Wood products manufacturers are producing at the highest levels since the Great Recession, the American Wood Council reports. The surge in demand over the past year has led North American softwood sawmill capacity to increase by 1.4 billion board feet, with most of that increased capacity—1.1 billion board feet—coming from the South.
Wood products manufacturers are investing in expansions of existing mills to keep up, but lead times on the new equipment remains long, with machinery backordered up to 24 months in some cases, according to AWC.
“Manufacturing expansion projects are a long-term solution that will support increased capacity, but not until 2022 at best,” AWC stated.
In the meantime, despite boosted levels of production, demand for wood products remains higher than supply, leading to soaring lumber costs.
“The most immediate opportunity to address constraints to lumber supply is to focus on transportation and workforce limitations,” AWC added. “These challenges were present before the pandemic and have exacerbated the current situation.”
