Written on the board is a seemingly routine reminder for workers in the planer to shut off their chipper and sawdust blower when finished. But Batmale, industrial program manager with the nonprofit Energy Trust of Oregon, sees it as evidence of a larger change in a culture emphasizing efficiency. “That’s what this whole thing is about for us,” Batmale said during a tour of the mill Wednesday.

It takes a lot of energy to run the saws, belts and edgers that make Kinzua Lumber hum to the tune 50 million board feet per year. The mill formed its own employee-led energy team last year to cut waste and find savings, with help from the Energy Trust’s Strategic Energy Management initiative.

By putting new procedures in place, the team shaved 14 percent off the mill’s annual energy use by March 2013 — more than 1.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity, or enough to power about 160 homes for the year.

The Trust pays 2 cents per kilowatt hour in cash incentives for companies that participate in the strategic management program. Batmale presented Kinzua Lumber with a check for $36,075 Wednesday, adding to the mill’s trimming of $99,000 off its annual energy bill.

From Oregon Public Broadcasting: http://www.opb.org/news/article/mill-cuts-down-the-kilowatts/

The company is acquiring approximately 645,000 acres of unique, high-quality timberlands in Washington and Oregon that are highly complementary and contiguous with the company’s existing acreage. This transaction will expand Weyerhaeuser’s timber holdings in the Pacific Northwest by 33 percent to approximately 2.6 million acres and increase the total amount of U.S. timberlands it owns or controls to approximately 6.6 million acres. The company expects to reach annual synergies of approximately $20 million within two years of closing.

Upon closing, Weyerhaeuser expects the acquisition to be immediately accretive to the company’s funds available for distribution per share. In conjunction with and subject to the completion of the acquisition, the company intends to increase its quarterly dividend from $0.20 per share to $0.22 per share beginning with the third quarter dividend, payable in September 2013. Weyerhaeuser expects that the cash flows and synergies from the acquisition will enhance its ability to further increase its dividend in the future.

“We believe our company is uniquely positioned to maximize the value of these timberlands,” said Dan Fulton, Weyerhaeuser president and chief executive officer. “The acquired timberlands are highly complementary to our existing acreage in Washington and Oregon, where we have more than 100 years of experience managing Douglas fir. By increasing our high-value timber holdings west of the Cascade mountain range, we will leverage our infrastructure as well as our expertise in silviculture, logistics and marketing, giving us a distinct competitive advantage both domestically and with export markets.

“Importantly, this transaction delivers immediate value to our shareholders, and enhances Weyerhaeuser’s ability to increase the quarterly dividend,” Fulton continued. “We recognize that these timberlands have been well managed by a seasoned and experienced team and we look forward to welcoming those highly talented employees to Weyerhaeuser.”

From Weyerhaeuser: http://www.weyerhaeuser.com/Company/Media/NewsReleases/NewsRelease?dcrID=2013-06-16_WYLongviewTimber

“The worst-case scenario is that the [annual allowable cut] might drop as much as 30% to 40%,” said Doug Routledge, acting president of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI).

Routledge said the sector hopes to reduce that number to 5% or 10% by harvesting trees in the right order – using affected pine trees first, for example – and reforestation.

But he said that improvement would be impossible if companies hadn’t also invested heavily in technology that allows them to process wood that would have previously been viewed as worthless.

“There really isn’t an aspect of our business in B.C. that we haven’t focused on and either applied a strategy or a technology to utilize the mountain pine-beetle logs,” said Ray Ferris, vice-president of wood products at West Fraser Timber. Ferris said his company has spent between $3 million and $10 million to update the technology at each B.C. sawmill it operates.

From Business Vancouver: http://www.biv.com/article/20130528/BIV0105/305289947/-1/BIV/high-tech-mills-help-manage-post-beetle-supply-drop

A 21 percent drop in the cash price since mid-March and lower future prices have prompted several analysts to trim about five percent off their 2013 price forecasts. Western SPF (spruce-pine-fir) softwood prices are now expected to increase 20 percent, on top of the 16 percent increase realized in 2012.

