A coalition of 43 state and regional forestry associations has asked USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins for a diesel-fuel relief program for logging and log-hauling businesses, modeled on the pandemic-era PATHH program, because the $8B Harvest Fuel Relief Program excludes them (Timberbiz)
Update: Hasslacher has confirmed it will close the Gemson glulam plant in Rangersdorf (40 staff) — machines are out by year-end, production shifts to Stall, Sachsenburg and Hermagor, and CEO Christoph Kulterer says construction has shrunk four years running (Wood Central, GWMI)
Madison's lumber price index fell to US$459/mfbm for the week ending Oct. 30, down 8% in two weeks with Southern Yellow Pine weakest; CME futures closed Friday at $515 after a one-year low of $504.50 on Oct. 27 (Fordaq, Lesprom)
Update: Weyerhaeuser expects to ship three log vessels to China in Q4 (vs one per quarter) with the 10% tariff still in place and US South logs still barred on plant-health grounds; USDA FAS puts Jan–Aug US softwood log exports to China at $37.3M vs $11.9M for all of 2025 (Wood Central)
Metsä Wood's Q3 sales fell 29.8% to €80.3M with a comparable operating loss of €10.5M (vs –€6.2M), its fifth straight loss; the nine-month loss is €24.5M on €289.2M sales and the Kerto LVL outlook stays weak (GWMI, Fordaq)
James Jones & Sons is investing ~£21M to expand value-adding operations at its Mosstodloch sawmill in Moray, Scotland (EUWID)
Google DeepMind's free Forest Typology map (10 m resolution, 2017–2025, on Earth Engine) scored 95.5% forest/non-forest accuracy vs 93.6% for the EU JRC's EUDR map and 90.9% vs 87.8% on forest type across 8,190 expert-checked sites (Wood Central)
Queensland's Corbets Group plans a hoop-pine LVL plant at Monkland near Gympie (100+ jobs, 300 in construction, site works 2027) as Australia imports 250,000+ m³ of LVL, mostly from China; separately, Victoria named 17 recipients of its $12M Timber and Fibre Innovation Fund, with VFPA citing a 63% rise in Chinese LVL imports (Wood Central, Timberbiz)
Industry Technology Vendors
Ponsse — Completed negotiations Oct. 30 on temporary layoffs of up to 90 days during 2027 for 1,109 Finnish production and blue-collar staff (Epec excluded), saying demand is below production capacity (GWMI)
Siempelkamp — Taking over production, sales and servicing of the SicoScan panel-inspection products it previously co-marketed with Electronic Wood Systems (EUWID)
Raute — Update: the restructuring will collapse three segments into two — Wood Processing and Lifecycle Solutions (Services + Analyzers) — from Jan. 1, 2027, with changes staged in Q1 2027 and full €4M run-rate savings by end-2027 (Fordaq)
