Sappi Europe will raise wet-glue label paper prices from Nov. 1 — +€37/t on Parade Label Pro and +€97/t on Parade Label WS wet-strength — citing rising input costs it says efficiency measures could only partly absorb; it is the company's second European price move this month after the €20/t coated-mechanical increase for October (PULPAPERnews)
ResourceWise says Indonesia's 2026 fire season, expected to run until early November, has swept through several pulpwood-sourcing regions but, as of mid-September, no widespread destruction of commercial acacia/eucalyptus plantations had been confirmed; with ~11M t/yr of pulp output and fibre already tight, any plantation losses would push mills toward imported woodchips and could ripple into Chinese pulp prices, and peat fires can keep burning underground after visible hotspots fade (ResourceWise)
ResourceWise's read of China's build-out: containerboard capacity grew ~26% and cartonboard >50% in 2020–25 (5.8% CAGR across major grades vs. 1–2% global demand growth), virgin pulp capacity now ~40M t after several years of 5M t+ additions, and paper exports are up ~7M t since 2021 — leaving global operating rates around 70–80% and capping price recovery for higher-cost Western mills (ResourceWise)
Forestry & Timber
Madison's Lumber Prices Index fell 2% to US$505/mfbm for the week ending Sept. 25 — the second straight weekly decline (from $514) and 3% below a month ago ($518) (Madison's Lumber Reporter)
Western Australia's ecological-thinning trial in post-logging-ban jarrah forests harvested 124,922 t in 2025/26 (+70% from 73,307 t), but parliamentary figures show 58.6% of the wood was chipped or burned; buyers included Simcoa (93,510 t for silicon smelting), Wesbeam (41,670 t) and WAPRES (22,688 t), with a 28 t trial shipment of raw jarrah logs to China, prompting critics to call the program commercial rather than conservation-driven ahead of a review within two years (ABC, Friday Offcuts)
Queensland's South & Central Regional Forestry Hub released two resource-security studies: spatial modelling found significant plantation-suitable land for hoop pine, southern pine, Gympie messmate and spotted gum (best in higher-rainfall zones), and ~1.5M ha of commercially important post-1990 native regrowth that managed harvesting could keep in timber supply while cutting wildfire intensity (Timber Queensland)
FICA's 2026 Financial Health Survey of New Zealand logging contractors found 50% less profitable than a year earlier and 48% under frequent or significant financial pressure, with 67% now interested in wellbeing support — a marked rise on earlier surveys (FICA)
Indufor's Timber Market Survey for the June quarter shows eastern-Australian softwood framing stable to −0.5% (untreated MGP10) over six months while MDF and plywood rose 0.3–2.3% and hardwood structural products 0.7–4.0% (Indufor)
West Virginia University researchers bent 96 glued hardwood joints to failure and found red oak and red maple bond markedly better than yellow poplar, positioning both as candidates for hardwood CLT; full-size panel trials come next (Wood Central)
Two US wood-products deals: Cerritos, Calif. distributor Royal Plywood acquired Talbert Architectural Panels & Doors, which keeps its name, site and management as a division (price undisclosed) (Woodworking Network), and pallet maker Hinton Lumber, which opened a third plant in South Carolina this spring, takes over Groves Pallets on Sept. 30 (EUWID Wood Products)
Wood Pellets
Biomass Magazine's "The High Cost of Hauling" reports surging US diesel prices are squeezing biomass and pellet producers on feedstock sourcing, transport and already-thin margins — the North American counterpart to this week's European forestry-fuel debate (Biomass Magazine)
Industry Technology Vendors
JoeScan — Debuted TrueSight at TP&EE in Portland (Sept. 23–25): a coordinated sawmill vision platform pairing JS-50 WX geometric scan heads with new ColorCam colour-vision heads, integrated lighting and industrial computing, a documented integration API, a system simulator and push-button calibration for defect detection, grading, cutting and sorting; existing JS-50 WX transverse systems can be upgraded to add colour (Timber Processing)
IMALPAL Group — Named Travis McDonald VP of Business Development for North America to bring the group's European wood-processing and residual-utilisation technology to US sawmills; he brings nearly 30 years of sawmill operations and machinery experience (Timber Processing)
KEITH Manufacturing — Launched its updated two-cylinder RX2 WALKING FLOOR drive for Australia/NZ at Residues2Revenues in Brisbane: unloads a 14.6 m chip/residue trailer in ~4 minutes, is lighter (more payload), adjustment-free with cartridge check valves, and adds over-temperature shutoff and high-flow filtration for dusty mill yards, alongside the CleenSweep tarp system (Timberbiz)
