Russian logs and lumber exports became equal in 2018

In 2018, Russia continued to reduce the exports of logs and increase the exports of lumber.

The export volume of these products became almost equal — 19.03 million cubic metres (-2.1%) and 18.7 million cubic metres (+14.9%) respectively.  In 2018, the Russian government continued to implement policy to reduce the exports of raw wood and stimulate internal consumption of timber industry products.  Production of pellets in Russia in 2018 increased by 4.9% to 1,410 thousand tons — this is a new historical record.  2018 is the sixth year when production is growing. At the same time, Russia increased its market share in the EU, the largest consumer of pellets, by 0.9 p.p. The pellets supplies to the European Union in 2018 increased by 19.1%. The United States and Canada have increased their shares here for 9 p.p. and 2.7 p.p., respectively. At the end of 2018, the total production capacity for the OSB panels in Russia reached about 2 million cubic metres. Last year, 1.2 million cubic metres of OSB panels were produced and 1.3 million cubic metres consumed. In 2018 Russia’s newsprint production of increased by 6.2% to 1.53 million tons. Production growth occurred for the first time in the last 4 years.