Pulpwood Supply Research Articles

Comparison of Alternative Pulpwood Inventory Strategies and Machine Systems at a Log-Yard Using Simulations

The rising throughput of log-yards imposes new constraints on existing equipment and increases the complexity of delivering an optimal and uninterrupted supply of pulpwood to pulp mills. To find ways of addressing these problems by reducing log cycle times, this work uses a discrete-event mathematics model to simulate operations at a log-yard and study the impact of three different log-yard inventory strategies and two alternative machine systems for log transportation between main log-yard and buffer storage. The yard’s existing inventory strategy of last load in and first out limits access to older logs at the main storage site. By allocating space for 89,000 m3 and 99,000 m3 of pulpwood at the buffer storage it is possible to keep the log cycle time at the main storage to a maximum of 12 and 6 months. Additionally, the use of an alternative log transportation machine system comprising a material handler with a trailer increased the work time capacity utilization relative to the yard’s current machine system of two shuttle trucks and a material handler for transporting logs between the main and buffer storage areas. Compared to the currently-used last in first out inventory strategy and purposely emptying the main storage area once or twice per year did reduce the total work time of both machine systems by 14% and 30%. Consequently, the volume delivered from the buffer to the log-yard decreased on average by 17% and 37% when emptying the main storage area once and twice per year. Even with reduced work time when emptying the main storage area, both machine systems could fulfil given work load for transporting logs from the buffer storage to the main log-yard without interrupting operations of the log-yard.

Joining up optimisation of wood supply chains with forest management: a case study of North Karelia in Finland

AbstractThis paper presents a spatially explicit methodology for integrated forest management and wood supply chain optimization over time in the context of a Finnish forest strategy anticipating new investments and renewal of business in the wood processing industry. The Finnish MELA simulator was used to generate multiple treatment schedules over time at the management unit level – each treatment schedule providing unique estimates of extracted wood volumes by different assortment categories for each time period. The J linear programming (LP) software was used to analyse different regional forest strategies in terms of wood supply and transportation costs to multiple market destinations. The analysis revealed clear differences both in wood flows and forest resources between strategies maximizing wood supply or optimizing wood supply to market destinations. In addition, the wood flows appeared responsive to new mill and increased demand. Further, the changes in factory price had a heavier impact on pulpwood supply than on sawlog supply. The same methodology can be applied for analysing the impact of new factories on wood flows from forest to factories and between factories or to support forest enterprises in planning their wood supply over multiple time periods and multiple destinations.

Assessing the impacts of rising fuelwood demand on Swedish forest sector: An intertemporal optimization approach

An increase in the demand for fuelwood has the potential to affect traditional timber production. Based on a partial equilibrium model of the Swedish forest sector, this paper evaluates the supply and price of sawlogs, pulpwood and fuelwood under differing levels of future fuelwood demand. The results indicate that an increasing demand for fuelwood would intensify the competition between pulpwood and fuelwood, which would cause the prices of pulpwood and fuelwood to increase. The pulpwood supply would decrease and the fuelwood supply would increase in response to fuelwood demand expansion. An increasing demand for fuelwood would affect the harvest of sawlogs positively, though the effect would be small. It is concluded that an increase in the use of fuelwood would affect mainly the pulp and paper industry in terms of the provision of raw materials. Besides, the annual increment of forest standing volume would exceed the harvest in all the scenarios analyzed, implying that the Swedish forests are a carbon sink.

Economic and Life-Cycle Analysis of Forest Carbon Sequestration and Wood-Based Bioenergy Offsets in the Central Hardwood Forest Region of United States

This study investigates the combined impact of carbon and bioenergy markets on upland oak dominated mixed hardwood forests in the Central Hardwood Forest Region (CHFR) of the United States. A modification of the Hartman model was used for the economic analysis of carbon sequestration and using wood-based biomass for bioenergy. A life-cycle assessment was used to determine the amount of carbon sequestered due to stand growth and emitted during harvesting and decay of wood products. Two scenarios were taken, one where additionality of carbon is considered and the other where it is not. Sensitivity analysis was done with the range of carbon and bioenergy prices. The results show that net carbon payments have more impact on land expectation value (LEV) when additionality is not considered; in contrast, bioenergy payments have more impact on LEV when additionality is considered. Carbon and bioenergy prices also influenced the amount of stand level supply of forest products and carbon in both scenarios. In general, sawtimber, wood bioenergy, and carbon supply increased with an increase in carbon prices, whereas, pulpwood supply decreased. With few exceptions at higher carbon prices, bioenergy supply decreased with the increase in wood bioenergy prices, showing a backward bending supply curve in both scenarios.

