The European Commission is set to block the €1.42B UPM–Sappi joint venture that would combine their European graphic-paper businesses into the region's largest coated-paper producer; after the August statement of objections over coated mechanical and coated woodfree concentration, the companies offered no divestments (asset buyers are seen as hard to find) and a closed-door hearing failed to sway regulators, with a formal decision due by Nov. 11 (Global Wood Markets Info, Reuters via Global Banking & Finance, PYMNTS/CPI)
Update: New Brunswick Natural Resources Minister John Herron now says AV Group's owner may be "tapping out" of Nackawic after years of under-investment, and Premier Susan Holt's government will not commit to a bailout of the mill (CBC, CBC video)
Rengo's Thai JV Thai Containers Group is acquiring 90% of Jin Zhong Fa Paper Industrial (one corrugated plant in Chonburi), taking Rengo's Thai corrugated network to 16 plants as it prioritises Southeast Asian packaging growth (PULPAPERnews)
Italy's Assocarta is calling for a "radical" overhaul of the EU ETS Market Stability Reserve, saying it has inflated CO2 costs for European paper producers by up to 300% and that the Sept. 10 European Parliament ENVI proposal to tweak the MSR does not go far enough (Papnews)
Forestry & Timber
Holmen and SCA are courting AI data centres as a new market for northern Swedish forest land and renewable power: Holmen has "two, possibly three" projects past early stages and would sell 100–150 ha sites bundled with long-term PPAs, while SCA has mapped sites and prefers leasing land alongside electricity sales (Fordaq, Global Wood Markets Info)
US lumber faces a weak winter: with the Fed's Sept. 16 hike pushing the 10-year Treasury above 5% and mortgage rates near 7%, August single-family starts rose 7.6% to 878,000 (annualised) but permits fell 1.8%, prices have given back summer gains, and GWMI sees no recovery before early 2027 — a further setback for Swedish sawmills that have waited three years for a US housing rebound (Timber Industry News, Global Wood Markets Info)
Australia imported 254,065 m³ of LVL in 2025-26 at a five-year-low average of A$629/m³ FOB, with mainland China supplying 69% (much of it peeled from NZ radiata logs); the Australian Timber Importers Federation says imports are filling the structural-hardwood gap left by the Jan. 1, 2024 native-forest closures in Victoria and WA, not displacing Wesbeam, the country's only LVL plant (Wood Central)
EU Commission President von der Leyen has floated Canada as the EU's first "associate member," which GWMI says lands as the world's largest softwood lumber exporter has unusually strong reasons to diversify away from the US (Global Wood Markets Info)
Japan's wood exports rose 4.1% to ¥32.0B in H1 2026 on lower volumes (logs 1.00M m³, −2.9%; lumber 97,822 m³, −0.4%): China took 91% of logs, while lumber exports to the US jumped 20.1% in value to ¥2.35B, with the US (33,840 m³) ahead of China (29,125 m³) as the top lumber destination (Fordaq)
New Zealand's wood exports to China rose NZ$40M year-on-year in August, the largest single contributor to a NZ$191M (16%) rise in goods exports to China, even as Chinese building starts fall (Fordaq, Wood Central)
Latvia has completed at least €189.4M of birch veneer and plywood investment in 2024–26, with further mills under development in Kuldīga and Ogre, turning a peeling-technology upgrade cycle into a nationwide build-out (Timber Industry News)
Western Australia plans to strip sandalwood from the Forest Products Commission and replace it with a DBCA licensing system; the opposition says industry was not consulted, that "a licence does not replace a supply chain," and that overseas buyers are already weighing alternative suppliers beyond December 2026 (Timberbiz)
Weyerhaeuser will invest $1M over several years in Drayton Valley, Alberta — home to its ~450-employee sawmill for nearly 40 years — as the first Canadian community in its Thrive rural-communities program (PULPAPERnews)
Six pallet groups (EPAL, CJ Sheeran, Euroblock, Foresco, PGS Group, Woodpack Global) formed "Wood Pallets for Europe," a Brussels advocacy alliance for the wooden-pallet sector, announced Sept. 17 (Timber Industry News)
Wood Pellets
Update: GWMI's read of the January–July EU import data adds the supply-side shift — Vietnam and Thailand together shipped more than 627,000 t to the EU in the period, import costs rose nearly 24% against 16.4% volume growth, and May arrivals hit 461,622 t as buyers stocked ahead of a winter of tight residual-wood feedstock; the US remains the largest single supplier (Global Wood Markets Info)
