Biomass: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Biomass energy, wood, residues and crops, is priced by the cost of growing, collecting and transporting low-density material, and by competing uses for timber, food and pulp. Wood chips and pellets trade regionally, often on contracts.
Proxy US PPI: wood chips index (BLS base period =100) · monthly, Dec 2011 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for biomass itself, so this tab uses the closest public series as a stand-in. Read the numbers as an indication, not as the price of this exact item.
What its price moves with
Selected linkBiomass and Timber
Monthly changes 0.05 little or none correlation 12-month changes 0.09 little or none correlation Last 5 years 0.05 monthly changes Lead or lag none No clear lead or lag Price function, Dec 2011 to Sep 2026 Biomass ≈ 15,756 × (Timber)-0.77 R² 0.36 On this fit, a 10% higher timber price goes with a −7.0% lower biomass price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period =100) and $/cubic meter.Chart: Biomass and Timber prices rebased to 100 at Dec 2011, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Dec 2011, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Biomass price against Timber price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2011), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Sawmills produce chips, sawdust and bark that become fuel and pellets, so timber output decides much of the supply. The proxy is a US wood chip index and the timber series Malaysian sawnwood, so they barely move together: monthly changes correlate at 0.05.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsPower stations in Europe, Japan, Korea and India co-fire pellets or residues with coal, so coal and carbon prices decide how much biomass they buy. The chip proxy and coal move together over a year, with 12-month changes correlating at 0.54.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsBoilers and combined heat and power plants are the main buyers of solid biomass fuel. Boiler equipment prices and chip prices share the US industrial cycle: monthly moves correlate at 0.14 and yearly moves at 0.48.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsCrop residues and energy crops compete with food and feed for land, and maize stalks and cobs are burned or fermented in many regions. Monthly moves in the chip proxy and maize correlate at 0.16 and yearly at 0.41, a shared farm cycle.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsCane bagasse is one of the largest biomass fuels, burned at sugar mills in India and Brazil. Cane crushing sets bagasse supply, but it is mostly used on site, so there is little link with the US chip proxy, with yearly moves at 0.17.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsBiomass can be fermented into ethanol rather than burned, and ethanol made from maize or cane competes for crops and land. The US indices show a weak link: monthly moves correlate at -0.06 and yearly moves at 0.30.
little or none co-movement month to month · 178 months Show chartsHow to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.