New bids are pouring in every second, two, sometimes even three bidders compete energetically – until finally the hammer falls. But it’s not about a painting, not even about antiques. It’s about wood. In Litzendorf near Bamberg, sawmill owners, veneer manufacturers, carpenters and timber dealers from all over Germany and Austria bid on particularly valuable softwood trunks.
“This wood deserves value-added processing,” says Sebastian Klinghardt from the Bavarian State Forests before the auction begins. It is quite common in the forestry and timber industry that valuable wood is sold to the highest bidder in so-called submissions. But mostly the bids are submitted in writing. An auction in Litzendorf with competitors for the best trunks at one table like on Tuesday – that’s rare.
Anyone who raises their hand shows interest: Valuable wood is sold at a valuable wood auction by the state forests.
(Photo: Daniel Vogl/dpa)
change of location. The coveted trunks are lined up in the forest near Strullendorf, also near Bamberg. Douglas fir, spruce, pine, larch, fir – as far as the eye can see. Accurately lies trunk next to trunk. A total of more than 1200 cubic meters of wood, mostly felled in Franconian districts up to the Spessart. Interested parties have been able to check the goods here for a few weeks. One of the criteria for quality wood: it should be as knot-free as possible. It is then suitable, for example, for making wooden windows, says Konrad Schneider, wood sales manager for the state forests at Forchheim forestry company. When the trunks from the Forchheim company were auctioned off, he was satisfied: “Pine sold well, and the larch also did surprisingly well.”
The trunks are not sold individually, but bundled in packages, in so-called lots. The starting bids are between 120 and 200 euros per cubic metre. After 45 minutes, the 500 euro mark is broken for the first time – two larch lots come to 690 and 750 euros respectively. For comparison: larch wood, which does not meet the criteria of valuable wood, is traded for around 130 euros per cubic metre.
There was a lot going on in the wood market overall last year: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine made fossil fuels expensive, and wood products such as pellets and split logs were in great demand. Conversely, the situation in the construction sector clouded over. The German Sawmill and Wood Industry Association called for “reliable framework conditions in the construction sector” with regard to the development on the wood market. “After the construction industry proved to be an economic engine during the corona pandemic, its development stalled in 2022,” the association announced. The construction industry is in a downturn, and at the same time new living space is urgently needed, says the association’s managing director Julia Möbus. Demand on the sawn timber market has declined.
The opposite picture emerged for wood pellets, which are made from sawmill residues: demand rose sharply. According to the association, sound forecasts for the sawmill and timber industry for this year are currently difficult to make. The central task for the coming years must be “to develop the forests in a more climate-stable manner, to manage and care for them and to process and use the wood that is produced here”. The demand for building timber and construction timber is currently increasing again, says Konrad Prielmeier, spokesman for the Bavarian State Forests. Softwood lumber prices are expected to rise again.
According to their own statements, the state forests logged 4.88 million cubic meters of harvested wood in the past financial year (until the end of June 2022) – this means the wood that can actually be sold. Valuable wood is only a small part of it, about 5000 cubic meters. Prielmeier emphasizes: “The high-quality trunks were produced by several generations of foresters over decades through appropriate forest care.”