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Two Canadian Lumber Producers Buy U.S. Sawmills In Georgia And Arkansas

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Two Vancouver-based Canadian lumber giants have announced the purchase of large sawmill operations in the U.S.: two in Georgia and one in Arkansas in the southern pine region.

International Forest Products Limited—which operates under the name Interfor—announced it had purchased two large sawmills at Perry and Lumpkin, Ga., from the Russian forest products company, Ilim Timber.  Before their purchase by Ilim a few years ago, the mills had been established and operated for years by the Tolleson family of Perry.

Interfor entered the lumber production business in 2013 with the purchase of three sawmills in Georgia formerly operated by Rayonier as an adjunct to the pulp and specialty fiber operations.  It added a fourth lumber mill in Georgia last year.

In a separate announcement, West Fraser Timber Co., also a Canadian-based lumber manufacturer with U.S. operations in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, said it has purchased Travis Lumber Company’s sawmill in Mansfield, Ark., and plans to increase production by 50 percent.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SPRING 2014 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW.

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With Forest Roads Win, Forestry Forces Turn Focus On Protecting Timber Tax Provisions

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With the forest road issue settled for now in landowners’ favor, the forestry focus in Washington in coming months—or possibly the next couple of years—has turned to three tax provisions that are likely to be in jeopardy from efforts to overhaul the federal tax code.

Those timber tax provisions that have been in the tax code for some years allow for the annual deduction of reforestation costs of up to $10,000 per tract; deduction of most silviculture and management practices such as herbicides to control woody and weedy competition to planted pine stands and fertilization; and capital gains treatment of timber sales.

Whether forestry forces will be as successful with the proposed tax code changes as they were with the forest roads issue remains to be seen.  But many of the same organizations that joined forces to block the efforts by some environmental groups to require EPA permitting of forest road building and maintenance are already lining up for the tax code fight.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SPRING 2014 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW.

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Wet Weather, Gradually Improving Home Construction Brighten Outlook For Nation’s Timber Growers

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With help from wet winter weather that has continued into the spring, a slowly improving home construction industry is finally providing a brighter outlook for timber growers in the South and other timber regions of the nation.

That’s the encouraging outlook for the forest products sector of the U.S. economy from Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry, Inc., one of the largest U.S. forest management and consulting firms based in heart of the nation’s southern pine belt.

“After years of depressing news for timber growers, all of the economic indicators seem to be positive right now— housing starts are up, building permits are up, interest rates are up slightly but still very low, and exchange rates are favorable,” Thomas writes in the spring edition of his firm’s newsletter, the F&W Forestry Report.

“While this recovery, at least in our sector, has been frustratingly slow, it has at least been consistent—which means we should be able to expect slow but steady price increases for trees as we continue through the recovery…” Thomas said.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SPRING 2014 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW.