News From the UK 

American wood in the UK  

Five American hardwood species, American white oak, white ash, tulipwood, black cherry and black walnut, featured in four winning projects in the recently concluded British " The Wood Awards 2004".

 Two submissions were highly commended in the Commercial and Public Access category. A church renovation project for St. Paul's cathedral  the so called "New Heart For Bow", saw effective use of American tulipwood in cladding for a huge suspended replica of a ship's bow.  

Also highly commended in the Commercial and Public Access category was the Supreme Court Library renovation at Parliament House in Edinburgh. American black cherry was the choice here.

The winner of the Small Project category, The Flame Feature Stair has pride of place in a newly renovated Georgian home in South West London. Based on an ellipse and soaring to the three stories of the house, the American white oak stair treads with American white ash banister were constructed with great attention to detail.  

Finally, winning the Private category, was Wakelins, an uncompromisingly modern new extension to a Grade II listed 15th Century Suffolk house, with the interior boasting examples of high class joinery, cabinet-making and custom made furniture in oak and American black walnut.

David Venables, European Director of the American Hardwood Export Council said: "The spread of species now being used is impressive. We are seeing bolder design as architects and designers become increasingly confident with wood, they are getting more and more imaginative. Nearly half the Wood Awards 2004 used one American hardwood species or another".

IKEA new opening  

In February the Swedish furniture giant Ikea opened its fourth store in Edmonton in the London area and thirteenth store in the UK. According to Ikea UK there are plans to open a further five stores in the London area bringing the total to nine in the capital. Three sites out of five have already been identified.  

Mono-brand strategy  

The UK expansion plans of the leading Italian upholstery manufacturer, Natuzzi, began in 2002 and lead to the opening of 45 Natuzzi Galleries in the most prominent stores in the country.  

The Italian company is going to further strenghten its presence in the UK through the opening of 'mono-brand' stores in the London area. The stores are expression of Natuzzi's corporate image and marketing concept.  

Founded in 1959 in Southern Italy, the Natuzzi Group boasts being the number one upholstery manufacturer in Italy and a world leader in the segment of leather upholstered furniture, accounting for significant market shares in the main North American and European markets.  

Flexi-load containers 

This is the motto of Good Value Furniture, the British importer of high quality solid furniture. Its Flexiload supply concept allows customers to mix any products from all ranges and ship in a single container.  

Delivery is 35 days from order acceptance carriage paid to any UK mainland destination. The "Milano" range of contemporary, American light oak, furniture proved to be a success in 2004. The "Aztec" range includes rustic "Mexican style" pine furniture.  

In 2005 two new ranges of bedroom furniture have been introduced: the "Siena" range is said to be a warm, rich furniture manufactured in solid birch, whilst the "River Bay" range is a practical collection of modern light oak furniture.  

Log Prices in the UK 

  

UK Sawnwood Prices  

  

    

Report from Holland  

As reported previously the Dutch building sector is facing tough times. Although there is a substantial and apparently growing shortage of homes in Holland, especially in the lower priced first/starter home segment, the annual rate of housing starts remains low.  

Various studies for and by the government indicate that certain slum-areas in bigger cities require urgent renovation or replacement. Estimates indicate that, for the next 8-10 years at least, 100,000 housing units per year would be required to satisfy demand. Sadly this target is not being met.  

Analysts report that in actuality housing starts have been falling and are down from a level of around 60,000 per year to roughly 45-50,000 units at present. In the big cities the situation has grown particularly tough for those who want to rent a house in the cheaper segment with, in some cases a 5 to 8 year waiting list. On top of that opportunities to buy a decent but low priced house are dwindling.  

Brighter building prospects 

On the political front there is some hope of action. More and more Dutch politicians realise that something needs to be done to stimulate building and at the same time smooth out the procedures and red tape involved in getting building permission. The regulations, especially the environmental directives that have to be followed before actual building can start are a handicap to the sector.  

