John Deere has announced a new extended stick boom option for the 800MH-Series tracked harvesters. With a design based on customer feedback, the new extended boom stick offers a longer reach option, enabling operators to minimize the number of cut trails.

“With the addition of the extended stick boom option, we are able to meet the needs of customers who require a longer reach, helping them to be more efficient in the woods while meeting local regulations,” said Jim O’Halloran, product marketing manager for John Deere Tracked Harvesters and Feller Bunchers. “With the extended boom, operators are able to harvest larger areas, reducing the frequency of required movement of the machine. This not only benefits the surrounding terrain, but also improves the efficiency of the machine.”

Designed for use with smaller attachments, the new extended stick boom option reaches 32.5 feet (9.9 meters). Additionally, the extended option features a narrow boom tip, allowing the operator to reach past standing timber in thinning applications. This also helps operators minimize damage to the trees being harvested.

To learn more about the new extended boom stick offering, as well as the John Deere 800MH-Series tracked harvesters, please visit your local John Deere Forestry dealer or www.deere.com/en/tracked-harvesters/.

Fiji’s Minister for Economy and Climate Change says all countries need to prioritise forest protection and rehabilitation as well as financing of forest ecosystems. Source: Radio New Zealand

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum was speaking at the COP23 Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said while progress had been made in protecting ecosystems to enhance resilience to climate change, real incentives were needed to attract more investment in delivering nature based solutions.

Some countries and corporations are taking action to cut emissions from forest use and establish sustainable forestry management.

Initiatives from Ecuador and Gabon, as well as corporates like Walmart and Mars Incorporated were welcomed by delegates at the Forests Global Climate Action day in Bonn.

Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said forestry ecosystems were high on the agenda for Small Island Developing States because they were among the nations most vulnerable to climate change impacts.

A spokesman from the World Wildlife Fund said forests played a huge role in efforts to tackle climate change and protecting them would ensure they continued to absorb emissions from the atmosphere, protect biodiversity, and provide livelihoods.

The conference heard destructive, often illegal, logging and deforestation continued, with last year, forests equal to the size of New Zealand disappearing from the planet.

A proposed AU$42 million export facility for woodchips in southern Tasmania is the missing link in the rebuilding of the sector, the forest industry has said.

Southwood Fibre has lodged a development application with the Huon Valley Council for the facility at Strathblane, near Dover, which could create 145 jobs.

Currently bulk wood products from the state’s south are trucked to an export facility at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania, where the product is processed and shipped to export markets. The proposal would see Southwood Fibre process certified plantation forests at the existing Southwood processing facility before being transported on forestry roads to a purpose-built loading facility at Strathblane, and then packed into vessels for export.

The chief executive of Southwood Fibre, James Neville-Smith, said it could generate AU$55 million of economic activity every year. “The forest industry in southern Tasmania has had significant headwind since the closure of the Triabunna mill, and there is literally hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of standing plantations in the ground that are worthless until such time as there’s appropriate infrastructure to take that product to market,” he told ABC Radio Hobart.

“It will go to the existing markets in Japan or China, there’s a huge demand for the products at the moment and that’s expected to continue to rise as plantation volumes in other areas of Australia and other areas of the world diminish so there’s no doubt there’s the market for it.”

The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT) welcomed plans, saying the closure of the Triabunna woodchip mill had severely affected the industry. “This facility has been the missing link in the rebuilding of the Tasmanian forest industry and the Southwood Fibre development in very welcome,” chief executive Terry Edwards said.

The company said there would be no wood chipping at the loading facility, but it had applied for a permit to process 800,000 tonnes. The proposal is expected to create 135 jobs during construction and 145 jobs on an ongoing basis when complete.

Source: abc.net.au

A new wood fibre processing facility in southern Tasmania will inject much needed investment, enhance industry efficiency, and create sustainable long-term job opportunities, states CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA), Mr Ross Hampton.

“AFPA is pleased to back Neville-Smith Forest Products’ announcement of the creation of the new Southwood Fibre forest products export facility,” Mr Hampton said.

“This new facility in the south of the state will complement the Bell Bay facility in Tasmania’s north by creating another access point for the export of wood products.

“The Southwood Fibre facility could potentially unlock value in private plantations that currently are distant from viable export processing facilities,” Mr Hampton said.

A KPMG report expects the project will generate 135 jobs during construction and support 145 jobs when operational, while projections are for $55 million to be generated annually once the facility is up and running.

