SC loggers struggle as mill closures create wood surplus and economic woes

We saw a lot of people downsizing and everything, but we’re still trying to hold our own with four crews,” Lambert said. “We’re going to try to hold on as long as we can.

While Lambert has found new options to send his loads of lumber, he says one year later, his team is still scrambling to make up for losing the demand he saw from WestRock in Charleston. The plant closed in May 2023 and he said that resulted in an excess of 100 loads he had to send elsewhere a week.

“We really need a few more outlets to carry the wood,” Lambert said. “I mean, if we had another couple of mills to open up around within 100, 150 miles, it would ease a lot of pressure.”

The issue is, it was not just WestRock, while stakeholders report some plants have expanded inland, the SC coast and Upstate have been hit with vital mill shutdowns.

The shutdown of the mills, it’s the ripple effect,” said Crad Jaynes with the SC Timber Producer’s Association. “With the closing of West Rock and North Charleston, Pactiv Evergreen’s mill in Canton, North Carolina. Sonoco Products Company in Hartsville changing to 100% recycled material to make their products and not take raw wood fiber. Then we had two machines shut down in Riegelwood, North Carolina. So when you look at it, it affected our lower coastal plain, the northwest portion of upper South Carolina.

Jaynes says some of those closures have led to an excess of wood supply, 2.6 million tons for pulpwood alone.

“That slows the wood flow. And that includes pulp, paper, containerboard, solid wood products, lumber, oriented strand board, things like that,” Jaynes said.

Jaynes, in his newsletter to the Producer’s Association, called 2023 the most challenging year he’s ever seen for SC loggers. He and Lambert both have invested nearly 50 years into the industry.

A task force was organized to try and seek out solutions. Some recommendations were shared with State Senators back in March.

“We are at a critical point in time, we are already experiencing job losses, and the overall economic impact for the State of South Carolina from the forestry industry is declining and declining fast,” said Trip Chavis with Milliken and Associates.

Chavis presented to a Senate forestry commission about how big a collapse the lumber industry faced last year.

The Forestry Commission places timber production as the top job provider in South Carolina. It contributes more than $20 billion to the economy and is only second to tourism for its economic impact.

However, with the mill shutdowns, data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows SC saw an 85% drop in product value for forest ag products. That was the greatest rate of real GDP decline in the “Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting” category among the available state data for 2023.

South Carolina’s forestry sector saw a 98% drop in real gross domestic product in the last four months of 2023 at a time when overall growth was at 28%.