22 WESTERN PALLET
would specify a quantity and a date, and award business based only these two criteria. They literally did not care what the price was. One example of this
approach produced crane mats being purchased at $800/MBF when hardwood cants were running $400/MBF. Just like a rail tie, the timbers used to create these mats are essentially oversized cants. Every timber used for matting is literally a cant removed from the market for the pallet manufacturers. These activities, which would spot buy larger quantities of lumber at prices outside the purchasing limits of the pallet industry, caused (and still do) large sudden price spikes and availability problems.
However, these appear to be sideline events to China’s recent appetite for US hardwood logs. As you can see in the following graph, as US hardwood exports have increased, the main driver is the sharp increase by China.
Source: Tyson Steffens, based on various information sources
Here is a detail that often slips by. Most of this exported hardwood had always been grade boards. The logs were cut here. That meant that the cant, the falloff for the industrial sector, stayed in the US while the grade lumber went overseas. So, exports