Prices for hardwood chips traded overseas increased 1.3% in January,2015, but were still 5.8% lower than in early 2014, according to theFOEX PIX-HCG Index
Prices for hardwood chip shipped over the Pacific Rim and the Atlantic to markets in Asia and Europe have trended downward for more than three years. However, inDecember 2014 and January 15, prices moved slightly upward, according to the FOEXprice index PIX-HCG. Overseas traded softwood chip have experienced declining prices since last summer and were 8.1% lower in January 2015 than in August of 2014.
Globally traded hardwood chips for the manufacturing of pulp and wood-based panel shave trended downward for much of the past three and a half years. However, this trend broke in late 2014 and early 2015 when prices slowly started to increase.
The FOEX global hardwood chip price index, PIX-HCG, increased by 1.3% in January as compared to the previous month, and was 1.8% higher than in November last year. TheIndex, which is based on prices for hardwood chips traded overseas to markets in Asiaand Europe, reached a four-year low in November 2014 when it was 16.6% below the alltime-high in November of 2011. The PIX-HCG reached US$180.58/odmt (CIF) inJanuary 2015, with the biggest price increases being those of hardwood chips shipped from Latin America and Vietnam to Japan and China.
The softwood chip price index, PIX-SCG, fell sharply during the fall of 2014, fromUS$185.73/odmt in August 2014 to US$170.67/odmt in January 2015. This 8.1% decline over just five months was partly the result of a stronger US dollar, as well as because o freduced costs for the ocean freight.
