$360 Million in timber damage

[GBelly]

interesting numbers

[DMP]

I hear it is "pad ready"...construction lingo is rad

we have been hearing about them breaking ground and opening up over there and over here for a long time. biomass has been a major topic in the industry for years.

no different than the oburg sawmill...I will believe it is up and running when the first load of wood crosses the scales.

I hope you are right anyhow. that's the dark corner of the state when it comes to decent markets. we need more competition up there.

Supposedly the land has been purchased and plans have been drawn. Was told they want to be up and running in 2015. Time will tell.

[dfasano]

Question, what kind of affect are the pellet plants having on the market?

I think Gbelly touched on this a little already but I'll add my .02. I worked on quite a few resource studies in the 5 years I was in the consulting side of the business. Clients such as pellet mills need a study to take to the bank to get financing and we specialized in those.

Pellets are an emerging market that have been adopted in other countries as a fuel source. Investors are wanting to build mills to export pellets due to our expansive wood basket in the SE.

The problem is that paper mills can pay far more for pulpwood stumpage that pellet mills and cannot afford to get in a bidding war. The profit margin is much higher for paper mills.

The key is placing the pellet mills in an area where the competition is not as fierce while still being close enough to get the pellets to a port, without being hammered in freight costs.

There have been many pellet mills announced, but very few make it into production.

They will be a large part of the forest industry in the future, but the pellet market needs to get stronger before they can compete with the paper companies in the US South.

[Palmetto Bug]

Do any of you forestry guys think the bill to allow hemp production in SC will have much influence on pulpwood prices? From what I read, hemp makes a much better paper, produces more fiber per acre/year and, being an annual crop, it's pretty attractive to farmers who might not want to tie up land for 15 year cycles.

The wood pellet industry needs to do some PR. If the average tree hugger knew that burning pellets instead of fossil fuels doesn't add sequestered CO2 to the atmosphere, there'd be a clamor for more of it, especially if there are ways to burn it pretty cleanly.

[GBelly]

wood pellets folks are trying to reduce the carbon foot print. in Europe, they have the stronghold. it will happen here too.

as far as hemp goes, have not heard much about it.