Indications are that efforts will be put into trying to streamline the procedures to make it easier for people to rent or buy a house.  Without this analysts say there is little chance of expanding economic activity in the sector. At the moment the mortgage rate is low and this is an incentive to borrow to buy and with the indications of some slight improvement in the economy, perhaps, just perhaps there may be some slight improvement in the building sector over the next 12 months.  

In support of a more optimistic view is the news that there has been some improvement in consumer confidence. The Dutch finance minister reported few days ago that the government sees no need for any further austerity measures to secure the economy and that net income should improve in tandem with economic improvement.  

Recently some innovative and creative ideas have been put forward that could help ease the housing shortage. In Amsterdam, for example, former warehouses and storage buildings in the port area have been converted into beautiful apartments. Also, because there is an excess of office space some are saying that, in imitation of the renovation of warehouses, such excess office space could be converted into housing.  

One such project underway is in Alphen aan de Rijn and this is on the verge of completion.  Here a big office building has been totally restructured, aluminum windows have been replaced with wooden windows, ugly concrete facades have been replaced with decorative materials and 70 brand new apartments in this former office building will soon be ready for sale.   

More such projects are likely to follow as a growing number of people as well as the authorities are enthusiastic about the approach. Such radical renovations/adaptations of existing buildings can certainly lead to higher consumption of timber/timber products and timber based sheet materials. 

Specials in demand 

Currently though traders see that business in 3x5" (the most important size in Dark red Meranti (DRM) for the Dutch market) was, as in the first half of February and earlier, still very quiet.  

Holidays meant that people were travelling and had no interest in business on the one hand and on the other demand is simply lacking. Although it is still winter in the Netherlands, the weather has not been disrupting any on-going building and the number of days with snow/frost have been negligible.  It is the stagnating building sector that makes end-users hesitant about the future demand. 

Joinery mills are still only buying hand to mouth and in limited volumes trimmed to their actual need with no extras at all. This situation has been explained in previous reports and there is no change yet. Due to the extremely quiet market during February the level of landed stocks have not shrunk much, at least not in the DRM 3x5" specifications.  The good thing though is that stocks did not swell either thanks to fewer shipments from Peninsular Malaysia as exporters and sawmillers were on holiday celebrating Chinese New Year.  

On the down side, since stocks remain relatively high with regard to current demand, the pressure on the sales-prices in Holland remains and this is also increased by the fact that the value of the US-dollar fell again.  

The fall was not much but a change of 1or 2 cents calculates close to 8 euro a cubic metre change and in a cut throat market that we have with DRM PHND 3x5", such fluctuations can be fatal as margins are so small.  

On the brighter side, however, for certain sizes such as the specials (or 'randmaten' as called in Holland) trade has been better. Stock volumes in these Meranti 'specials' such as 7/4x12", 2.1/2x3.1/2", 3x4" etc., are quite low and some are even in short supply and are not suffering from the price war that is the case with DRM 3x5".   

Merbau loses its shine 

In the third week of February it came as a bit of a surprise to see importers rather neutral on Merbau purchases as they waited some feedback first from the market (selling prices are dictated by the ever increasing C&F Rotterdam price levels).  Importers were also waiting to learn from exporters in Peninsular how supply would develop in coming weeks.  

After all there are limits on how far the prices can go and the sometimes rapid price-hikes of the recent past may not be sustainable. But seeing that fresh offers on Merbau are in limited volumes and for quite distant shipment and seeing also that the supply situation in Iroko and Afzelia is far from favourable, traders in Holland and Belgium (fairly active again in Nemesu as well) took further position on Merbau.  

Scantlings in Nemesu such as 2.1/2x3.1/2, 2.1/2x5" and the fixed width-size 2.1/2x6", also popular in Holland for solid doors in Non-PHND quality, are currently very hard to get CNF Rotterdam/Antwerp. So it will come as no surprise that the C&F prices for Nemesu moved upward, as did the price for Merbau.