Sweden’s Timber Exports Fall 8% as US Shipments Dive 52% in May
- 4 thg 8
- 3 phút đọc
The world's third-largest sawn softwood exporter has shipped 8 per cent less through the five months to May, with the American market it was winning from tariff-hit Canada in January now the fastest-falling of its major destinations.
A carpenter fixes framing on a US housing site, the market where Swedish softwood shipments fell 52 per cent in May and total imports contracted 1.94 million cubic metres across the first quarter. (Photo Credit: Alamy Stock Images)
Sawmills across Sweden have shipped 8 per cent less sawn softwood to the world through the first five months of 2026, with no major market falling away faster than the United States, the destination that carried the industry’s export growth through last year. That is according to trade figures compiled by Statistics Sweden and reported by the Austrian trade title Timber-Online, which count deliveries to the UK, the US, and Japan, all sharply lower, while parts of central and eastern Europe took more.
Monthly readings show the fall accelerating, with Lesprom Analytics counting total Swedish lumber exports down 33 per cent in May and shipments to the United States down 52 per cent for the month, even as the average price of the timber still crossing the Atlantic climbed 24 per cent.
“I guess that we have reached the bottom now,” Ulf Larsson, President and Chief Executive of SCA, told analysts as Europe’s largest private forest owner reported half-year results on 22 July. Larsson described a market that remains weak overall, with solid wood prices tracking sideways and raw material costs expected to fall by 3 to 5 per cent in the third quarter.
The collapse reverses a position Sweden spent a year building, with the country adding 6.2 percentage points of US softwood import share in January at tariff-hit Canada’s expense. Its SPF-grade trade into the American market grew 21 per cent to 1.11 million cubic metres across 2025.
A Komatsu forwarder loads pine in a Swedish stand, the supply side of an export trade running 8 per cent behind last year through May. (Photo Credit: Komatsu Forest)
Those share gains came inside a market that was itself contracting, with US softwood imports falling 1.94 million cubic metres in the first quarter alone as combined duties of between 26.47 and 47.65 per cent squeezed Canadian volumes out faster than European suppliers could replace them.
A slide this deep has been building all year, with first-quarter exports down 12 per cent to 3.18 million cubic metres and the January and February total the smallest for that opening period since 2013. Trade values tell the same story, with Statistics Sweden counting US-bound sawn wood down 46.9 per cent in March year on year.
“Autumn’s downturn for wood products has intensified at the start of the year,” Christian Nielsen, Skogsindustrierna’s market analyst for wood products, said in March as the federation’s market report put production for the opening two months 14 per cent lower. The same report counted deliveries falling as hard as production, a break from last year, when export volumes held up even as profitability faltered.
A Swedish flag marks a harvested stand in southern Sweden, with Skogsindustrierna counting January and February production 14 per cent lower and deliveries falling as hard as output. (Photo Credit: Mantas Zilicius / Alamy Stock Photo)
It comes as the falling volumes met a cost base already carrying at least SEK 2 billion in new charges for 2026, driven by Emissions Trading System reforms and a rail freight levy that has risen more than 600 per cent since 2010.
“This requires flexibility, rapid adaptability and a continued strong presence in several markets,” Olle Berg, Executive Vice President of market and business development at Setra Group, told a Timber Exchange webinar in March as freight costs and the Hormuz closure cornered Swedish exporters on two fronts. Competition is moving the other way across the Atlantic, with American southern yellow pine exports rebounding 47 per cent in March as US mills push into the same offshore markets Swedish producers supply.
Source:
Bình luận