LUMBER PRICING, MARKET TRENDS

There were more mill closings in late 2025 and early 2026 than openings in North America in general. There are several mill openings planned for 2026, including sawmill and OSB investments in the U.S. South.

U.S. hunger for imported lumber is in freefall. Customs data confirms that total softwood imports fell to just 30.03 million cubic meters in 2025 — a 9 percent year-on-year drop and the fourth consecutive annual decline. President Donald Trump reaffirmed his commitment to place tariffs on all U.S.-bound lumber.

Prices for commodity plywood slowly edged higher out West recently, but weekly sales volumes remain uneven. Inconsistency has defined the winter market; winter trading patterns tend to be cautious. A seasonal lift normally comes as weather improves and construction picks up.

Tightening supply — notably in the East — has allowed Southern Yellow Pine plywood producers to raise prices and extend order files.

Reduced commodity imports from Brazil due to tariffs are easing some competitive pressure on domestic producers.

Eastern hardwood sawmill production sank to the lowest level in at least 65 years in 2025. It’s the continuation of a downward spiral in hardwood consumption across most major grade lumber and industrial product markets over a quarter-century.

Substitute wood and non-wood products captured larger shares of key markets. For example, raw material usage by the wood pallet industry has flipped from 80 percent hardwood and 20 percent softwood to the reverse. Meanwhile, MDF usage took off in the cabinet industry, and luxury vinyl tile gained significant traction in the residential flooring sector.

The last trickle of Chinese hardwood plywood traded into the U.S. just got a whole lot more expensive. The Department of Commerce slapped a preliminary antidumping duty of 187.27 percent on imports, and it will be applied retroactively on a trade that has already collapsed from 2 million cubic meters in 2016 to just 52,800 cubic meters last year.

Roseburg Forest Products permanently closed its only mill in California, laying off 140 at the veneer plant. The associated biomass power plant will continue operating. Roseburg is consolidating veneer and plywood production at its Oregon mills, where it installed new, efficient equipment the past few years.

Weyerhaeuser is developing two new engineered wood products designed to give home builders more versatile and higher-quality flooring solutions. Trus Joist® ProPanel™ is Weyerhaeuser’s newest innovation in engineered floor panels, featuring enhanced moisture resistance, a bright fully sanded face and self-draining DownPore™ technology. Trus Joist® AeroStrand™ Laminated Strand Lumber is Weyerhaeuser’s next-generation floor joist with a new castellated design featuring pre-cut openings to easily accommodate the mechanical, electrical and plumbing needs of any residential construction project.

Packaging Corporation of America announced a restructured reduction at its pulp and paper mill in Wallula, Washington. By the end of March, permanent closure of the kraft pulp plant and one of two paper machines eliminates the mill’s wood chip consumption and 200 jobs. The remaining mill will be reconfigured to produce only recycled containerboard. Loss of this large wood chip consumer from the Northwest region’s wood basket negatively impacts Oregon forest sector markets. PCA cites Washington state’s rising costs of power, fiber, and manufacturing regulation that hurt mill competitiveness in global paper markets as the reason for reconfiguration.

NEW PROJECTS

Canadian-owned Western Forest Products plans to expand its Fruit Valley manufacturing operation, according to pre-planning documents submitted to the city of Vancouver, Washington. The company intends to invest in new machinery to make ready-to-install fabricated glulam beams. “We are supporting a modest expansion of our product and service portfolio,” said Babita Khunkhun, the company’s senior director of communications.

The U.S. Forest Service announced up to $95 million in competitive grant funding through its Wood Innovations program for projects that advance innovative wood uses, expand wood-based construction, and grow U.S. wood energy markets and forest product processing capacity.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) announced the availability of up to $120 million for Forest Health projects that address extreme disturbance events including catastrophic wildfires, drought, and pest mortality. CAL FIRE is accepting applications for landscape-scale forest management and restoration efforts designed to improve ecosystem resilience, reduce wildfire risk, and deliver climate benefits.

Timberlab Inc. completed enclosing its new 192,000-square-foot facility, called “Independence Hall”— building one of the largest cross-laminated timber (CLT) manufacturing plants in the U.S. Located in Millersburg, Oregon, the plant is scheduled for completion in 2027.

FOREST POLICY, TIMBER HARVESTING CONDITIONS

The Trump administration is taking the final steps to undo one of former President Joe Biden’s signature conservation policies. The White House is now reviewing a final rule that would revoke the Bureau of Land Management’s conservation and landscape health rule — commonly referred to as the public lands rule — which elevated conservation as a formal use on BLM rangelands.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said earlier that the rule “had the potential to block access to hundreds of thousands of acres of multiple-use land — preventing energy and mineral production, timber management, grazing and recreation across the West.”

The Department of the Interior announced final sweeping reforms to its National Environmental Policy Act procedures, cutting red tape, accelerating project approvals, and restoring NEPA to its intended role as a focused, efficient decision-making tool. The reforms reaffirm the rescission of more than 80 percent of Interior’s prior NEPA regulations, with the majority of those regulations moved into a streamlined handbook.

The government of British Columbia has announced plans to institute a “stumpage deferral program that keeps the lights on” for Canada’s softwood lumber producers, who continue to maintain massive excess capacity that has been devastating for U.S. softwood lumber companies and workers. British Columbia’s latest subsidy program will effectively inject between $124 million to $242 million (U.S.) of liquidity into the coffers of British Columbian sawmills over the next 11 months. This latest government support follows nearly a decade of repeated findings by the U.S. Department of Commerce that these producers engage in harmful dumping practices backed by Canada’s unrelenting subsidy schemes.

The Washington Department of Agriculture has banned untreated firewood from entering the state to keep out invasive wood-eating pests. To enter Washington from another state, firewood must be treated by heating the wood to at least 160 degrees for at least 60 minutes or by another department-approved method.

A coalition of local governments, timber industry representatives and environmental groups told congressional leaders and U.S. Forest Service officials that northern Arizona’s forests — and the timber industry that depends on them — face collapse without construction of a second, 30-megawatt biomass-burning power plant. They say that a “biomass bottleneck” threatens forest restoration efforts, watersheds and rural communities.

ECONOMY, SUPPLY CHAIN

Uncertainty about the broader U.S. economy remains on many minds. Several economic metrics have been favorable or trending in the right direction, but housing activity continues to feel stuck. Even with interest rates at 6 percent or below, residential construction has not accelerated. Some were predicting a steadily improving economy this year, but the new war with Iran likely will slow growth. And surging oil prices mean higher gasoline prices and inflation.

The engines on some of timber company Weyerhaeuser’s log trucks driving around western Oregon may sound the same, but what is in their fuel tanks is definitely not the typical diesel that such trucks have long run on. The company has begun using 10 trucks that run on compressed natural gas and plans to grow that number, phasing out most of the diesel fleet running out of its Goshenfacility, just south of Eugene. Company representatives said it is an early adopter of the technology, putting it at the vanguard of running trucks on alternative fuels.

Weyerhaeuser has opened a new distribution center in Billings, Montana, as part of an inland Northwest expansion that started last year with the acquisition of a distribution center in Spokane, Wa. These new locations enable the company to provide improved service to lumber and building materials customers across the West. The Billings location represents a long-term investment in strengthening the company’s supply chain presence throughout the Northern Rockies.