“This is an important announcement for a region which has suffered a decline in forestry related employment and I urge anyone concerned about jobs and industry in Tasmania to support it,” Mr Hampton concluded

AFPA represents forest growers, harvesters, and manufacturers of timber and paper products.

Photo: CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA), Mr Ross Hampton

The new John Deere Worldwide Parts Services Regional Distribution Center (RDC) is officially open in south Florida. The 115,000 square foot facility in Miami will serve all Latin America countries, except Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, which currently have in-country RDC locations. The distribution center provides timely and efficient delivery of more than 38,000 service parts to dealers, and customers.

Latin America dealers were previously serviced from the North America Parts Distribution Center in Milan, IL, and the South America Parts Distribution Center in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Positioning inventory in Miami to support the Latin America market will improve cycle time on machine down (emergency) orders and stock orders.

“We’ve seen significant growth in Latin America the last few years and the opening of this distribution center will allow us to take our parts service to the next level,” said Kimberly Beardsley, vice president, Worldwide Parts Services. “Centralizing regional demand via the Miami gateway will create a more consistent delivery experience and consolidate demand patterns to support dealer parts management activities.”

For additional information visit John Deere.com

A two-day, in-depth training on The Pallet Design System™ software engineering program led by Dr. Brad Gething, NWPCA Director of Science & Technology, and Dr. Laszlo Horvath, Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech. The course will start at 8am both days and finish around 5pm. Registration fee ($595) includes light breakfast and lunch on both days. Great training for pallet suppliers and sales professionals, those responsible for pallet purchases, packaging engineers, and pallet specifiers.

12/5/2017 to 12/6/2017

When:   Tuesday, December 5, 2017 8:00 AM

Where: The Alexandrian Hotel

480 King Street Alexandria, Virginia  22314 United States

Contact: Brad Gething bgething@palletcentral.com 703-519-6104

Recently, reLogistics Services, the leader in reusable transport packaging and pallet management services, announced the opening of its newest reverse logistics center in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Memphis, TN Reverse Logistics Center, a 40,000 square foot facility is located at 2158 Heide Ave and has 19 dock doors. Initially, the facility will employ 15 employees to sort pallets, RPCs, break pack boxes and other returnable and reusable packaging.

Mike Hachtman, President, reLogistics Services stated, “We are excited about expanding our US footprint to Memphis to better serve our customers. It’s the perfect location to better enable us to meet the growing demands of our customers while maximizing customer backhauls, facilitating the additional use of reusable transport packaging and supporting their sustainability objectives.”

About Relogistics Services

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, reLogistics is the leading provider of reusable transport packaging and pallet management services. reLogistics supports customers at 45 locations, servicing more than 1,000 retail outlets and processes more than 280,000 trailers including 74 million pallets and 78 million reusable totes annually.

CONTACT
Kristin Kopp
Director of Communications
Phone: 305.298.3659
E-Mail: Kristin.Kopp@reLogistics.com

Current Site Manager, Erik Molin will move on to a leading role in another industry from December 2017

“Erik has done an excellent job of developing the company to the position we have today and we are now looking for a replacement that can handle and continue the positive development,” says Göran Nyberg, CEO of Olofsfors and Iggesund Forest AB.

During the transitional period, Göran Nyberg will be responsible for the operation.

Iggesund Forest is Scandinavia’s largest producer of harvester bars for various machine types in the mechanized forestry industry. They operate in a global market and have several dealers around the world. All production takes place at the factory in Strömsbruk, Hälsingland, Sweden. The modern and partially automated production facility is adjacent to the headquarters.

Contact: Göran Nyberg CEO
Goran.nyberg@olofsfors.se
+46 (0)70-648 66 10
www.iggesundforest.se
www.facebook.com/iggesundforest

Roughly half of all hardwood chips traded in the Pacific Rim have been destined for Chinese ports in the 1H/17 with Vietnam and Australia being the major suppliers, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly.

Pulpmills in China and Japan continue to rely on large volumes of imported hardwood wood chips from a number of countries around the Pacific Rim. The biggest changes in trade over the past five years, according to the Wood Resource Quarterly, have been the increase in chip exports from Vietnam, record import volumes to China and a shift in Australian export shipments from Japan to China.

