U.S. Timber Production, Trade, Consumption, and Price Statistics, 1965-2017

This report presents current and historical annual data on the production, trade, consumption, and prices of timber products in the United States. The report also focuses on national statistics but includes some data for individual states and regions and for Canada. The data were collected from industry trade associations and government agencies. They are intended for use by forest land managers, forest industries, trade associations, forestry schools, renewable resource organizations, individuals in the major timber producing and consuming countries of the world, and the general public. A major use of the data is tracking industry production and consumption trends over time. One of the major shifts that has occurred in the wood-using industry since the great recession of 2008–2010 is that both production and consumption of roundwood per capita increased. Because of increased paper recycling and increased processing efficiency, the consumption per capita in roundwood equivalent decreased from 83 ft3 in 1986 to 49 ft3 in 2008. But during the most recent time period, the increase in production per capita was caused by the U.S. economic recovery, which positively impacted wood markets. In the 1960s and 1970s, consumption averaged 65 ft3 per capita before increasing and peaking in 1986 to 83 ft3 per capita. Since 2004, consumption per capita has continued to steadily decrease, falling to 42 ft3 in 2009 before increasing to 52.4 ft3 in 2017. Per capita consumption in 2017 was 52.4 ft3, which was the eighth consecutive year of increases. Since 1999, paper consumption fell from 57 to 32 million tons in 2017. Since 1999, newsprint capacity declined from 7.4 to 1.5 million tons in 2017 and printing and writing paper fell from 29.5 to 15.9 million tons of capacity in 2017. Another shift occurring during the past several years is increased emphasis on wood energy use, which has shown wide fluctuations during the last decade and into 2017. One exception to this trend is pellet production and trade, which has continued to grow for the last 5 years. Another shift occurring is the potential for increased production of new products such as cross-laminated timber with the establishment of multiple manufacturing facilities in the Pacific Northwest.