Commercial roundwood removals

Name: Commercial roundwood removals
Topic: Agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing

Division for housing, property, spatial and agricultural statistics

Preliminary figures on volume and prices are given at county-level.

Final figures on volumes and gross value are given at municipality-level.

Frequency: Annually until 2007. From 2007 figures are published quarterly.

Actuality: Preliminary figures are published within 4 weeks and final figures within 22 weeks after the end of the registration period.

Annually report to

• EUs statistical office (Eurostat)
• The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UNECE, FAO)

In the period 2007-2021 monthly report to the website Baltic Nordic roundwood prices.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The purpose of the statistics is to provide detailed information at municipal level on commercial roundwood removals.

The statistics date back to 1918/19, but annual figures at municipal level are available from the working year 1936/37. At that time, statistics only covered quantity cut distributed by industrial wood and wood fuel of coniferous and broad leaved species.

Since then the following changes have been made:

• Buyer group was included from the working year 1962/63
• Gross value was included from the working year 1965/66
• The division of the assortments has varied over the course of time. The division used today was introduced in the working year 1970/71.
• Seller group was included from the working year 1980/81
• From 1996 the statistics follow the calendar year
• From 2006 the statistics do not include figures on wood fuel
• From 2006 average roundwood prices per cubic metre are provided
• Byer group is no longer included from the calendar year 2015.

The statistics are used by public authorities, research and educational institutions, professional and industrial bodies, international organisations etc. The results are also used in the Aggregate account of forestry prepared by Statistics Norway.

No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

Final results are almost equal to preliminary results at county level and country level.

Some other public institutions publish roundwood removals statistics by account periode based on the Forest Trust Fund. Statistics Norway publishes the statistics by scaling periode.

The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The statistics cover all industrial roundwood for sale. The wood registered is net removals excluding rot, unusable tops, etc. The quantity cut is given in cubic metres of solid wood inside bark by assortments, seller groups and buyer groups.

Until 1995/96, the statistics followed the working year (1 August-31 July). Since 1996, the figures have referred to calendar years.

Figures on wood fuel have not been included since 2006.

The figures are published quarterly and annually.

Until 31 December 1995, quantities cut for sale from private forests and municipal forests were reported by the municipal forest administration, and wood from common forests and State forests by their respective management. The reports were collected by the forest administration in each county and forwarded to Statistics Norway.

Since January 1996, the figures on industrial wood have been provided by the Norwegian Agriculture Agency through the Register of Timber Trade and Diverted Forest Trust Fund. The firm Skog-Data AS manages the register. The data in the register comes from the scaling of the timber sold. As from 2015 data are received from The Norwegian Agreculture Agency.

The figures on wood fuel have not been included since 2006. Before 2006, figures on wood fuel were estimated by the County Department of Agricultural Affairs.

All quantities of roundwood cut for sale during a calendar year are scaled and reported to Skog-Data AS.

Because of the changeover from one data source to another on 1 January 1996, the statistics for the working year 1995/96 are based on both the reports by the municipal forest administration and the Register of Timber Trade and Diverted Forest Trust Fund. Data for removals in the period 1 August to 31 December 1995 were reported on paper forms from the municipal forest administration and the management of common and State forests. Data for removals in the period 1 January to 31 July 1996 were collected electronically from Skog-Data AS. Since 1996, the data have been based on all scaled quantities of roundwood reported to Skog-Data AS. Quantities sold as stumpage are registered when the sales contract is signed.

As from 2015 the data is transferred from the Norwegian Agriculture Agency.

The data are checked in Statistics Norway with the focus on likely price level for each assortment. Corrections and additional payments that refer to another year are removed, if discovered.

Roundwood quantity and gross margin are summarised per municipality, assortment, and seller group. The average price per assortment is then estimated.

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

The breaks in the time series are explained in chapter 2.1.

The statistics on industrial roundwood removals are thought to be quite accurate at county level. Sources of errors are corrections and additional payments registered with insufficient information.

The quantities given in the assortment "Unsorted saw logs and pulpwood" are probably too high. This is due to the fact that some of the roundwood removals are reported on paper forms where assortments are not specified. These removals are all registered as "Unsorted saw logs and pulpwood". Wood sold as stumpage is included in "Unsorted saw logs and pulpwood". Wood sold as stumpage may be harvested another year than it is sold. Since 1996, the gross value of this wood has excluded costs for cutting and hauling. These two circumstances explain the varying average prices for this assortment.

Preliminary figures are overwritten by final figures.