Sammlung von Newsfeeds

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its monthly building approvals data for February 2024 for detached houses and multi-units covering all states and territories. Source: Timberbiz “The last three months of detached house approvals remain down by 3.3% on the same quarter a year earlier, and 37.9% down from the peak three years ago,” stated HIA Senior Economist Tom Devitt. “The bounce back in detached house approvals from January disguises the continuing weakness in Australia’s housing market. “Recent leading indicators, such as new home sales, are still struggling to indicate any significant recovery in new home building. This is especially so in NSW and Victoria, where land costs are particularly burdensome for new home buyers. “Demand for new housing has been falling since the RBA started increasing interest rates in May 2022. “Multi-unit approvals also remain weak, down by 20.9% in February to record its weakest month in over a decade. This leaves multi-unit approvals 20.4% down on the same quarter last year and less than half the peak of the apartment boom almost a decade ago. “Higher density housing development is being constrained by labour, material and finance costs and uncertainties, as well as cumbersome planning rules and punitive taxes, especially on foreign investors. “This lack of new work entering the construction pipeline is occurring alongside record inflows of overseas migrants and a pre-existing acute shortage of rental accommodation across the country. “It is possible to build the Australian Government’s target of 1.2 million homes over the next five years, but it would require significant policy reforms which include lowering taxes on home building, easing pressures on construction costs, and decreasing land costs,” concluded Mr Devitt. In seasonally adjusted terms, dwelling approvals in the three months to February increased only in Western Australia, up by 36.6% compared to the previous year. Other jurisdictions saw declines in approvals, led by Victoria (-14.7%), followed by Tasmania (-14.3%), New South Wales (-13.4%), Queensland (-11.7%) and South Australia (-10.6%). In original terms, dwelling approvals declined in the Northern Territory (-45.0%) and the Australian Capital Territory (-32.3%).

Data from the FPA annual report 2022–23 show a continuing strong demand for specialist advice from the FPA about biodiversity, soil, water, geomorphology and cultural heritage, to support the development of forest practices plans on both public and private land. Source: FPA The total number of FPPs certified in the period has increased across all forms of forest practices, including native forest harvesting and reforestation, plantation operations, afforestation on cleared land, quarries and roads. The annual independent auditing and assessment program reported a high level of compliance within the industry. In order to support compliance with the system, the FPA conducted 16 training courses for the forestry sector and non-forestry participants on a range of topics. The trend of clearing forest to non-forest, primarily for agricultural use, continues to remain steady with 2,124 ha of plantations cleared and 476 ha of native forest cleared under a forest practices’ plan in 2022–23. The cumulative decrease in the area of Tasmania’s native forest cleared under FPPs and dam permits between 1996 and June 2022 is 158,670 ha or 4.9% of the estimated 1996 native forest estate. More details are in the FPA annual report 2022–23 at https://fpa.tas.gov.au/news/fpa-annual-report-22-23-tabled-at-parliament

