Slow Housing Starts Translate Into Mill Closures

BUSINESS 

By Tom Banse

Olympia, WA  February 10, 2008 4:42 p.m.

The Weyerhaeuser Company reported lower sales and swung to a loss in its latest operating quarter.

You can see the downturn in home construction on the timber giant’s bottom line.  And that company is by no means alone.  Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

An industry analyst at J.P. Morgan counts eighteen sawmills shutdown for varying periods around the Northwest.  The analyst blames falling lumber prices; that decline a consequence of the housing slump.

Portland-based Hampton Lumber operations in Morton and Randle, Washington are shutting down for the coming week, joining a mill in Willamina, Oregon that’s curtailed for two weeks.

The company’s executive told a local newspaper that the downtime would “let supply and demand get back in balance a little bit.”

Workers at the Simpson Timber sawmill in Longview are furloughed. A plant owned by Rosboro Lumber west of Eugene is closed indefinitely.

Weyerhaeuser’s chief executive said in a statement that he expects “unfavorable market conditions” to persist through 2008.

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