Estimation of demand and supply of pulpwood by artificial neural network: a case study in Tamil Nadu

The annual demand of paper and paperboard, including newsprint is at 11.15 Million Tones (MT) in India. The per-capita consumption is nearly 10.5 kg. The growth in the number of paper mills was from 17 units in 1950 to 759 units in 2010 with the production of 10.11 MT per annum. In Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu News prints and Papers Limited (TNPL) and Seshasayee Paper and Board Limited (SPB) are the major pulpwood based paper industries, which require 0.8 to 0.9 MT of pulpwood per year, whereas the availability of pulpwood is nearly 0.6 to 0.65 MT per year. This short supply will affect their performance in the market. Hence, this paper is to assess the factual demand and supply gap of industrial raw materials with different forecasting methods viz., trend analysis, moving average, single exponential smoothing model and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Based on forecast accuracy, ANN is observed as a reliable method which measures that the demand-supply gap of raw materials will be 0.01 MT and 0.24 MT in 2015 and 2020 respectively. In order to bridge the gap, industries must additionally produce raw materials by promoting resourceful captive plantation and the farm forestry area with profitable business model.

Price dynamics in Wisconsin woody biomass markets

This study quantifies the potential impact of biofuel/bioenergy development on the pulpwood market in Wisconsin. Important demand and supply factors to take into account when quantifying the potential spillover effects include: (i) availability of regional forest residues, (ii) forest biomass demand of the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) mandated by the state, and (iii) the slack pulpwood supply due to the recent economic recession. The results indicate that given the limited amount of regional forest residues, demand for primary forest resources over 2.29 million dry Mg will likely spill over into local pulpwood market and have a pronounced impact on pulpwood prices. The price effect could be more substantial if the pulp and paper industry expands production capacity significantly over the same period.

Support Vector Regression to Forecast the Demand and Supply of Pulpwood

Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a popular machine learning method for classification, regression, and other learning tasks. Support Vector Regression (SVR), a category for support vector machine attempts to minimize the generalization error bound so as to achieve generalized performance. Regression is that of finding a function which approximates mapping from an input domain to the real numbers on the basis of a training sample. Support vector regression is the natural extension of large margin kernel methods used for classification to regression analysis. In this paper Support Vector Regression is used to forecast the demand and supply of pulpwood. The usage of paper increases day to day. Wood Pulp is the most common raw material in paper making. On account of steady increase in paper demand, the forecast on demand and supply of pulp wood is considered to improve the socio economic development of India. Forecasting is done in Libsvm a library for support vector machines by integrating it with MATLAB.

Modeling nonindustrial private forest landowner behavior in face of woody bioenergy markets

This article analyzed the impacts of emerging woody bioenergy markets on the behavior of nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) landowners in the state of Florida, United States. A seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) approach was used to assess the supply of sawtimber, pulpwood, woody bioenergy and demand for labor. Data was gathered from official statistical reports of the forestry sector in Florida spanning 1970 to 2006. The econometric analysis suggested that consistent own price elasticities could be obtained from the SUR approach. The results indicated that an increased price of woody bioenergy implied an increase in the production of pulpwood and demand for labor. Results also suggested that forest landowners might financially benefit from emerging bioenergy markets.

