ANS enjoy OSB boom in US
Van Sun says Ainsworth, others enjoy OSB boom in U.S.
2013-04-02 07:12 ET - In the News
Also In the News (C-CFP) Canfor Corp
The Vancouver Sun reports in its Tuesday edition the recovering U.S. housing market has pushed profit margins up to stratospheric heights for oriented strand board (OSB) producers, whose engineered wood panels are outperforming lumber. The Sun's Gordon Hamilton writes Scotiabank reports that prices for OSB, which has replaced plywood in most North American housing applications, surged in February to $430 (U.S.) a thousand square feet, up 100 per cent year-over-year. Profit margins are now averaging 54 per cent above the cost of production. Scotiabank's Patricia Mohr cited the recovering U.S. housing market as the driver for OSB prices. As of February, new housing starts increased to 917,000 (annualized), she said, up from 718,000 a year earlier. Both home sales and home prices are climbing as well, she said. The recovery bodes well for OSB producers like Ainsworth Lumber, which weathered the housing downturn by undergoing a restructuring that resulted in Brookfield Asset Management becoming its majority shareholder. Ainsworth has four OSB plants. Louisiana-Pacific owns two plants in the Peace River region and Canfor owns a mothballed mill at Fort Nelson; Tolko Industries also operates an OSB mill in Alberta.