The Softwood market appears strong throughout the Inland West, according to lumber sources who are staying busy.
In Idaho, a lumber contact attributed the strong market to a combination of factors–the coronavirus causing a depressed marketplace in March and April as stay-at-home mandates also forced the closure of production facilities.
“That created a shortfall of available material in the species we produce here in the West,” he commented. “People now are scrambling to get their needs covered, plus cover the future jobs they have sold that they haven’t even started yet.”
Douglas Fir (No. 2) 2×4 and 2×6 is the top-selling species “by far”; his business also sells Hem Fir and White Fir. Customers are mainly pro lumberyards, wholesale distributors and jobbers.
The lumber source noted that transportation was becoming a concern because the availability of trucks was tightening up. “You can put product on rail car, but the railroads are charging way too much money. You can do it on truck a lot cheaper. We’re still trying to purchase our raw materials as much as we can with trucks because we don’t want to pay the car freight, yet it’s not coming in as quickly as we would like.”
The market in Montana also is strong, a lumber contact said. “Surprisingly enough, we’re busy,” he said, then pointed out that the coronavirus hasn’t affected the Inland West as much as other regions. “Granted, they did shut a lot of businesses down, but the demand has kept up and we’ve kept busy.”
ESLP and Ponderosa Pine to pattern and Engelmann Spruce Lodgepole Pine (all No. 2 Common) in 1×6 and 1×8 are in the greatest demand among his customers, who are distributors. “They’re surprised that they’re busy, too,” the source commented. “There’s a lot of demand coming from behind this lockdown. That’s what has kept us busy.”
In Arizona, another lumber supplier described the market as being in “a little bit of chaos” because many customers thought that market demand would decline because of the coronavirus so they kept inventory levels low. Instead, demand increased, leaving some of those pro lumberyards, big box stores and multi-family builders unhappy and forced to pay higher prices. “Some species are hard to get, especially 2×4-8 of any species,” the source added.
Douglas Fir and White Fir (No. 2) are selling the best, “but part of that is due to the lack of availability of SPF,” the contact said. “Because of the disruption in supply, whatever you have to fill the order is what they’ll buy. If they normally buy Spruce and you don’t have it, but you have White Fir or Doug Fir they’ll just take it because they have to have something.”
His customers anticipated a slowdown in June and maybe early July, then expected their markets to rebound, the source said.