Seattle, USA. Shipments of hardwood chips in the Pacific Rim have increased for six consecutive years and reached a record-high of 22.9 million odmt in 2016. Last year was also the year when China took over Japan’s role as the world’s largest importer of hardwood chips – roughly half of all hardwood chips traded in the Pacific Rim were destined for Chinese ports in 2016. Based on import volumes to China in the first nine months of 2017, it is likely that Chinese imports will hit a new record high of over 11.5 million odmt in 2017, according to the Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ).

There have been a number of alterations in the trade flows of hardwood chips in the Pacific Rim over the past decade based on price fluctuations, chip quality preferences and changes in business relationships. In the latest issues of the WRQ we have chosen to highlight how the chip trade has evolved from 2012 to 2016 as an example of the shifting market that exists in this part of the world. The major changes over the past five years have been Vietnam’s expansion in exports to both China and Japan, Australia’s increase in shipments to China (equal to Vietnam’s volumes in the 2Q/17), Chile’s diversion of volumes from Japan to China, and Japan’s increasing reliance on hardwood chips from Vietnam and South Africa, at the expense of Australia and Chile.

The top-five trade flows of hardwood chips in 2016 were (more details in the WRQ):

1. Vietnam – China
2. Australia – China
3. Vietnam – Japan
4. Chile – Japan
5. Australia – Japan

During the first half of 2017, hardwood chip shipments from most of the major supplying countries in the Pacific Rim have gone up with the notable exceptions of Australia, Thailand, Brazil and Uruguay, which reduced their export volumes by between four and twenty-one percent as compared to the first half of 2016. The biggest increases in chip supply to Japan and China year-over-year have been from Chile and Indonesia. Chilean chip exports are likely to reach a new all-time high in 2017 and the country will remain the third largest chip exporter in the world.

Global lumber, sawlog and pulpwood market reporting is included in the 56-page quarterly publication Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). The report, which was established in 1988 and has subscribers in over 30 countries, tracks sawlog, pulpwood, lumber and pellet prices, trade and market developments in most key regions around the world. To subscribe to the WRQ, please go to www.woodprices.com

Contact:
Wood Resources International LLC
Hakan Ekstrom
Seattle, USA
info@woodprices.com
www.WoodPrices.com

The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the affirmative final determinations of the antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations of imports of softwood lumber from Canada.

While significant efforts were made by the United States and Canada, and the respective softwood lumber industries, to reach a long-term settlement to this on-going trade dispute, the parties were unable to agree upon terms that were mutually acceptable, said Commerce Department in a statement. As a result, the investigations were continued and Commerce reached its final determinations.

“While I am disappointed that a negotiated agreement could not be made between domestic and Canadian softwood producers, the United States is committed to free, fair and reciprocal trade with Canada,” said Secretary Ross. “This decision is based on a full and unbiased review of the facts in an open and transparent process that defends American workers and businesses from unfair trade practices.”

The Commerce Department determined that exporters from Canada have sold softwood lumber the United States at 3.20% to 8.89% less than fair value. Commerce also determined that Canada is providing unfair subsidies to its producers of softwood lumber at rates from 3.34% to 18.19%.

As a result of Nov 2nd decision, Commerce will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to collect cash deposits from importers of softwood lumber from Canada based on the final rates.

In 2016, imports of softwood lumber from Canada were valued at an estimated $5.66 billion.

The petition was filed on behalf of the Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations (COALITION), which is an ad hoc association whose members are Plywood filed the case on behalf of its individual members: U.S. Lumber Coalition, Inc. (DC), Collum’s Lumber Products, L.L.C. (SC), Hankins, Inc. (MS), Potlatch Corporation (WA), Rex Lumber Company (FL), Seneca Sawmill Company (OR), Sierra Pacific Industries (CA), Stimson Lumber Company (OR), Swanson Group (OR), Weyerhaeuser Company (WA), Carpenters Industrial Council (OR), Giustina Land and Timber Company (OR), and Sullivan Forestry Consultants, Inc. (GA).

The U.S. Lumber Coalition said it supports this development as it will proportionally counter the unfair subsidies that the Canadian government provides its lumber industry in abuse of U.S. trade laws. “We are pleased the U.S. government is enforcing our trade laws so that the U.S. lumber industry can compete on a level playing field,” said U.S. Lumber Coalition Co-Chair and Co-President of Pleasant River Lumber Company, Jason Brochu.

“The massive subsidies the Canadian government provides to their lumber industries have caused real harm to U.S. producers and their workers. With a fair-trade environment, the U.S. industry, and the 350,000 hardworking men and women who support it, have the ability to grow production to meet much more of our country’s softwood lumber demand.”