Forest2Market do Brasil's July benchmark report shows an expected drop in timber prices as the effects of heavy rains abated. The rain impacted logistics in June, and wood product costs rose as a result. The June report showed that pine pulpwood (8-18 cm) prices increased by a volume weighted average of 4 percent from April through June of 2014.
Industrial production and manufacturing and non-manufacturing industry performance as reported in Forest2Market's monthly Economic Outlook, a 24-month forecast of macroeconomic indicators.
With a business that relies on the accurate collection, aggregation, and analysis of market price data, the statistical phenomenon known as "crowd wisdom" requires we ask, "If taking the average of individual opinions negates bias, then what is the problem with survey data?"
Over the course of 2014, bad news has been mounting for KiOR. The slide started in 2013, when the company failed to meet its production goals and its stock plummeted. At its highest, just a couple of months following the company's IPO in the summer of 2011, KiOR stock was worth $23.85 per share; by March of 2014, the same share traded for less than $1. Today, it is worth about 1/8th of that amount.
To become long-term, viable options to fossil sourced energy and materials, renewable fuels must offer a cost-effective solution. One of the roles of government is to provide economic and policy assistance to spur the development of these nascent industries that are in the broader public interest.
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is mired in controversy. Petroleum interests demand its repeal, environmental groups insist renewable feedstocks harm the environment more than fossil carbon, and the biofuels industry advocates for higher volume mandates. How did we get here?
Although the RFS was intended to increase the use of renewable fuels, the legislation restricts qualified feedstock at the same time it mandates biofuels. One of four criteria cellulosic biofuels producers that use wood must follow details the origin of their raw materials. In this blog post, we take a look at what the EPA considers planted trees, tree residue, slash, and pre-commercial thinnings.
The need to distinguish total forest inventory from commercially-available inventory is crucial to accurately understand current and future supply. Insight into the volume of commercially-available inventory is gained through the analysis of forest inventory (supply) and the percentage of harvest removals per age class.
