Recent months have seen sales of sawn Structural Softwood <120 mm decline compared with the previous year. Most recent data for February 2015 shows sales totalled 70,681 m3, down 4.4% from February 2014. Three of the last four months have experienced sales lower than for the same month in the prior year, suggesting there may be some emerging demand softness.
An alternative view is that the declines have been modest and linked to seasonally softer periods in any event. This may be best evidenced by that fact that for the year to the end of February 2015, total sales were 778,906 m3, up 5.0% on the 741,689 m3 of sales recorded to the end of February 2014.
The chart below displays the monthly and year-end sales data from March 2011 to February 2015.
The situation and the trendline are similar for the much smaller volumes of Sawn Structural Softwood >120 mm as the chart below shows. Although it has experienced growth of 4.9% for the year to end February 2015, the smaller volumes sold, makes the year-on-year numbers more volatile.
Contrasting with the 778,906 m3 of <120 mm product sold in the year to end February, sales of the >120 mm product were 81,841 m3. That is only a little more than 10% of the sales volume of the smaller grade.
Although the trendlines are similar, the decline in sales of >120 mm product has been steeper than for the smaller grade. Similarly, the recovery in 2014 was less pronounced, did not rise as much and lasted for a shorter time. The fragility is evident in the numbers.
Under pressure from treated products such as H2F and the strong growth experienced in its sales over exactly the same period as the decline in sales displayed in this item, untreated products still retain a large and strong space in the market. However, H2F’s 19.1% growth for the year to end February 2015 cannot be ignored. Coupled with the most recent sales data, the implication may well be that the market for untreated products will take most of the decline whenever the next demand downturn comes.
For further details, go to the FWPA Data Dashboard.
