Commercial roundwood removals, 1999, preliminary figures

The quantity of timber cut for sale in 1999 deviated only 0.5 per cent from the quantity cut in 1998. In the last five years the roundwood removals have been between 7.4 and 8.0 million cubic metres.

Total value of the timber amounted to just under NOK 2.6 billion. This is 1.4 per cent less than the value of the timber cut in 1998. Each cubic metre of timber brought an average of NOK 333, against NOK 340 in 1998.

There were small changes in relation to the year before in the composition of the wood sold. Four million cubic metres were spruce and pine saw logs. This was two per cent more than in 1998. 3.4 million cubic metres were pulpwood and this is one per cent less than the year before. Variations were somewhat greater in the small volume categories of wood. The roundwood cut of special timber of coniferous trees went down 21 per cent, special and saw logs of deciduous trees went down 14 per cent while the removals of other round timber increased by 16 per cent.

55 per cent of the timber was purchased by sawmills and the wood products industry and 37 per cent by the pulp industry in Norway. Five per cent was exported.

Hedmark is Norway's largest timber county by far. 2.2 million cubic metres were logged for sale here. This is 28 per cent of the country's total roundwood cut and 1.2 million cubic metres more than in Oppland, which is in second place. Only Finnmark has no registered logging of timber for sale.

Considerable wood for fuel

Reported estimates of wood sold as fuel in 1999 total 716 000 cubic metres. Such a large quantity of wood for sale has not been reported since the early 1950s. The figures for 1998 are not available, but the average for the five previous years was 465 000 cubic metres per year. The explanation for the huge increase in 1999 compared to the early part of the 1990s can to a large degree be attributed to more complete reporting in 1999.

Logging of timber and wood fuel for sale in 1999 totalled 8.4 million cubic metres of wood.

Tables:

• Table 1 Commercial roundwood removals. 1995/96-1999. 1 000 m³
• Table 2 Commercial rundwood removals, by assortment and buyer group. 1999. 1 000 m³
• Table 3 Commercial roundwood removals. Removed quantity and gross value, by county. 1998 and 1999