The impact of Hannes on the wood market is minor, if not altogether insignificant. According to media reports, only about 0.3 million cubic meters of wood were blown down.
As a point of comparison, Storm Asta in 2010 leveled 8.1 million cubic meters and Storm Janika in 2001 downed 7.3 million cubic meters. (source MT Jan 2, 2026)
Didn’t some timber get left in the forest last winter because it was so mild that they couldn’t get it out of all locations? There has been enough freezing weather lately that you’d think they would have already managed to transport at least some of the wood from those places by now.
Many winter logging sites were left unharvested last winter due to the mild winter. This, combined with mill shutdowns in Finland, caused the price of pulpwood to drop since last summer, at least temporarily. Now, many sites purchased for last winter that were inaccessible then are still being harvested, and new winter sites have been purchased only for acute needs.
Only the future will tell where pulpwood prices in Finland will eventually stabilize. Whether wood will ever come from Russia again and whether some production facilities in Finland will be closed remains to be seen. The current situation is not sustainable, and solutions will emerge at some point.
I need to elaborate a bit on the storm damage regarding trees. You shouldn’t base too much on the volume of trees blown down in a storm; the actual logging triggered by storm damage is naturally ten times higher than the volume of fallen trees. If 20 m3 of timber falls in a mature stand and leaves the remaining trees sparse, it’s often worth clear-cutting the entire compartment at once. In practice, you won’t get a harvester (moto) out there unless more wood is harvested at the same time—perhaps a volume of around 200 m3 is needed for a standing timber sale to happen. A good procurement officer will buy 1,000 m3 in one go; passive forest owners jolted awake by the storm are worried, and log prices are currently good.
Yes, good point that a storm is the starting gun for selling wood and is therefore a significant matter.
As it happens, I know some large forest owners, and one has already mentioned that a high percentage of those windfalls end up in the pulpwood pile.
There is butt rot and splintering, and since forest companies only want 6-meter logs, the pulpwood pile grows rapidly. Well, this is obviously something the forest owner must monitor personally—how this is taken into account during harvesting.
I also heard from someone that the percentage of wood ending up as pulpwood from windfalls is very high, meaning exactly 100%. The alternative is to harvest it yourself, use a “portable sawmill,” and sell it as “utility timber.”
You wouldn’t call in a harvester just for a few scattered fallen trees. Actual downbursts, the kind that really flatten the timber over a small area, seem to have been minimal.
All those windthrown trees will end up as pulpwood. If you start sawing storm-felled wood, it sort of shatters into splinters, and consequently, you can’t get any lumber out of it. It’s almost certainly due to the fact that when a tree snaps, cracks spread upwards along the trunk. Now, if the tree is uprooted, it MIGHT BE a different matter, but I have my doubts.
I have empirical experience from 2011. Back then, the Tapani storm blew down nearly 80 logs from the edge of a logging site, only 6–7 of which were snapped. All the intact ones sold for full price, though a new harvest had to be carried out and the clear-cut area further expanded to make it worthwhile to bring the machinery back to the site. That year, the ground was not frozen and the wind blew the trees over rather than shattering them, fortunately. I did take out insurance after that, which hasn’t been used yet – at least not so far.
The discussion here is starting to shift quite a bit towards forest management, so let’s keep the conversation focused on investing. There are likely other forums for forest and storm management, even though it’s certainly an interesting topic if you happen to own forest land. Thank you.
Pulp prices have risen, and it seems there isn’t enough BCTMP (bleached chemi-thermomechanical pulp) on the market. In pulps, unbleached (UKP) is suffering more from overcapacity than bleached (NBSK). Metsä Group, and by extension Metsä Board, produces this NBSK pulp for the market. So, this and the situation with BCTMP are naturally positive for Board; however, China is difficult due to its location—the sea voyage is long. Below is a text snippet from AI regarding the price difference (NBSK) China vs. us.
NBSK (Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft) pulp prices vary significantly by region. Recent data (trends for late 2025/early 2026) show prices in the United States are around $1,550 per tonne, in Europe around $1,495 per tonne, and much lower in China (around $665 per tonne), reflecting regional supply and demand as well as transportation costs. Key factors influencing price fluctuations include supply disruptions, delivery issues, and shifts in demand from major consumers like China, leading to significant price gaps between major markets and spot/contract prices.
