[Source: www.purchasing.com, August 6, 2008]
Oriented strand board (OSB) has increased by $10 early this month to $200 per thousand board feet for 7/12-inch product in the benchmark North Central region, buyers report. OSB is an engineered wood structural panel used in flooring applications and for sheathing.
OSB last sold for $200 or more in June 2006. Prices actually started that year around $310/mbf but fell as construction collapsed to a low of $132 by March 2008. Since then, prices have been rising almost monthly as producers have reduced output.
The subscription newsletter Crow's Weekly Market Report agrees that supply-side curtailments are producing somewhat higher prices this week in most regions of the U.S. and Canada. “Having put the market into a positive upturn, producers are taking all that they can while the firmness remains,” the newsletter reports. Buyers agree with the newsletter’s report that there are $5 higher costs in some areas and $10 hikes in others.
The transaction prices being reported to Purchasingdata.com range from $195 to $210--with the highest prices in Texas and Louisiana because of fears that Tropical Storm Edouard would become a hurricane as it made landfall. However, the National Hurricane Center has downgraded the storm to a tropical depression as it moves inland today across eastern Texas and western Louisiana with lower winds than expected creating less damage than feared.
For energy and chemical companies in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Edouard turned out to be mostly a nonevent, causing only minor disruptions that were addressed quickly. In a copyrighted story today, the Houston Chronicle says that by late afternoon Tuesday, oil producers and drillers in the were making plans to send workers back to offshore facilities, and refiners and chemical plant operators in southeast Texas were returning to normal operations. Edouard made landfall on the upper Texas coast early Tuesday morning between High Island and the Louisiana border.
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