Wood prices climbing?

[Warm_in_NH]

Coming into my second year of burning, I'm at the point of being nearly a full year ahead now. I wanted to "top it off" with two more cord to be sure.
My regular guy only had me in for three this year, so that's what he cut and stacked in the blazing sun for me first thing spring, it'll be added to my two on hand from last year, so that's good.

Looking for 2 more green and can't get a returned call. My regular guy told me that "SAPPI" (South American Pulp and Paper Industries) is buying all the local wood and causing prices to jump for firewood, lumber, and chips (power plant chips). I imagine a "knee jerk" reaction from last winter isn't helping either.

Anyone here ever here of this? I Googled it and found nothing, the guy telling me the story is an old yankee that loves to talk (and he talks slow). My wood price went up to $220/cord seasoned from $210, but he warned next year could be "a bit more" He's cheap, green, if you can get it, it going for $225 around here, it's judged by what their paying for chips.

What are others paying and what are you seeing for availability?

 

[blades]

Prices seem to be up about 10% on average here also. Heck of a lot of competition for free stuff. Haven't had any lite fingered wood fairies visit my hoard as yet at either location.

 

[JustWood]

I honestly don't know what people have been thinking this spring/summer. This is the slowest early season for wood sales I have seen EVER and that's coming off the worst winter in a long time. Any reserve wood people had, has been used up.
I've moved/sold all contracted wood production thus far BUT production is way down due to wet conditions. I jumped my price 8% 2 weeks ago due to having to source new contracts at higher rates. There definitely will be a shortage this year due to pellet mills, pulp and pallet stock operations upping prices on low grade wood. Low grade hard wood lumber is fetching the highest prices in history now.
Made a prediction on this last spring in the pellet mill. Coming to fruition now.

 

[peakbagger]

Wood markets are local. I would be surprised if Sappi was cleaning out NH as their closest pulp mill is in Showhegan which is a long haul. There is significant pressure on the firewood supply in NH currently now that the new boiler in Berlin is running. They are pulling in more wood than when it was a pulp mill and the wood market is going to take a couple of years to ramp up to meet the demand. I see trucks loaded with chips driving north through Pinkham's Notch every day which wasn't the case for many years. There are also several institutional biomass heating plants that have gone on line and they really make a dent in the firewood market as they need a high quality chip that is made from logs versus tops or land clearing. There are also good indication that the regional natural gas market is going to be expensive this winter and I expect many dealers sold out last winter due to the cold winter. There is also a better job market than last year and some of the marginal suppliers that cut wood and sell it under the table while collecting unemployment have probably gone back to work

Stir all those things up and you get higher prices and eventual shortages when the procrastinators start buying their winter wood supply.

 

[kingston73]

I don't know about prices but I do know scrounging free wood has been incredibly difficult this summer. If I surf craigslist anything older than a couple hours is gone. There was a post put up last night around 10pm and this morning at 8am it was gone. The only thing that is somewhat easy for me to find is pine, because in my area pine seems to be ignored and thought of as "outside" wood.