Deltic Timber Corp has announced that its operating income saw a year-on-year decline of US$700,000.
Operating income reached US$4.3m during the quarter, with reduced harvest volumes, sales prices and lumber sales volumes blamed.
Year on year, earnings from Deltic’s woodlands operations were down US$2.5m to US$4m, with pine sawn timber prices down US$7 year-on-year, harvest volumes falling from 153,807 tonnes in the first quarter to 96,431 tonnes in the second three months and lumber sales volumes declining by 18% between 2006-2007.
Deltic, which owns 438,200 acres of timberland in Arkansas and north Louisiana and produced 390 million board feet of lumber in 2006 at its two sawmills, noted that much of the downturn could be attributed to the “slowdown in housing starts in the US”.