Forest Biomass Supply for Bioenergy Production and Its Impacts on Roundwood Markets in Tennessee

Abstract The use of forest biomass as an alternative source for bioenergy production has become a significant issue in Tennessee. This study used the Sub-Regional Timber Supply model to analyze the regional aggregate forest biomass feedstock potential and the impacts of additional pulpwood demand on the regional roundwood market through 2030. Two scenarios examined the impacts of building a biorefinery facility of 20 and 50 million gallons annual capacity in the state in 2015. The third scenario investigated the impacts of an Energy Information administration (EIA) reference case. The projection results suggest that there is sufficient hardwood pulpwood supply for a 50 million gallon biorefinery facility in Tennessee. It is possible to meet the increased demand of the EIA reference case without affecting the hardwood pulpwood market in the short run, but not in the distant future. The additional demand for softwood pulpwood will affect the softwood market substantially, but the impacts on the hardwood market are comparatively small. Hence, it is more feasible to increase the use of hardwood pulpwood for renewable energy rather than softwood pulpwood. These results will be very helpful in sustainably supplying forest biomass for bioenergy production in Tennessee.

An enterprise architecture approach to forest management support systems design: an application to pulpwood supply management in Portugal

A key requirement for the success of a forest management information system is that it may effectively address its users’ needs. Yet, the development of models and methods to address-specific forest ecosystem management processes has not been matched by architectures that may take into account the human dimension of information systems. This paper presents an approach to pulpwood supply system architecture. Emphasis is on participatory business modeling that may effectively address users’ needs and enhance system resilience. An Enterprise Architecture methodology is proposed so that the information systems’ functional requirements for pulpwood supply may emerge from business and information architectures in workshops with the stakeholders. Results of its application to a vertically integrated Portuguese pulp and paper company are presented. The case study focuses on processes and business information required to support the pulp mills entire pulpwood supply management. Results show that the proposed approach addressed effectively end-users’ involvement in pulpwood supply system design. It provided an architecture that addresses all stakeholders’ perspectives and concerns and it was thus instrumental to develop a Pulp and Paper Supply Chain Process Framework. Results further show that it may effectively identify and integrate information systems’ components, ensuring business information integrity.

Integrated procurement of pulpwood and energy wood from early thinnings using whole-tree bundling

Abstract To increase the volume of energy wood and pulpwood harvested from early thinnings, their procurement costs will have to be significantly reduced. This can be done through the integration of pulpwood and energy wood procurement applying a newly-developed supply chain based on whole-tree bundling. In 2007, the first prototype of the bundle harvester capable of incorporating compaction into the cutting phase was launched. Cost savings, especially in primary and secondary transportation, can be achieved by increasing the load sizes by replacing undelimbed whole trees with bundles. The bundles can be hauled by a standard forwarder to the roadside storage area, from where they are transported by a standard timber truck to the pulp mill. Batches of bundles are then fed into a wood flow consisting of conventional delimbed pulpwood. Separation of the bundles into pulpwood and energy wood fractions does not take place until the wood reaches the debarking drum. In this feasibility study, the required productivity level of bundle harvesting (i.e., cutting and bundling) in Scots pine-dominated stands was assessed by comparing the total supply chain costs based on whole-tree bundling with those of the other pulpwood and energy wood supply chains by means of system analysis. The cost calculations indicated that whole-tree bundling enables the procurement costs to be reduced to below the current cost level of separate pulpwood and energy wood procurement in early thinnings. The greatest cost-saving potential lies in small-diameter ( d 1.3 = 7–10 cm) first-thinning stands, which are currently unprofitable for conventional pulpwood procurement.

Harvest Choice and Timber Supply Models for Forest Forecasting

Abstract Timber supply has traditionally been modeled using aggregate data, whereas individual harvest choices have been shown to be sensitive to the vintage and condition of forest capital stocks. In this article, we build aggregate supply models for four roundwood products in a seven-state region of the US South directly from stand-level harvest choice models applied to detailed forest inventories. These models allow for a more precise accounting of the biological and economic underpinnings of supply and support forecasting of changes in forest inventories with a high degree of detail. Estimation results support use of the approach. The elasticities of softwood and hardwood sawtimber supply, 0.34 and 0.31, respectively, are consistent with the elasticities reported by previous studies. The elasticities of softwood and hardwood pulpwood supply (respectively, 0.062 and 0.025) are much lower than previous studies found for pulpwood supply, and cross-price elasticities indicate a dominant influence of sawtimber markets on pulpwood supply. Results generally indicate complementarity between sawtimber and pulpwood supply in the short run. This approach can provide a means of predicting the supply consequences of exogenous factors that could alter forest inventories, e.g., climate change and invasive species, and support regular updating of supply models as new inventory data are recorded.

