Prices for Finnish industrial roundwood fell in standing sales in July 2023. Average prices for spruce and pine logs fell by 4% and prices for all species of pulpwood by 5% from June. Delivery sales prices moved in the other direction, rising by 5–10%, except for birch stumps, as Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) reports..
July 2023 timber trade has not been this low since 2017, as it was 28% below the average for the previous five years. For the whole of the year, 12% more timber was purchased than in the previous five years.
In standing sales, the average price paid for spruce logs in July was Euro 75.3 and for pine logs Euro 71.4 per cubic metre. Real prices fell by 4% from June and ended up at average price level for the whole of last year.
The average price of birch logs was Euro 57.9. This was 5% less than in June and 13% higher than the average for the whole of last year.
For all types of pulpwood, the average standing sale price fell by 5%, but were still 25–34% above last year's average prices. The average price of spruce fell to Euro 28.8, birch to Euro 27.6 and pine to Euro 26.5 per cubic metre.
In delivery sales, pulpwood prices rose by 5–10% from June. Average prices for the whole of last year were exceeded by 21–24%.
Trade volumes
In July, only 1.4 million cubic metres of industrial roundwood purchased from private forests were recorded in the statistics. This was 29% down on the previous year and 28% lower than the average for the previous five years. The last time that lower volumes of timber sales were recorded in July was in 2016 and 2017.
In January-July, timber trade was 28% higher than a year ago and 12% higher than in the previous five years. Compared to the previous five years, trade in logs was up 15% and trade in pulpwood was up 9%.
