Chinese-owned sawmills are once again cutting okoumé across West and Central Africa, returning orders to a tropical hardwood trade that had slipped into a quieter stretch and lending modest support to log and sawnwood prices. That is according to the latest Tropical Timber Market Report from the International Tropical Timber Organization, which records price increases becoming more visible across the region even as exporters absorb higher taxes, wet weather and recurring power cuts.
The upward movement is tied less to demand alone than to constrained supply, with higher export taxes and falling production in species such as azobé and, increasingly, okan thinning the volume of logs reaching port. Okan availability has tightened in particular, leaving buyers competing for a smaller pool of premium structural hardwood.
China’s gradual re-entry is the clearest shift in the market, with Chinese-owned mills resuming active okoumé production after a period of subdued buying. Price gains remain slight, though exporters have read the renewed order flow as a signal that the region’s largest customer is back at the table.
Demand across the rest of Asia is running unevenly, with the Philippines market steadying whilst Vietnam holds its position as one of the region’s strongest buyers. Vietnamese orders have stayed firm for tali, padouk and ovangkol, supporting production levels in several exporting countries.
Europe remains the weak point in the order book, with environmental policy and carbon-reduction measures continuing to weigh on industrial activity and construction demand. The slow pace of European building has left tropical timber recovering far more slowly through those channels than through Asian ones.
Operating conditions are doing little to ease the pressure, with the rainy season still affecting much of West and Central Africa and holding back harvests and haulage. Drier weather has held only in central and northern Cameroon and in the Central African Republic, whilst recurring electricity cuts continue to disrupt milling across several producing countries.
Price indicators tracked in the report point to firmer sawnwood across the board, with bilinga FAS GMS quoted at 700 euros a cubic metre, okoumé FAS GMS at 450 euros and padouk FAS GMS at 980 euros, each marked as moving up. Okoumé logs sold into China sat between 190 and 220 euros a cubic metre, whilst Asian buyers paid 175 to 250 euros for azobé and ekki and as much as 300 euros for padouk logs.
The overall signal for West and Central African producers is cautiously positive, carried almost entirely by Asian appetite rather than any broad recovery. Whether the firmer prices hold will depend on how long China sustains its buying and how quickly exporters can work through the tax, energy and infrastructure constraints still bearing down on the trade.
