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Beginning as a promising year for the wood products industry in Montana, with modest gains expected as the housing industry continues to bounce back from the recession, 2015 has lost a good deal of its momentum for lumber producers, while plywood and fiberboard production continues to stay strong.

At the start of the year, while economists predicted housing starts would continue to increase, acting as a major boon for the industry, there was also the notion that the pine-beetle kill in western Canadian forests would slow production, giving U.S. lumber mills more of an opportunity to fill the overseas demand for wood products.

But the domestic timber market has hit another stagnant point, with market plunges in China and wildfires across the western U.S. throwing up roadblocks.

Chuck Roady, director at F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber in Columbia Falls, said the summer started out promising enough after a sluggish spring. “There was a resurgence earlier in the summer,” Roady said. “But now the market is just totally being overwhelmed by Canadian lumber.”

While the U.S. market was suffering from the Great Recession in 2008, the Chinese markets were booming. U.S. and Canadian lumber producers found a market for their logs there.

From the Flathead Beacon: http://flatheadbeacon.com/2015/08/27/montana-timber-industry-stagnant-despite-years-promising-start/