RBC and CIBC now expect prices will average between US$350 and US$360 per thousand board feet in 2013, which is about $20 lower than earlier forecasts, but up from US$299 in 2012.

Analyst Paul Quinn of RBC Capital Markets maintained his outlook for 2014 at US$400, but lowered his price in 2013 to US$350, from US$370. He also reduced his forecasts for OSB (oriented strand board) and plywood.

A 10 to 15 percent increase in North American production in most regions and weak exports is “spelling trouble in the short-term,” Quinn wrote in a report.

From The Vancouver Sun: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/resources/Lumber+prices+forecast+trimmed+2013+despite+housing/8462303/story.html

“Basically, we have a Canadian invasion going on,” said David Elstone, an analyst with ERA Forest Forest Products Research.

Canfor announced it is purchasing the three mills from family-owned Scotch and Gulf Lumber, of Mobile, Ala., for $80 million U.S. The purchase is phased, with Canfor taking a 25-percent interest in the company when the deal closes in the third quarter of 2013, a 50-percent interest 18 months later, and full ownership at the end of three years.

The mills have a combined capacity of 440,000 board feet of Southern Yellow Pine a year. “This agreement provides access to an exceptional fiber base, increases our Southern Pine production capacity to more than a billion board feet and will improve our ability to serve our valued U.S. customers,” Canfor president Don Kayne said in a news release announcing the deal.

Canfor already owns five sawmills in North Carolina. Rival West Fraser owns 13 mills spread across the South, and earlier this year Interfor purchased three mills in Georgia. It recently announced a fourth mill purchase.

From The Vancouver Sun: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Canfor+joins+Canadian+invasion/8466065/story.html

Do I exaggerate? In reality, probably. It does make me nervous.

What has me thinking about this are some recent developments, some confirmed, some apparently soon to be confirmed.

We’re all aware that Georgia’s Tolleson Lumber and its two sawmills were sold to Ilim Timber of Russia in 2011, and several years before that Canfor purchased New South Companies and its three sawmills in the Carolinas.

Fast-forward to the present, and Interfor has just purchased Keadle Lumber Enterprises of Thomaston, Ga.

And as I write this, there are many rumors swirling around about the possible purchase of other Southern independents. Interestingly, a lot of those rumors surfaced when I was attending the Ligna trade fair in Hannover, Germany in early May. (Do I have to go to Germany to learn what’s going on in the Southern U.S.?)

I would almost bet that as soon as this magazine goes to the printer, one of those rumors will evolve, and thus the story obviously will be too late to appear in this issue. I’m sure you’ll see it in our on-line sites, but that’s not the same to an old print guy like myself.

Speaking of me being old, and of Southern independents, I went back and found a special issue of Timber Processing we did in June 1987 (a mere 26 years ago) on “The Southern Independent,” as the headline on the cover stated. The cover included a drawing of a man who was supposed to be representative of a Southern independent lumberman (the drawing was actually better looking than most Southern independent lumberman I know). Next to the drawing, it read: “Some said this man wouldn’t be in business today. Well he is, and he’s bullish on the future.”

I wrote the main article, which was entitled, “Raised On 2x4s.” I quickly glanced through the article to see some of the independent companies I had referenced. Most are still operating as independents today: Beadles Lumber, H.W. Culp Lumber, Dixon Lumber, Anthony Timberlands, Jordan Lumber, Harrigan Lumber, T. R Miller and Gulf Lumber.

In the article, they painted a bright picture for the future. What nobody mentioned was the possible emergence of Canadian companies coming down and purchasing not only independently owned sawmills but also U.S.-based corporation sawmills, which of course has been happening with some regularity.

If you are a Southern independent, and if you looked over your shoulder and you didn’t see much potential for participation from the next generation in the family business, and/or you simply looked at the state of things for the past six years, from the drastic recession to the recent upward bounce in the economy, and if you have kept your mill or mills in good shape, you might think it is a good time to sell out. More power to you. Nobody would blame you. Or you might be thinking that you should take advantage of this current run, however long it goes on.

