Timber Exchange Trade Overview May of 2021

• An auction for the second half of 2021 was organized in May. This year, the SFE has offered for sale a record amount of timber in short-term auctions (the amount offered in kind (scm) was slightly higher than in April, however an increase of 60% was recorded in April).
• The value of the Timber Price Index has increased by 1.8%, but did not exceed the all-time high value of the index, which was recorded back in November of 2018. The difference between these two peaks in the market is that the current peak is related to the record highs of the resulting timber prices, whereas the record highs of 2018 were recorded in less valuable categories of firewood/panel timber and pulpwood.
• 65 auctions were announced by 24 regional units, of which 32 took place. There were 87 buyers participating in the auction, of which 62 have entered into contracts. Statistically, the activity of buyers has decreased significantly compared to April, however, it is very likely that such behaviour of participants was influenced by high prices and unclear trends for the next six months, which only became apparent on May 25. After the results of the half-year auctions, the activity of participants should grow.
• 36,092 scm of timber were offered for sale – a similar amount as last month. The most popular timber products were offered for sale by the SFE, i.e. supplied sawn logs accounted for 45% of the sold amount, with supply growing by more than 10%. The supply of pulpwood has dropped by 40%. The SFE is maintaining its position to sell the most popular products at peak price levels. This trend did not affect the assortment of packing logs, the sold quantity of which has decreased by 10%.
• The weighted price of sawn logs (B/C) has reached another record high – 98.32 EUR/scm.

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