Global Hardwood Chip Prices Begin Slow Rise

Prices for globally traded hardwood chips for the production of pulp and wood-based panels have trended downward for much of the past three and a half years. However, this trend broke in late 2014 and early 2015 when prices slowly started to increase. 

The FOEX global hardwood chip price index, PIX-HCG, increased by 1.3% in January as compared with the previous month, and was 1.8% higher than in November of last year. The Index, which is based on prices for hardwood chips traded overseas to markets in Asia and Europe, reached a four-year low in November 2014 when it was 16.6% below the all-time-high in November of 2011. The PIX-HCG reached $180.58/odmt (CIF) in January 2015, with the biggest price increases being those of hardwood chips shipped from Latin America and Vietnam to Japan and China.

 

The softwood chip price index, PIX-SCG, fell sharply during the fall of 2014, from $185.73/odmt in August 2014 to $170.67/odmt in January 2015. This 8.1% decline over just five months was partly the result of a stronger U.S. dollar, as well as because of reduced costs for the ocean freight. 

FOEX in cooperation with Wood Resources International (WRI), Seattle, Wash., USA, has launched two wood chip price indices, the Softwood Chip Global (SCG) and Hardwood Chip Global (HCG), both part of the PIX index family of FOEX. About FOEX Indexes Ltd.

 

Wood Resources International publishes two quarterly timber and pulpwood price reports and has subscribers in more than 30 countries. The Wood Resource Quarterly, established in 1988, is a 50-page quarterly market report which includes global prices for sawlogs, pulpwood, wood chips, lumber, and pellets, as well as market commentary about developments in global timber, biomass and forest industry. 

More information is available online.