After last week's market talks, the Holzkurier editorial team can see a slight price increase for glulam for September. On average, it is 5 €/m3 more in Italy than in August, in Germany it is even +10 €/m3. The Holzkurier sets the new price level for Germany at 433 to 453 €/m3, that in Italy at 440 to 460 €/m3 (excluding large quantities of bars, visual quality, free customer or carriage paid to northern Italy).
This means that for the first time since the price peak of May 2022, a real end to the price decline can be seen. However, the one-third drop in prices from 700 €/m3 in May 2022 to around 450 €/m3 is unprecedented.The BSH price remained virtually constant from 2007 to 2020 at 400 €/m3.
14 years, one prize - that was once
Despite the price increases for energy, personnel, adhesives and transport, the price level for glulam rods is only slightly above pre-COVID-19 levels.
The glulam lamella has a price-dampening effect. This lost even more than the finished product from the record level (April 2022: 405 €/m3): namely around 45% in value to only around 219 €/m3 (fresh, large quantities). This, in turn, is possible because the price of round timber has also fallen sharply recently.
Rashes of the past
If you look at the ten-year performance of logs, glulam lamellas and end products, the fluctuations are sometimes enormous. In 2021, the slat jumped to 2.5 times the value of January 2014. BSH doubled, while round timber was able to increase to a maximum of 118% in August 2022 (see chart above). Now in September, the indexed round timber price in Austria and southern Germany is de facto at the average value from 2014 to February 2020 (= pre-COVID-19 level): 90%. In the same period, the slat was quoted at 98% – in September 2023 it was only 107%. For the final product, the ratio is similar: pre-COVID-19 100%, now 111%.
Over 300,000 m³ shortfall in demand
The editors of the Holzkurier estimate that the decline in demand in Italy and Germany this year will be between 10% (Italy) and 25% (Germany). That would be a lower sales of around 340,000 m3 in these two countries alone. In Germany, producers are currently "not dissatisfied" with sales. The demand matches the output, which has been reduced by one shift. Since the decline in demand already began in the 2nd half of 2022, many assess the market situation as "at the previous year's level".
Price increases because visible slats are rare?
The disproportion between cost increases and falling end product prices outlined at the beginning hurts BSH manufacturers. However, the first companies have announced price increases in the range of 10 to 25 €/m3 for October. We will soon see whether and to what extent these can be implemented. But: Visible goods are scarce due to the available sawn timber. This could be where the pressure and justification of higher BSH prices could come from.
BSH buyers acknowledge the recent slight increases. They believe that the September level is now the strike price for the coming months.
Other producer did stop
Producers and buyers alike are astonished at the speed of the price changes of the past two years. This was not quite as pronounced for other building materials and there were no similarly strong price declines for these. For example, the brick and tile industry plans to reduce its production by half in order to stabilize prices. Numerous plants have already stopped production and applied for short-time work. In timber construction, smaller companies are likely to continue to have orders until the beginning of 2024. However, new orders are declining. Politicians in Germany and Austria are called upon to achieve a real recovery. At the time of the financial crisis of 2008/2009, for example, there was a kindergarten offensive in Austria, which helped timber construction a lot at the time.
