LUMBER PRICING, MARKET TRENDS

Lumber prices were at a 13-month low, around $500-$513 per thousand board feet, in mid-November due to soft demand and large inventories. The market is experiencing price moderation compared to volatility of previous years. Recent declines are attributed to a slowdown in new home starts and builder buying as well as the stockpiling of lumber by sawmills and distributors. Lower mortgage rates potentially could stimulate demand in the future.

Lumber prices are expected to increase sharply as early as the second quarter of 2026 due to continued U.S. trade restrictions and tariff policies, based on analysis by Russ Taylor, president of Russ Taylor Global. He predicted the current system of countervailing and anti-dumping duties imposed by the U.S. will restrict Canadian exports, reducing available lumber supply in the U.S. market. The effect will be to raise domestic lumber prices for American consumers, home builders, and contractors.

Weyerhaeuser sold 28,000 acres of timberlands in coastal Oregon to Campbell Global in October for $190 million. This is the latest of several transactions between the two companies.

Chinook Forest Partners, a forestland investment manager located in Southwest Oregon, announced a definitive agreement to acquire South Coast Lumber Co. and affiliates (“South Coast”), on behalf of long-term investors.

This acquisition encompasses 104,000 acres of premium coastal forest with modern manufacturing facilities. Chinook will manage these assets as a fully integrated platform within its portfolio of high-quality natural capital investments.

Rising wildfire risk in the Pacific Northwest combined with notoriously volatile timber pricing may lower forestland values by as much as 50 percent and persuade plantation owners to harvest trees much earlier than planned, a new analysis of Douglas-fir forests shows.

Under the worst-case scenarios, modeling by researchers at Oregon State University suggests harvesting trees at 24 years would make the most economic sense. Absent wildfire risk, the optimal age would be 65 years. Generally, private landowners harvest between those two ages, but it’s not a surprise for the optimal rotation age to go down in these scenarios, the scientists say.

“Basically, under high wildfire risk that rises with stand age, every year you wait to harvest you’re rolling the dice,” said Mindy Crandall, an associate professor in the OSU College of Forestry.

NEW PROJECTS

The Wallowa Whitman National Forest in Oregon has prepared a public decision memo for the West Wall Defensible Fuels Profile Zone project near the city of Halfway. The memo authorizes the creation of 2,890 acres of fuel breaks in the Whitman Ranger District of the forest. The fuel breaks would be created using a combination of commercial harvest, noncommercial thinning, and pile burning.

Non-profit The Climate Trust announced $3.8 million in awards to support reforestation and wildfire recovery efforts in Oregon and Montana. Awards are being allocated from The Climate Trust’s (TCT) Enabling Reforestation and Afforestation Success (ERAS) program, which seeks to support critical but underfunded forest restoration activities and demonstrate scalable models of public and private carbon market partnerships to fund reforestation.

The projects funded through ERAS are intended to improve reforestation outcomes by directly enabling reforestation activities or by reducing wildfire risk to newly planted stands. These activities are typically underfunded by public and private capital but can bring substantial benefits to local ecosystems and surrounding communities.

The U.S. Forest Service announced it is investing more than $23 million to help 35 grant recipients remove and transport an estimated 1.1 million tons of low-value trees and woody debrisfrom national forests to processing facilities.

The grants, delivered through the agency’s Hazardous Fuels Transportation Assistance Program, will fund 65 projects across the lower 48 states.

To learn more about the program and see the list of grant recipients, visit at www.fs.usda.gov.

Restoring Arizona’s wildfire-threatened forests depends on building a second biomass-burning power plant, a coalition of public officials and timber industry executives said.

The state’s only biomass-burning plant is operating at capacity, which means many forest thinning and restoration projects will stall without a second plant to process low-value wood slash and biomass, speakers said at the meeting of the Natural Resources Working Group. “It’s a biomass apocalypse,” said Brad Worsley, head of Novo BioPower, the state’s only biomass-burning power plant.

If Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels has its way, the Port of Longview in Washington may soon have a $2.4 billion sustainable aviation fuel plant. But the megaproject to turn timber waste into jet fuel has faced a slew of challenges on its way to landing at the giant riverfront Barlow Point site, a deal that’s still not inked after nearly four years. The people behind Northwest Advanced Bio-Fuels say the project is mere weeks away from finding the financing needed to lock in a site and build the plant.

FOREST POLICY, TIMBER HARVESTING CONDITIONS

The U.S. Forest Service is going back to the drawing board with an update to the Northwest Forest Plan, a set of policies that broadly dictates where logging can occur on 25 million acres of forests in Oregon, Washington and northwest California.

The agency published its proposed changes in a draft environmental impact statement in November 2024 and received over 3,400 public comments. Now the Forest Service under the Trump administration wants to issue a new draft. Timber industry groups largely welcome restarting this Biden-era initiative. They’ve been calling on President Donald Trump for a complete overhaul of the Northwest Forest Plan.

EQUIPMENT, MACHINERY SALES

Caterpillar reported sales and revenues for the third quarter increased 10 percent to $17.6 billion. The increase was primarily due to higher sales volume, mainly driven by higher sales of equipment to end users.

South Dakota-based TranSource Truck & Equipment is expanding into Montana, Wyoming and western Nebraska as the exclusive Volvo Construction Equipment dealer.

In an asset purchase effective in November, Tri-State Truck & Equipment transferred leases and inventory at five dealership locations in Montana and Wyoming that cover most of those states plus the western panhandle of Nebraska to TranSource. The deal also includes Tri-State’s Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks dealerships.

TranSource has been in business for over 60 years. This acquisition brings the company to 10 total locations. In its new Montana and Wyoming territories, TranSource will offer articulated haul trucks, excavators, wheel loaders, rigid haulers, compact equipment, compactors and a variety of services.

ECONOMY, SUPPLY CHAIN

The Manufacturing PMI® declined further below 50 percent in October, signaling continued manufacturing weakness.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates 0.25 points in October amid labor market strain and sticky inflation. The decision reflects the Fed’s cautious stance in a period of data deprivation.

U.S. rail carload and intermodal volume combined fell 1.7 percent in October from October 2024. Intermodal alone was down 3.0 percent. Total carloads were nearly constant compared to 2024.

In light of several high-profile crashes involving unqualified drivers, the American Trucking Associations urged congressional leaders to enhance training, testing, and licensing standards for CDL-holders.

In addition to calling on Congress to close dangerous loopholes, ATA raised concerns about cabotage – the illegal practice of foreign carriers conducting domestic freight movements – which poses an ongoing threat to the viability of U.S. carriers.