January storm hurts timber trade

  • 2005-06-01
  • From wire reports
RIGA - Latvia's exports of coniferous pulpwood to Sweden could cease in June, as low prices for timber damaged in January's storm have made deliveries unprofitable.


"There is currently complete destruction in the pulpwood market. Exports to Sweden will surely cease. Now the question is whether the Finnish market will be open to our exports," Harijs Jordans, head of the Latvian Timber Industry Federation, told the Baltic News Service. He added that the Swedish market was already saturated with timber that fell during the January storm.

Finland's pulp mills might buy pulpwood from Latvia, if companies offered prices that were competitive enough in comparison with those set by Swedish rivals, Jordans said.

"It is clear that the Swedes will have to process the wood razed by their storm, and the Finns will look for what is more advantageous to them," he said. At the same time, Jordans predicted that the situation with soft wood may be completely opposite, and that exports could even grow.

Vilnis Freimanis, managing director of the Stora Enso Mezs timber company, predicted that exports of coniferous pulpwood to Sweden would cease in June or July.

"Swedes have to process their own 17 million cubic meters of wood razed by the storm," he said, adding that exports to Sweden would most likely resume in the first half of 2006 at the earliest.

On Jan. 9, a storm with hurricane-level winds raged throughout western Latvia, damaging 7.3 million cubic meters of timber. Some 1.7 million cubic meters was within state-owned forests. In total, the storm affected over 62 percent of the total amount of wood Latvia fells during an entire year.

In 2003, the country felled 11.7 million cubic meters of timber.

Forests cover 2.9 million hectares or 45 percent of Latvian territory. Of this, the state owns 1.5 million hectares, or 49.9 percent, while private owners or local authorities own the remainder.