As of April 3 there will only be one large sawmill left buying wood in Nova Scotia.
The secondary markets found for wood chips after Northern Pulp shut have been falling through as COVID-19 sent tumbling a series of economic dominoes.
Without a market or even a destination for their wood chips this province’s sawmills are shutting the gates to their woodyards and some have already shut down production.
“As of Friday night it will only be Irving,” said Andrew West, a log broker for HC Haynes of the Irving owned sawmill near Truro that is still buying wood.
Elmsdale Lumber, Taylors Lumber in the Musquodoboit Valley, Williams Brothers in Barneys River, Ledwidge Lumber in Enfield and Scotsburn Lumber in Pictou County have all either closed their woodyard gates or announced their intentions to do so.
“They made a movie called the Perfect Storm,” said Robyn Wilbur, president of Elmsdale Lumber Company.
“We’re in it.”
Like most of this province’s sawmills, Elmsdale Lumber sold its woodchips to Northern Pulp.
After the province refused to allow it an extension under the Boat Harbour Act to continue the environmental assessment process on its controversial effluent treatment plant, that market disappeared.
Elmsdale Lumber began selling its woodchips – which constitute about a third of the volume of each log it mills – to Shaw Resources to be turned into pellets for heating.
Selling them to be burned, they get about half of what Northern Pulp paid to turn them into kraft pulp.
Despite the big hit to their bottom line, Elmsdale Lumber is fortunate to have any buyer.
Freeman’s Lumber and Scotsburn Lumber turned to Port Hawkesbury Paper as a destination for their wood chips after Northern Pulp closed. With the market drying up for their glossy paper product, the mill at Point Tupper has given notice that it won’t be taking their woodchips or roundwood deliveries anymore.
Freeman's has notified the industry that it is closing "indefinitely" and Scotsburn Lumber has ceased milling wood. Neither could be reached for by The Chronicle Herald on Friday.
“You shut down our kraft pulp mill and now everyone wants toilet paper,” said Eric Williams, co-owner of Williams Brothers sawmill in Barneys River.
“People should know that these sawmills would not be shutting down if the province didn’t take away their market for wood chips.”
Williams Brothers will saw the stockpile of wood it has in its yard and keep its eyes on the markets south of the border.
The sawmilling industry is cyclical and tied tightly to the American housing market.
With a pandemic throwing the U.S. economy into chaos not many Americans are looking to build new houses this year.
“It will either be a ‘V’ shaped or a ‘U’ shaped recession,” said Greg Tkacz, a St. Francis Xavier University economics professor.
“The letter we get (on the graph) is highly dependent on how quickly we can contain it. If social distancing does its job and the virus is contained in three months people could be back to work again. If it lingers for another year and social distancing continues and businesses remain closed, this will be a prolonged U shape recession.”
That would be a worry shared by pretty well everyone.
Including the thousands of rural Nova Scotians who use their woodlots as long-term savings accounts.
“Since December the value of the wood on those lots has been cut by half,” said West.
With only one sawmill buying, their value could drop further.
