The arrival of ms Flintereems at the Port of Immingham carrying 8,227m3 of carcassing from New Brunswick marked the start of Rowlinson’s new import service.
Swansea-based Premier expects to take delivery of 10,000m3 of whitewood from Québec this week. The delivery will be one of the first Canadian timber shipments to be handled at Newport since the 1980s.
Rowlinson sea freight manager David Wilson said the company was importing an initial 40,000m3 from lumber producer ML Wilkins and Son until June, with shipments about every six weeks. He said Rowlinson would then re-assess the market situation and pricing.
“The UK timber trade has recently suffered from the impact of considerable changes in the international market supply and an escalation of prices,” he said. “This new service counters these problems and places us at the forefront of market and supply development,”
Premier’s softwoods director Paul Ford said Canadian timber will be an important product line for the company and was part of a long-term strategy. C16 and C24 standard kiln-dried regularised whitewood is being sourced from Portbec, which has changed its production equipment to meet UK timber specificatons.
“The Canadian product is of the highest quality and will be very popular with our customers, as we can already see by the number of forward orders we have had,” said Mr Ford.