Depending on the measures used and the grades included, 2023 saw Australia’s imports of packaging either stable (-0.2% or <1,000 tonnes) compared with 2022, or down by a more significant 8.6% or 23,000 tonnes. Source: IndustryEdge Why the two figures? It all depends what you measure. The convenient (and to be frank, the traditional) domestic proposition would be that the only materials to be measured are the raw substrates like Kraftliner, Corrugating Medium and Coated Paperboard. If that’s your preference, then in softer markets, Australia’s imports were down 8.6% in 2023, falling to 242.6 kt. The chart below show the declines over the last four years. Australian Imports of Packaging Paper & Paperboard: 2019 – 2023 (tonnes) The table demonstrates that imports of container materials (used mainly in corrugated packaging) grew in 2023, by about 17,000 tonnes. As we examine later in this analysis, much of this has come from Oji in New Zealand. A hefty fall of around 38,000 tonnes for imports of Coated paperboard is a little more perplexing. Again, most comes from New Zealand, but why the steep decline for material used for everything from cereal to alco-pops? We can anticipate that a sector rife with product substitution could be using a different grade or grades of Coated paperboard. A 25% decline is not a particularly likely scenario. Unless… the volumes of pre-converted Cartonboard imports has been rising, more or less at the same pace as the raw paperboard imports have been declining. This is where the data becomes interesting. Over 2023, imports of pre-converted packaging lifted 13.9% or around 21,800 tonnes, to total 178.7 kt. That is a clear record, and it results in the falling volume of raw packaging and industrial grade paperboard imports being replaced by the growing volume of pre-converted imports. Australian Imports of Pre-converted Fibre Packaging: 2019 – 2023 (tonnes) There are market drivers for some of the pre-converted imports – home deliveries anyone? There are also production dynamic drivers and the ever-narrowing information gap across the globe facilitates easier trade with a supplier, than ever before. Regardless, as the index chart below shows us clearly, the import trajectories are opposed to one another, while the total volume of imports is pretty-much stable. Index of Imported Packaging Paper and Converted Packaging Imports: 2019 – 2023 (INDEX) It is also important for us to recognise that imports of converted packaging have been cut, folded and printed from a larger volume of raw paperboard. That is, the 178.7 kt of ‘finished’ imports could be as much as 250 kt of raw paperboard equivalents. The suspicion must be that converted packaging imports are beginning to eat into imports of raw paperboard and perhaps doing so at an accelerating rate. That could have implications for domestic manufacturers, but especially for domestic converters. Since 2019, import prices for the main grades of Packaging and Industrial paper and paperboard have trended up. Even in the ‘sloppy’ year of 2023, when trade and markets were neither strong nor weak, the weighted average price lifted 1.7% to AUDFob1,444/t. That result was achieved mainly however by ‘non-major’ grades. Among the Containerboard (corrugating materials) grades, Kraftliner was the lone grade to experience an average price increase over the year, lifting a modest 1.2%. On the other side of the box business, Coated paper & paperboard or Cartonboard, saw import prices fall 3.7%. Australian Imports of Packaging Paper & Paperboard (Main Grades): 2019 – 2023 (AUDFob/t) On an annualised basis – despite its routine and occasionally large ups and downs – the Australian dollar was relatively stable with the US dollar. That has fed into the stability recorded for the free-on-board (Fob) price, but it is not the sole factor. The Fob price is what the goods are sold for, at the point where they are about to be lifted onto a vessel at the Port of Origin. Shipping costs therefore also play a significant role in the total or ‘landed’ price, measured in terms of costs, insurance and freight (Cif). As the chart and table below demonstrate, on an annualised basis, the weighted average CIF price for landed imports of paper and paperboard used in packaging fell 5.1% or about AUD85/t over 2023. Notably, the differential or the cost of freight specifically fell 40.7% on average across the year, declining from the record AUD268/t in 2022, to a more manageable AUD159/t in 2023. Australian Packaging Paper & Paperboard Import Prices: 2019 – 2023 (AUDFob/t, AUDCif/t & AUD/t) It is important that the patterns of imports change on a country-of-origin basis each year, especially for the cost of freight. If Australia imported solely from Indonesia (for example), freight costs would fall dramatically compared with North America. Perhaps unsurprisingly, over 2023, mainland Chinese manufacturers increased their imports to Australia, seeing a 54% lift in their contribution. However, as the chart and table indicate, New Zealand remains the major contributor, despite its volumes falling 19.0%, but still delivering more than one third of total imports. Australian Packaging Paper and Paperboard Imports by Main Country: 2019 – 2023 (Tonnes) Subscribers to the Pulp & Paper Edge Data & Information Service can sign into the IndustryEdge website and interrogate the data fully, at any time, so we will not provide country-of-origin pricing for each grade, just for each of the countries listed above. The pricing data points to the reality that price matters, even here, where the freight costs have been removed to show the ‘goods alone’ or Fob prices. As an example, a 43% increase in the average price of imports from the USA over the year has resulted in a 33% fall in imports, while a 16.8% fall in price for imports from China delivers a 15.7% increase in import volumes. Australian Packaging Paper & Paperboard Import Prices by Country: 2019 – 2023 (AUDFob/t & %) The ever-growing body of imports of pre-converted packaging appears to be playing alongside declining volumes of raw paperboard imports. That may be a matter of limited interest, but we […]

