Harvesting pine sawlogs in Eastern Cape – demand for sawlogs in South Africa is strong and sales are up

FSA members sold 15 830 000 tons of timber in the 2015 financial year. This was up 330 000 tons (+2.1%) on the budgeted tonnage of 15.5mt for the year, and 117 000t (+0.7%) up on last year’s sales.

Roger Godsmark of Forestry South Africa reports that of concern was that after good figures were achieved for the first three quarters of the year, sales in the last quarter slumped to 10.5% below budget. So the year ended on a disappointing note.

However the redeeming feature of the results was the strong demand for sawlogs which saw an overall increase in sales of 4.5% for the year.

Estimated product sales in 2015 compared to those in 2014.

Sawlogs - 4.6mt, up 198 000 tons (+4.5%)

Pulpwood - 10.3mt, down 29 000 tons (-0.3%)

Other - 0.8mt, down 52 000 tons (-5.8%)

Income of R28.0 million was down R183 000 (-0.6%) on the budgeted amount of R28 210 000.  Compared to 2014, this represents a R1.5 million or 5.8% increase.

Note that these sales figures represent sales by FSA members during the year, and are not total sales for South Africa. However more than 90% of South African growers are FSA members, so the figures provide an accurate indication of the performance of the sector during 2015.