Joint production and substitution in timber supply: a panel data analysis

Supply equations for sawlog and pulpwood were developed with a panel of data from 102 Norwegian municipalities, observed from 1980 to 2000. Static and dynamic models were estimated by cross-section, time-series andpanel data methods. A static model estimated by first differencing gavethe best overall results in terms of theoretical expectations, pattern ofresiduals, prediction accuracy and parsimony. The results showed thatsawlog supply responded positively to its own price (elasticity e = 0.91 ± 0.07) but negatively to the pulpwood price (e = −0.22 ± 0.06). The pulpwood supply responded positively to the price of both pulpwood (e = 0.53 ± 0.06) and sawlogs (e = 0.20 ± 0.07). Sawlog and pulpwood supply had a common elasticity of 2.04 (± 0.25) with respect to the growing stock, and of 0.30 (± 0.21) with respect to the interest rate. The supply elasticity of substitution of sawlog for pulpwood with respect to their relative price was 0.74 ± 0.04. Policies to raise the annual harvest, which is currently well below the annual growth, should focus on stimulating sawnwood production (thus increasing sawlog prices), because this would increase supply of both pulpwood and sawlogs. Instead, policies to stimulate pulpwood demand (thus increasing pulpwood prices), would give more pulpwood, but less sawlogs.

Environmental impacts of forest production and supply of pulpwood: Spanish and Swedish case studies

Background, aim and scope Forest operations use large amounts of energy, which must be considered when life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology is applied to forest products. Forest management practices differ considerably between countries and may also differ within a country. This paper aims to identify and compare the environmental burdens from forest operations in Sweden and Spain focused on pulpwood production and supply to pulp mills.

Achievements in forest tree improvement in Australia and New Zealand 6: Genetic improvement and conservation of Araucaria cunninghamii in Queensland

Summary Araucaria cunninghamii (hoop pine) typically occurs as an emergent tree over subtropical and tropical rainforests, in a discontinuous distribution that extends from West Irian Jaya at about 0°30'S, through the highlands of Indonesian New Guinea and Papua New Guinea, along the east coast of Australia from 11°39'S in Queensland to 30°35'S in northern New South Wales. Plantations established in Queensland since the 1920s now total about 44 000 ha, and constitute the primary source for the continuing supply of hoop pine quality timber and pulpwood, with a sustainable harvest exceeding 440 000 m3 y−1. Establishment of these managed plantations allowed logging of all native forests of Araucaria species (hoop pine and bunya pine, A. bidwillii) on state-owned lands to cease in the late 1980s, and the preservation of large areas of araucarian forest types within a system of state-owned and managed reserves. The successful plantation program with this species has been strongly supported by genetic improvement activities since the late 1940s — through knowledge of provenance variation and reproductive biology, the provision of reliable sources of improved seed, and the capture of substantial genetic gains in traits of economic importance (for example growth, stem straightness, internode length and spiral grain). As such, hoop pine is one of the few tropical tree species that, for more than half a century, has been the subject of continuous genetic improvement. The history of commercialisation and genetic improvement of hoop pine provides an excellent example of the dual economic and conservation benefits that may be obtained in tropical tree species through the integration of gene conservation and genetic improvement with commercial plantation development. This paper outlines the natural distribution and reproductive biology of hoop pine, describes the major achievements of the genetic improvement program in Queensland over the past 50+ y, summarises current understanding of the genetic variation and control of key selection traits, and outlines the means by which genetic diversity in the species is being conserved.

An inquiry into the changing pattern of pulpwood harvests in Sweden

This paper presents an analysis of Swedish pulpwood production from 1958 until 1995. The development of pulpwood harvests is first described. Using a partial adjustment model, the short‐ and long‐term dynamics in the pulpwood market are then investigated. It is found that the supply responsiveness to economic stimuli such as prices and costs is low, in both the short and long term. I then investigate whether the elasticities are constant over time. The findings reveal the possibility of decreasing responsiveness over time. These results suggest that policies aimed at affecting the pulpwood supply should be based on measures other than price. Furthermore, any policies concerned with pulpwood supply need to incorporate the interaction between the pulpwood and sawtimber markets.