The reality is that even though wood is a renewable product, essential to the modern way of life, generally the market dictates what is valued, and for forestry this means big logs. The remaining slash (branches, stumps and offcuts) is then considered a waste product. Source: Timberbiz Forestry company OneFortyOne believes that this wood waste is both a design and a market flaw, and is putting its collective minds towards finding useful applications for this wood fibre previously only viewed as a problem. Mark Coghill, OneFortyOne Operations Manager, says the company has invested close to a million dollars into the biofuel project since late 2021. “The majority of the investment made has gone towards collecting, measuring and storing the wood fibre. Over the next five years we hope to reduce the amount of wood waste (or slash) in our forests by at least 75,000 tonnes. That’s enough wood to fill 2,000 logging trucks or cover 10 rugby pitches piled three metres high,” he explained. In a recent breakthrough, the company has signed a new five-year agreement with Canterbury Woodchip Supplies which will see wood fibre previously left in the forest now turned into biofuel, a renewable resource which can displace environmentally damaging coal. The timing of this coincides with local company JS Ewers new biomass boiler upgrade, and some of the wood will be used in their new boiler. With New Zealand committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, this development gives the Nelson Tasman area, where OneFortyOne manages its extensive forests – a path towards reducing its environmental footprint by choosing clean renewable fuel over environmentally damaging coal. There’s plenty of headroom for this product, as OneFortyOne’s forests cover some 80,000 hectares in Nelson Tasman and Marlborough, with a harvest of more than 1.2 million cubic metres each year. Removing such a massive quantity of otherwise unvalued material from the forests and turning it into biofuel in the form of woodchips could help local businesses avoid burning more than 22 thousand tonnes of coal over five years, says Mr Coghill, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by a whopping 50,000 tonnes. With a good deal of New Zealand’s coal being imported, there is a multiplier effect achieved, by using a locally developed product as an effective coal substitute. Furthermore, as the forests from which the wood is removed are renewable resources – currently, OneFortyOne’s plantations are in their fourth rotation, being replanted with new seedlings after every harvest – the wood itself is a regenerating asset. Coghill says slash is often regarded as a problem for the forestry industry generally, but notes that OneFortyOne decided to look at it as an opportunity instead. That led to talks with Canterbury Woodchips, a seasoned operator producing various processed wood products for use in parks, playgrounds, as animal bedding – and industrial boilers and other heating sources. Coghill notes ‘huge potential’ for the project if scaled up, adding that ‘it could be a game-changer for New Zealand in creating a sustainable source of bioenergy.’ Even as the ink dries on the contract with Canterbury Woodchips, Coghill says other avenues for turning trash into treasure are being explored. “We continually look for ways to improve slash management. Replacing fossil fuels with bioenergy alternatives can help meet emission targets and create new opportunities for the local economy,” he says. As a result of that continued work and investment, another promising emerging use for slash is as feedstock for the production of biochar. This carbon-rich solid product is produced from the pyrolysis (heating in the absence of oxygen) of biomass residues. Biochar is agriculturally useful, as a supplement added into feedstock it can reduce the methane produced from cows, it can improve soil properties, while offering further potential by sequestering carbon and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. “As we look to the future and further innovation to help the environment, there is more wood fibre available and we are ready to work with other organisations to reduce the impact of slash, prevent climate damage, and create economic opportunities for the Top of the South region,” he says.

For more than 20 years, Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s Giant Tree Policy has been in place to protect live giant trees in Tasmania’s public production forests. Source: Timberbiz Sustainable Timber Tasmania actively searches for live giant trees in areas of forest planned for harvest. All giant trees identified during these searches of harvest areas are protected and not cut down. As part of a standard review process, Sustainable Timber Tasmania reviewed and updated its Giant Tree Policy in February 2024.  The policy has broadened its definition of giant trees to now include a diameter threshold. The policy defines giant trees as live trees that are ‘wider than 4m in diameter*’. Diameter is measured at breast height (dbh) approximately 1.3m above ground level on uphill side. Giant tree height and volume definitions remain unchanged in Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s Giant Tree Policy. As part of its review process, Sustainable Timber Tasmania considered stakeholder feedback.  Under its Giant Tree Policy, Sustainable Timber Tasmania will identify and protect live giant trees by establishing informal reserves in Tasmania’s public production forests View Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s Giant Tree Policy here.