Analytics, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Logistics, Woodwork

While domestic log prices have declined, they are still among the highest in Europe and many sawmills in the two countries have increased importation of lower cost sawlogs from neighboring countries the past few years.

Softwood sawlog prices in both Austria and Germany have been in steady decline for about two years and in the 1Q/16 they reached their lowest level since 2006 (in US dollar terms).

Although less dramatic, prices have also trended downward in Euro terms with average prices currently being 12% lower than two years ago. Despite the recent price declines, sawmills in the two countries have some of the highest wood costs in Europe.

The high costs for domestically sourced sawlogs have driven sawmills to increasingly source wood raw material from neighbouring countries where log prices are lower

Germany and Austria are the second and third largest importers of

softwood logs in the world and Germany in particular has increased importation substantially over the past five years.

In 2008, Germany was actually a net exporter of logs of about 1.6 mln

m3 but the flow of logs has since turned around and the country was a net importer of 5.4 mln m3 in 2015. The major log supplying countries in 2015 and early 2016 have been the Czech Republic, Norway  and Estonia.

Austria imported just over 6.5 mln m3 of softwood logs in 2015 and

is on pace to reach closer to 7.5mln m3 in 2016. Three countries supply about 85% of the import volume, namely the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovenia.

The biggest shifts in log sourcing over the past ten years have been

the sharp reduction in importation from Germany, while Slovenian

imports have gone up from 180,000 m3 in 2006 to 1.2 mln

m3 in 2015.

A majority of the imports are sawlogs for the domestic lumber industry, often at lower cost than the domestic market prices

However, some Austrian pulp mills are also importing marginal pulpwood volumes, predominantly from Slovenia, to supplement locally, sourced pulplogs and wood chips.

Similarly to domestic pulplog prices, import prices have also fallen the past few years, from approximately $90/m3 in 2011 to $60/m3 in 2016.