From the Director’s Desk: The Dog Days of Summer, Your Average July, April Data Goes "Woof"
The Dog Days of Summer
July feels like the last month on the calendar that everyone in the country has for summer break. PFI Board Chairman Kenny Lisle was in town this week on his way to parts West and we had a chance to catch up. He shared with me that his kids start school next week in Atlanta. Yikes. July stands in stark contrast to June, a busy month for conferences, board meetings, graduations, etc. I hope everyone has found time this month to get away, beat the heat, and spend quality time with family and friends.
Your Average July (5-Year Average)
East
Sales – 94,246 tons
Production – 96,393 tons
Inventory – 145,406 tons
West
Sales – 29,506 tons
Production –38,997 tons
Inventory – 75,039 tons
South
Sales – 30,341 tons
Production – 20,916 tons
Inventory – 48,897 tons
All U.S.
Sales – 154,092 tons
Production – 135,957 tons
Inventory – 269,342 tons
July stands out in annual wood pellet data sets as the month when standing inventory reaches its peak. Production and sales records change year to year, but July has been the industry’s consistent high watermark from an inventory perspective. I have a feeling that the streak may come to an end when this year’s July data is published this fall. Why? I’ll get into the April data further down in the Pellet Wire, but pellet inventories this April more closely resembled the July levels we’ve become accustomed to. I’d be surprised if producers kept piling them up considering space restrictions, the cost of third-party warehousing, and the trend for milder winters. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see in the data a deliberate attempt to winnow the inventory down through the summer. Speaking of April data…
April Data Goes "Woof"
We all know the season we had. Mild temperatures dominated the weather stories across the country. In some markets, all-time warmest records were set. Still, with data sets that lag by two months, we get to relive them and see in black and white the impact of widespread low Heating Degree Day counts.
The U.S. sales total came in at 73,179 tons, not a record low but in the conversation. In fact, there are only five months since 2016 with lower U.S. sales totals. One of them was March of 2024. Sales in the West dipped below 10,000 tons for the first time since 2016.
April closed at the month with 359,841 tons of wood pellets on the ground, the highest since the summer of 2018. As I said…WOOF.
I’ll close with an optimistic outlook. In July 2018, wood pellet inventory stood at 373,693 tons. By March, all but 46,642 tons of that inventory was gone, an astounding depletion rate. In October of that year, producers moved over 100,000 tons of inventory. Someone poke Old Man Winter and tell him we’d like him around by the middle of college football this season at the latest.
