Wood: prices increase exponentially

The exponential growth of wood prices continues throughout the world. In Europe, wood prices are close to 900 euros on average (with a peak in Italy of 1,686 euros per cubic meter, a 500 percent increase compared to April 2020, when the price of wood was 264 euros per cubic meter). A rate of increase in prices that puts companies in the furniture wood supply chain in serious difficulty, which clash with the “diversion” of materials by producers to “more favorable” markets.

“Unfortunately it is not a bubble – declared Paolo Fantoni, vice president of FederlegnoArredo and former president of Epf, the European panel federation, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica – but a structural trend. The “Covid-19” has accelerated the demand for home furniture and there are 170 million homes in Europe to renovate, so construction will continue to require panels for years. In the United States, the price of building panels has jumped from $ 300 to $ 1,400. The European average is now between 600 and 700 euros. For this reason, many producers divert their goods to the most profitable markets”.

The large German sawmills, to buffer, hoard up material in Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and then divert their business overseas, while small producers feel a greater difficulty.