"It has had really no effect on the lumber market, very little effect on the plywood and OSB (oriented strand board) market," said Shawn Church, editor of Random Lengths, a wood products industry journal based in Portland, Ore.
The effects of the storms are localized, at most regional, Church said.
"There's been some effect felt in the Southern pine plywood market," he said. But that minor increase won't reach the Northwest.
That wasn't the case as recent as 10 years ago, said Jeff Webber, a vice president of manufacturing at Stimson Lumber Co.
"It's kind of funny. Storms used to have a huge impact. Anytime you said the word 'hurricane' the phones would light up," he said.
The calls came from commodities market speculators who wanted to cash in on the demand for rebuilding materials. The problem is, the supply seldom lined up with the demand.
"Hurricanes come and go so quickly. By the time the producers responded, the demand was over. The people in the distribution pipeline learned the lesson the hard way," he said.
After buying the expensive wood, they found that people didn't need it, Webber said.
"There's a lot more discipline in the market today," he said.
Church agreed.
He said the rebuilding and remodeling gets so spread out that it is impossible to point to a hurricane's effect, even after a season as destructive as the current one.
"It takes a while for insurance claims to be settled, for people to collect the insurance money and then for people to get that work done," he said.
The demand by then will be assimilated into the overall market.
Church also said the world wood products industry is so huge that even massive natural disasters rarely make anything more than a blip.
Reporter Robert Struckman can be reached at 523-5262
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)