NEWSFEED

risks of severe wildfires—the kind that burned more than 560 square miles of suitable nesting and roosting spotted owl habitat in Oregon last year, AFRC stated. The AFRC lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges USFWS failed to provide a lawful justification for the delay, nor did it provide the public with notice or opportunity to comment.

Critical habitat acreage designation for the owl has hovered around 6.8 million acres of federal land, not including national parks, national wild life refuges, and congressionally designated Wilderness areas where logging is largely prohibited, since the original USFWS designation in 1992.

The AFRC lawsuit argues the USFWS critical habitat designation was the product of extensive public comments and is consistent with the agency’s obligations under the Endangered Species Act and the O&C Act. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court to vacate the USFWS delay and declare the 2021 critical habitat designation as immediately effective.

NEIMAN CLOSES HILL CITY MILL

Neiman Enterprises, Inc. announced the shutdown of its sawmill, Rushmore Forest Products, in Hill City, SD, citing a lack of timber sales in the Black Hills National Forest.

“This decision does not come easily and our hearts are with those affected,” the company states.

The Hill City location directly employed 120, ran 12 contract crews and indirectly supported countless other local businesses. Hill City has a population of approximately 1,000.

Jim D. Neiman, President of Neiman Enterprises, Inc., comments, “I never thought I would see the day when we would be out of options to keep all our facilities running. Lumber markets have been exceptionally high for the past year and have broken all-time record highs. The problem here is purely a lack of timber available for purchase in the Black Hills and we rely on the Forest Service for approximately 80 percent of our supply.”

The announcement comes as some groups push for continued and even further reductions in available timber. “Unfortunately, there are severe consequences associated with that push and this announcement illustrates what is at stake in the Black Hills—our very ability to care for and manage our forests, and to support our communities,” Neiman says.

Ben Wudtke, Executive Director of Black Hills Forest Resource Assn., recalls the successes in fighting the mountain pine beetle in the Black Hills, but adds, “Waging those battles took all the forest products companies in the Black Hills to help save our forests. We have just lost some of our ability to win those battles.”

Neiman Enterprises is based in Hulett, Wyo. and operates a sawmill there, along with a sawmill and pellet mill in Spear fish, SD, and saw mills in Montrose, Colo. and Gilchrist, Ore.

Neiman acquired the Hill City sawmill in 1998 from Continental Lumber.

RUSSIA OPENS CLT FACILITY

Segezha Group President Mikhail Shamolin visited

Sokol in Vologda Oblast to oversee the grand opening of Segezha Group’s cross-laminated timber (CLT) plant. The plant is the first industrial-scale production facility to manufacture the innovative building construction material in Russia.

The factory is located at Sokol Woodworking Plant, a leading producer of laminated wooden structures. Segezha Group, a Sistema company, has invested more than RUB 3 billion in the new manufacturing facility. The production capacity of the new line is 50,000 m3 and the line is equipped with machinery from Ledinek, Imeas and SCM Group. The plant has created 50 jobs.

In June 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia included the construction of Sokol CLT in the list of priority investment projects in the field of forestry development. In December 2019, the Investment Council under the Governor of Vologda Oblast assigned the project regional priority status.

The first CLT panel was delivered in autumn 2019 and the product certification procedure commenced. The company is launching the production of CLT moldings and custom panels with a thickness of 8 to 40 cm, width up to 3.6 m and length up to 16 m. Each panel consists of three to nine layers.

Even though part of Sokol CLT’s production is being reserved for foreign partners, Segezha Group intends to take an active role in developing the domestic market in Russia. Next year, the company plans to start the construction of Russia’s first multi-storey building using CLT together with Etalon Group (also a Sistema company) in Moscow.

Segezha Group is a Russian vertically integrated wood processing and pulp and paper holding with facilities in 11 countries and more than 13,000 employees. Segezha Group holds leased forest resources totaling 7.42 million hectares, of which 81% (6.36 million hectares) has achieved forest management certification from FSC.

Segezha Group published this information on its web site, segezha-group.com.

OSU PREDICTS LOG PRICES

Researchers at Oregon State University say they have found a new way to predict the future price of logs that uses readily accessible economic information. “Log prices are really variable,” says Jeff Reimer, a professor of applied economics at Oregon State. “That makes this a difficult business, whether you are a land manager, mill owner, timberland investor or, as we are seeing now, a home builder.”

The health of the timber industry can be measured in various ways, including harvest levels, employment in timber harvesting and at mills, and lumber demand. Yet the prices of cut and delivered logs may be the most direct way to monitor the condition of timber markets, Reimer says.

Reimer’s study, recently published in the journal Forest Policy and Economics, focused on Douglas fir, the most commercially important timber species in the Pacific Northwest. He found that simply knowing the number of housing permits issued in a month can explain about 46.8% of the variation in log prices over time. Adding additional information—including the monthly

inventory of homes, mortgage rates, the exchange rate with Canada (also a big timber supplier) and the Case-Shiller home price index—explains about three-fourths (74.3%) of the price variation.

“These variables are readily observable and thus can be used by industry decision-makers to make better predictions about future values of logs and timberland,” says Reimer, who cites data that shows the average price of Douglas fir logs between 2005 and 2020 was $631 per MBF in southern Oregon.

Yet this average disguises a great deal of variation in price. From 2005 to 2020, the price ranged from $346 per MBF to $924 per MBF. The difference between the minimum and maximum was $578, nearly as large as the 15-year average price itself. Since the paper was written, lumber prices have increased more, reaching the $1,000 per MBF range.

“Right now log prices are phenomenally high,” Reimer says. “It can feel like feast or famine in this industry but there is a logic that underlies the changes. The benefit of this paper is that we have identified a few pieces of readily observable information that allow people in the timber industry to make solid predictions about what will be happening in the next six months or so.”

OLD GP SITE STIRS AGAIN

Fifteen years after GeorgiaPacific closed its Gaylord, Mich particleboard plant, Michigan Lumber and Wood Fiber Inc. of Comins, Mich. bought the 850-acre parcel and is now working to build a new sawmill and fiber yard. The company hopes to begin construction in May and begin mill operations early in 2022, starting with stock lumber used to make pallets and crates for shipping products. The company looks to expand into higher grades of hardwood lumber in the future.

Michigan Lumber & Wood Fiber was founded in 2008 as a trucking firm that expanded into lumber and wood products under owner Tim Bills. Over a 10-year period Bills was able to grow the sawmill in Comins into a major hardwood lumber concern in the Great Lakes region. Then came a devastating fire in June 2019 that destroyed the mill.

OREGON MILL HAS NEW LIFE

Following a disastrous 2019 fire that threatened a decade of progress, a group of investors has purchased the assets of Integrated Biomass Resources (IBR) in Wallowa, Ore. to continue operating the small log processing facility as Heartwood Biomass LLC.

According to Heartwood CEO David Schmidt, who founded the facility with his wife, Jesse, in 2009, the operation benefits from community support for Heartwood’s goal to create niche products from small diameter timber coming off forest restoration projects.

Schmidt believes the facility is scalable and similar ventures could operate in key forest restoration across the U.S. West. In addition to chips and biomass, the facility has produced wood products like bundled firewood for grocery stores; agricultural poles for hops, vineyard and orchard structures; and fence posts for ranches.