volumes have been increasing steadily for the last year, supporting an annual volume that has grown like a mountain climber to reach 202,897 m3 year-ended August, up 87.5% on the prior year.
While that is amazing, the green line shows the free-climbing rock face of price increases that saw, in August alone, the average import price lift 39% to book a seventh successive monthly record and reach AUDFob665/t. A year ago, the weighted average price was just AUDFob338/m3.
To go straight to the dashboard and take a closer look at the data, click here.
Supply of this important grade has lifted from Germany and Sweden over the course of the year as importers continue to do all they can to support the valuable, but far distant Australian market.
We are left wondering, where would we be without this volume in the market right now?
