Page 19 - Tree Line - North Carolina Forestry Association - Third Quarter 2023

FIGURE 3
Four-Quarter Moving Average Pine Sawtimber Stumpage Prices ($/ton) in Alabama and North Carolina, 2016-2022.
Source: Timber Mart South
solid wood products) growing on private lands in Alabama increased 24% from 2016 to 2022,1 compared to 18% in North Carolina (Figure 3). The supply of trees growing in Alabama was greater than the increase in demand.
What is the lesson for North Carolina? Does the coming expansion of sawmill demand mean further price increases?
As with many complex questions, the answer depends. All markets are local and the specific supply and demand balance around new and expanded sawmills determines the dynamics of those markets. Still, the presence of new, efficient mills should encourage everyone about the future of North Carolina’s forest industry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Shawn Baker is the Vice President of Research at Forisk Consulting, where he leads Forisk’s research portfolio in addition to continuing
his forest operations research in the
US and Canada. He oversees Forisk’s silviculture benchmarking research, stumpage price forecasting, and logging and delivered-wood cost projections
for a quarterly publication, the Forisk Research Quarterly, and for custom timber-market studies. Shawn has more than 15 years of forestry and operations research experience. Prior to joining Forisk, Shawn conducted and coordinated forest operations research at the Center for Forest Business at
the University of Georgia. Shawn earned both
a bachelor’s
and master’s
degree in Forestry from Virginia Tech and a PhD from the University of Georgia.
1 Estimates of current inventories (through 2022) are based on supply models developed and supported by NC State University’s SOFAC research consortium.
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