Timber: Characteristics
Stress grades and moisture: what makes timber safe to build with
What this tab covers The supply and physical characteristics of the commodity. Supply: current production, inventories and stocks, capacity utilisation, geographic and producer concentration, how fast supply responds to price, the project pipeline and capital spending, and logistics and export flows. Material: the physical and chemical properties that set its grade, price and end uses (for example purity and conductivity for metals, API gravity, sulfur and energy content for fuels, moisture, protein and fibre quality for crops).Supply volume characteristics
| Characteristic | Figure | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current production volume | 445 million m3 of sawnwood and 1.92 billion m3 of industrial roundwood removals (2023) | Total wood harvest is about 3.5-4 billion m3 including fuelwood. Panels were 381 million m3 and wood pulp 193 Mt in 2023. | FAO Global forest products facts and figures 2023; Smil (2016) |
| Inventory and stock levels | not published as a world figure | The stock is the standing forest, which regrows. Mills and dealers hold only weeks of lumber, so demand surges reach prices fast. India has no timber buffer stock; forest corporations hold depot stocks for auction. | content timber lessons; content_v2 lumber |
| Capacity utilisation | about 78% at Interfor in H1 2025 (by calculation) | Interfor produced 1,836 million board feet in H1 2025 against capacity of about 4.7 billion a year. North American mills curtailed output as prices fell and US duties on Canadian lumber rose. No world rate is published. | Interfor Q2 2025 results |
| Geographic and producer concentration | roundwood: US 18%, China 16%, Russia 9% (top-3 43%); sawnwood exports: Canada 21.3% of value | Production is spread widely. Sawnwood exports are led by Canada, Sweden, the US, Germany, Finland and Austria; the US (23.1%) and China (20.2%) take the most imports. Company shares are not published. | EU CRM 2023; UN Comtrade 2024 |
| Supply elasticity | medium in the short run (mill shifts), very low in the long run (20-80 years of tree growth) | Sawmills can add shifts within weeks, but log supply is capped by allowable cuts, beetle kill and wildfire. Plantation eucalyptus takes about 6-8 years and boreal spruce 60-100 years to grow (indicative). | content_v2 lumber; forestry practice (indicative) |
| Project pipeline and CapEx | no aggregate CapEx figure | New sawmill capacity is shifting from British Columbia to the US South, where plantation pine is abundant. Brazil, Chile and Uruguay are adding pulp capacity based on plantations. India relies on 30.7 Mha of trees outside forests with potential industrial wood of 91.5 million m3 a year. | content_v2 lumber; ISFR-2023 via ITTO, Mar 2025 |
| Logistics and export flows | about 29% of sawnwood traded (129 of 445 million m3) and about 5% of industrial roundwood (100 million m3) in 2023 | Lumber moves by rail and truck from Canada to the US, by ship from the Baltic to Europe, the UK and North Africa, and logs from New Zealand to China and India (Kandla). Bottlenecks include US duties on Canadian lumber (combined 14.40% rising after a 20.56% anti-dumping rate in Jul 2025), sanctions on Russian wood and log export bans. | FAO 2023; Interfor Q2 2025 |
Material characteristics Agricultural / soft commodity
Timber value depends on species, strength grade, moisture content and dimensions. Softwood framing lumber is graded visually or by machine into stress grades that set allowed loads in building codes. Kiln-drying to below about 19% moisture prevents warping and decay. Hardwoods are valued for density, durability and appearance. Density links all of these.
| Property | Value / specification | Why it matters | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength class | EN 338 C24: characteristic bending strength 24 MPa, mean modulus of elasticity 11 GPa, characteristic density 350 kg/m3; C16 for lower grades | Engineers design to strength class, so it sets the price and use of structural timber | EN 338 |
| North American grades | No. 2 and Better, Select Structural; machine stress rated (MSR) grades such as 2100f-1.8E | Grades decide permitted spans and price on CME and Random Lengths quotes | NLGA / WWPA grading rules |
| Moisture content | kiln-dried KD-19 (S-Dry) at most 19%; ISPM 15 heat treatment 56 C at the core for 30 minutes for pallets | Dry wood is stable and resists decay; ISPM 15 is needed for export packaging | ALSC rules; IPPC ISPM 15 |
| Density | spruce-pine-fir about 400-470 kg/m3; teak about 630-720 kg/m3 at 12% moisture | Density tracks strength and hardness and sets freight cost per m3 | Wood Handbook, USDA FPL (indicative) |
| Natural durability | EN 350 classes 1 (very durable, e.g. teak) to 5 (not durable, e.g. spruce) | Durable species fetch premiums for decking, boats and outdoor joinery | EN 350 (indicative) |
| Dimensions and volume units | a nominal 2x4 is 38 x 89 mm; 1 m3 is about 424 board feet; India trades by cubic foot and Hoppus m3 | Contracts and prices use different volume units across markets | ALSC; ITTO (indicative) |