According to Fastmarkets:
Domestic and international demand for U.S. hardwood continued to escalate in 2020, increased and peaked in 2021, but by mid-2022, the market was in trouble. Until 2023, the hardwood market price and demand will still be quite sluggish.
As the hardwood market declines, U.S. hardwood production factory production lines are struggling to maintain operations, and producers have to find new ways to make money to withstand production line losses.
In the American South, a number of hardwood production plants have switched to producing alternative varieties. For example, the price of softwood southern pine continued to rise at the beginning of the year, and market demand gradually recovered. It was favored by hardwood manufacturers and has successfully occupied part of the production lines of hardwood production plants.
Over the past few decades, Southern pine producers have made a fortune acquiring many of the largest mills in the South, while hardwood mills have become increasingly rare and account for a relatively small share of output.
One pine buyer pointed out: "A large softwood production plant can run a million board feet per day, while a hardwood plant running 100,000 board feet per day is a lot."
This directly prompted many hardwood production plants to transform into mixed wood production plants. These factories with the ability to produce hardwood are more competitive when producing softwood and often quote lower prices.
Due to current market conditions, some hardwood mills have completely switched to producing southern pine.
But at the same time, in recent weeks, there have been noisy speculations in the United States that southern pine production plants are "out of balance" and may stop production, triggering huge concerns in the industry.
But so far, no cork production plant has issued any official announcement of production reductions/shutdowns.