That’s your decision. We’re just glad, at least as I write this, that you’re still around.

Meanwhile, lumber exports dropped by 16 million board feet in the first 3 months of 2013 compared to the same time last year.

“The West coast lumber merchants exported 218 million board feet of lumber in the first quarter of 2013 compared to 234 million board feet in the first quarter of 2012,” said Xiaoping Zhou, a research economist with the agency’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. “The value of first quarter 2013 exports fetched $153 million compared to $156 million in 2012. ”

Zhou compiled the statistics from the U.S. International Trade Commission and from Production, Prices, Employment, and Trade in Northwest Forest Industries, a station publication that provides current information on the region’s lumber and plywood production as well as employment in forest industries.

From The U.S. Forest Service: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/news/2013/05/lumber-exports.shtml

The Klausner Group would build the mill on U.S. 90 just north of Interstate 10 and another in North Carolina to turn Southern yellow pine into 2x4s and other dimensional lumber for the construction industry.

The mill is expected to have a $56 million annual economic impact and create an additional 600 jobs for suppliers and from the additional spending in the community, according to estimates by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO). It also would be a boon to timberland owners, who have seen demand and prices for timber fall from the collapse of the housing market that has started to rebound.

The Klausner project is what Florida legislators had in mind when they created incentives to lure businesses to catalyst sites through the Rural Areas of Economic Concern program. The idea is to bring in companies that will draw additional businesses and provide enough jobs to have an impact that extends to surrounding counties.

Dennis Cason, president of the Suwannee County Economic Alliance, said he already is working with companies that could use Klausner’s byproducts — sawdust, wood chips, dry shavings and bark — such as pellet and plywood manufacturers.

From The Gainesville Sun: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20130524/ARTICLES/130529735/1109/sports?Title=Lumber-mill-near-Live-Oak-expected-to-bring-350-jobs

Vaagen Brothers Lumber owns and operates the mill and runs a high-speed mobile HewSaw that churns out lumber from wildfire salvage and fuels reduction projects in northeast Arizona and northwest New Mexico.

I visited Eagar last week to meet with my friends Kurtis Vaagen, FCFP, General Manager, and Dwayne Walker of Future Forest. We toured the sawmill which is tucked into a formerly abandoned production facility. The site is a constant buzz of lumber production now, bringing new life to the forests and people in the area. The mill’s mobile HewSaw is capable of producing over 100,000 board feet of lumber (roughly 20 log loads) per shift. For forest health, this sawmill is a very big deal for the region. But for the 5,000 residents of Eagar, the mill is huge — employing 15 to 30 people directly and supporting 25 to 50 forest logging jobs.

Vaagen Brothers Lumber, Future Forest, and the U.S. Forest Service all teamed up to get this project rolling last year.

From Forest Business Network: http://www.forestbusinessnetwork.com/28015/arizonas-four-corner-forest-products-sawmill-is-now-fully-operational-public-open-house/

“We’ve seen a lot of mill closures since I’ve been here,” said Loren Rose, the Chief Operating Officer for Pyramid Mountain Lumber. “Most of them were not family-owned, not locally-owned, and the decisions were not made in Montana.”

To avoid closure in November of 2000 by modernizing, the company purchased state-of-the-art equipment that uses lasers and robotics technology to get the most out of every log. Mike McGrew is the Quality Control Specialist at Pyramid Mountain Lumber. “And, in a nutshell,” he said, “What I do is make sure that we’re getting the most value out of every log that we possibly can.”

While producing quality lumber products is the company’s objective, Rose says being a trustworthy steward of the land is its hallmark. Because the business works to create and maintain healthy forests, it is recognized as The Stewardship Company.

Most recently, Pyramid Mountain Lumber teamed up with Bitterroot National Forest on a stewardship contracting project to harvest timber in the Bass Creek area to help thin out trees, reduce mountain pine beetle spread and improve the overall health of the forest.

From ABC/Fox Montana: http://www.abcfoxmontana.com/story/22195374/pyramid-lumber-looks-to-the-future-of-the-timber-industry