Board has double the trouble: US tariffs are taking away market share, and China is overproducing board, even exporting it to Europe, despite Chinese mills operating under capacity. Europe would be a natural market for Metsä Board. China’s overproduction of commodities has become a global problem; a solution to this issue should be found together with the US.
So, energy wood consumption is approx. 5 million m3 per year. A little-discussed, potentially positive factor for forest companies in Finland is the possible or even likely decline in demand for energy wood in the coming years.
A significant number of electric boilers are already in operation, and investments seem to be continuing. Industrial-scale heat pumps have also entered the picture, and players like Polar Night Energy are introducing new solutions.
The utilization of waste heat from data centers and other industrial sources is also becoming more common. Italian plastic waste has been identified as an alternative raw material for district heating produced through incineration.
This is bound to have an impact. I can’t say what the situation is in Sweden, but I’d venture to assume the development is at least somewhat similar. Within 3–5 years, the use of energy wood could have already decreased significantly, and the downward trend may appear even sooner. I’m following this with interest.
I can’t estimate how much the price of wood could drop, but I see this as a clear positive driver.
The paywalled article reviews the industry’s outlook and considers when the upswing will begin. The bottom has been reached and, for example, pulp prices have even risen from the trough, and overcapacity is not the major issue right now (though cardboard is still a question of its own). Additionally, structural rearrangements have started to occur, and more are likely on the way.
A large-scale turnaround will only happen, however, once the global economy gains momentum. This, in turn, is influenced by factors such as geopolitics, Trump’s antics, achieving a sensible peace in Ukraine, etc. So, in practice, a significant cyclical turn in the forest industry is largely in geopolitical hands, and there is good reason for industry professionals and forest company owners to follow global developments specifically.
That’s quite a significant target price change, even in Varis’s opinion 
https://x.com/JuhaVaris/status/2011671229548134824
Stock price right now:
It reflects the company’s difficulties quite well:
Risk of long-term overcapacity in products
The price of raw timber is too high in Finland, despite the downturn
Raw timber prices in Finland will rise immediately if the cycle picks up, unless Russian wood becomes available.
The main owner wants their dividends in the price of raw timber, i.e., they hope wood continues to get more expensive
Personally, I have always stayed away from this company.
UPM’s share price has turned upward. The rise is supported by technical analysis, but analysts also view the outlook as favorable.
Investtech, which focuses on technical analysis, estimates in its morning report that forest industry company UPM’s share price has broken through the resistance line of a downward trend.
That certainly has a major impact on fiber availability regionally – at least around here, a lot of good forest was blown down. Especially as prices are high at the same time and that wood wouldn’t be sold otherwise. It definitely belongs in the investment discussion for companies that buy wood, even if it has drifted a bit into subjective topics.
Small Swedish forest company Rottneros issued a profit warning yesterday evening (link here), as Q4 will be significantly weaker than the comparison period and heavily loss-making, with EBITDA falling to negative SEK 180 million. The main problems cited were the low price of pulp and currencies (weakening USD and strengthening SEK), which the declining wood costs did not compensate for. Finnish forest companies’ portfolios contain few of the exact same specialty pulp products as Rottneros, but low pulp prices and currencies will certainly be a thorn in the side for the entire trio (UPM, of course, does not suffer from the strengthening SEK) at the end of the year.
The loss is starting to be quite severe on Rottneros’ scale, as the EBITDA-level loss exceeds the company’s Q3 cash reserves, and the net loss will likely eat up well over ten percent of the company’s equity. The company has also strengthened its balance sheet with a share issue within the last year or so, so owners and financiers certainly won’t find the situation (including all quarters of 2025 being loss-making at the EBITDA level) amusing. The stock is currently down by over 20%.
Getting strong Stromsdal vibes from that. Small companies just can’t survive in a business like this, where everyone is being squeezed.
I wonder how Norske is doing in the current environment? It’s been in a pretty bad way for a while now. Especially in paper..