Potential of short rotation woody crops for pulp fiber production from arable lands in India J.V.N.S. PRASAD , 6. GANGAIAH2, S. KUNDU1, G.R. KORWAR', B. VENKATESWARLU1 AND V.P. SINGH3

Wood fiber is used for the manufacture of various kinds of paper, packaging material, tissues, paperboard etc. The conventional soft woods and hard woods used as raw materials by pulp, paper and cellulose based indus- tries are depleting day by day and the wood imports are draining country's foreign exchange. Short rotation in- dustrial agroforestry plantations with the fast growing tree species are potential sources to fill this gap and to make the nation self reliant in pulpwood supply. Poplar, eucalyptus, leucaena and bamboo are the ideal spe- cies that can be grown commercially in private lands for meeting the wood requirements and has the potential to produce a biomass of 18 to 49 tl ha per year. The pulp yield from these species ranges from 40 to 49% of the wood biomass produced. With the expansion of wood markets, high biomass yields and amenability for har- vesting in short rotations, short rotation woody crops can be one of the profitable options for fiber production on lands which are not suitable for intensive arable cropping. Some of the important fiber supplying species which are grown under Indian conditions and their agroforestry systems and profitability aspects are discussed in the paper.

Analysing the Finnish pulpwood market under alternative hypotheses of competition

Efficient functioning of the wood market is crucial in a country where the forest sector is of strong macroeconomic importance. We investigate the possibility of noncompetitive behavior of the buyers in the Finnish pulpwood market. We simulate the buyers' behavior under alternative competition structures (perfect competition, Cournot oligopsony, and monopsony) and compare the simulated equilibria with the observed behavior in the years 1988–1997. In the static models the pulp industry firms are assumed to maximize their short-run variable profits either under fixed production capacity or, hypothetically, under variable capacity. The results suggest that, during the boom years, the industry has been capacity constrained, sometimes even for monopsony output. During the recession years, the actual wood prices have often been between simulated Cournot oligopsony and monopsony prices. Hence, noncompetitive behavior of the buyers is possible during the recessions. The capacity investment behavior of the industry is explored with dynamic models. The conclusions from these models depend on the price elasticity of pulpwood supply used.

Pulpwood Supply to the Paper Industry

Tuned to the growth of the Japanese economy after World War II, the paper and pulp industry of Japan has continued its growth. In 2000, the industry produced 31, 800, 000 tons of paper and paperboard, which is the second largest volume in the world. Pulp and recovered paper support this production volume.The utilization rate of recovered paper was 50% in 1990 and has since then been increasing year after year. In 2000, utilization rate of recovered paper exceeded 57% and this rate is targeted to 60% in five years.In the area of pulp utilization, the consumption rate of imported pulp has been slightly declining, but has generally been leveling off. The overall consumption rate of pulp has been declining by this slight decline. Pulp consumption as a whole has been decreasing. This is attributed to decrease of domestic pulpwood consumption. The consumption rate of imported pulpwood is increasing steadily. In 1989, the rate between domestic and imported pulpwood consumption was reversed and the gap has been expanding since then. In 2000, the rate of imported pulpwood reached 70%. Since 1990, Japanese pulp and paper manufacturers are actively undertaking overseas industrial plantations. As a result, more chips will be imported to Japan and the import rate of foreign pulpwood will increase further.

Structural changes in sawlog and pulpwood markets in Finland

This paper presents a short‐term econometric model for the sawlog and pulpwood markets in Finland. More specifically, the effects of structural changes in the market on the success of short‐term market modelling are investigated. Wood prices and quantities traded are stationary. Therefore, valid statistical inference using the levels of these variables is possible. Pulpwood prices were found to be directly proportional to sawlog prices during the study period, and the cross‐price effects were not statistically significant. The results indicated that the price sensitivity of wood supply in Finland increased during the 1980s and early 1990s. Nationwide collective price agreements were found to have increased the level of pulpwood supply and demand from private forests, but to have had no effect on either supply of or demand for sawlogs. Due to a structural change in the 1970s, the models estimated for the whole period cannot be used for short‐term forecasting in the 1990s. Higher‐than‐annual frequency data should be used in developing accurate short‐term forecasting models.