Burke landowners may see more favorable pulpwood prices

With the construction of a new oriented strand board (OSB) plant in Allendale County, S.C., local landowners may see more favorable prices for their pulpwood.

Canada-based Grant Forest Products expects to complete construction of the new facility, their first in the United States, later this year.

"Once we're up to our peak period, we'll use in excess of 3,000 tons per day, roughly equivalent to 150 truckloads each day," plant manager Van Chatraw said.

Chatraw added Burke County will be included in the area they plan to draw from for pulpwood.

Local forester and real estate agent Mike Smith said he expects prices to take a positive turn when the Allendale facility gets going.

"It's going to help because it's going to pull some wood that was going to Augusta or Savannah," he explained. "We don't have a lot of competition around here because the two main players are International Paper and Weyerhaeuser."

Smith said competition from the new plant should help local producers in a market that suffers from low prices when harvesting conditions are good and the market gets flooded.

While pulpwood prices edged up to $7.50 to $8 per ton in April when conditions were wet and mills got a little low, Smith said pulpwood prices have now slipped down to between $4.50 and $6 per ton.

"It's going to take a year or so for it to play out in the market," Smith predicted of the increase in demand for pulpwood.

Grant's Allendale plant will begin taking wood in a limited