Abstract
Manufacturing applications to offer brightest prospects
Demand for wood panels in the US is expected to decline about one percent per
annum through 2010 to 62 billion square feet, as measured on a 3/8-inch basis.
While construction applications, the major use for wood panels, will be
adversely affected by a softening in new housing construction, wood panels
will enjoy brighter prospects in manufacturing applications. Demand in the
latter will increase one-half of one percent per year through 2010 to roughly
21 billion square feet. Wood panels will benefit from more rapid growth in
domestic manufacturing activity compared to that of the 2000- 2005 period,
which included the 2001 economic recession and a further year of fitful
economic growth. Among manufacturing markets, transportation equipment and
material handling applications will lead gains, helping to offset weakness in
demand for wood panels used in furniture and in engineered wood products,
which will be constrained by the residential construction slowdown.
Shift toward specialty wood panels to help raise prices
Measured by dollar value, wood panel demand is forecast to decline more than
one percent per annum through 2010 to $16 billion. Declines in demand volume
will adversely affect value growth. In addition, schedule capacity increases
and weakening demand from the construction market will serve to limit unit
price increases for wood panel products. Growth in the average price for wood
panels will be helped, however, by a shift in product mix toward more
expensive specialty panels. Net imports will continue to be an important
source of supply for the US market, accounting for about one-third of US
demand in 2010.
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