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Wood Input Purchases by Industry 2023

Wood Input Purchases at 3.3 million cubic metres in 2023

Online ISSN: 2737-7997

CSO statistical release, 02 December 2024, 11am

Key Findings

The total volume of roundwood input purchases was 3.3 million cubic metres in 2023, an increase of 6% from 2022.
Roundwood purchases from publicly-owned forests comprised 69% of 2023 purchases, compared with 72% in 2022.
Large sawlog accounted for the highest proportion of roundwood purchase volume at 40% in 2023, followed by pulpwood (28%) and small sawlog (25%).
Purchases of non-roundwood products (including brash and tree stumps, woodchip, and sawdust) were 448 thousand tonnes in 2023.

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (02 December 2024) published Wood Input Purchases by Industry 2023.

Commenting on the release Niamh Shanahan, Statistician in the Environment Division, said:

"In 2023, the industry purchased 3.3 million cubic metres of roundwood, which is wood removed from the forest in its natural state. This marked a 6% increase compared to the 3.1 million cubic metres purchased in 2022 (See Table 1A)."

Roundwood purchases from publicly-owned forests made up 69% (2.3 million cubic metres) of 2023 purchases with the remainder from privately-owned forests (See Figure 1, Tables 1D, and 1E).

Large sawlog accounted for the highest proportion of roundwood purchase volume at approximately 40% in 2023, followed by pulpwood (28%) and small sawlog (25%) (See Figure 2 and Table 3A). Approximately 4% of roundwood purchase volume was for use as biomass.

In 2023, purchases of non-roundwood products such as brash and tree stumps, woodchip and sawdust totalled 448 thousand tonnes (See Tables 1F and 2F)."

Note: Product defintions and a link to the survey questionnaire are available in the Background Notes.

Roundwood purchases from public and private forests

Figure 1 shows the volume of roundwood input purchases from public and private forests. In 2023 the total volume of roundwood input purchases was 3.3 million cubic metres, with purchases from public forests comprising 2.3 million cubic metres and purchases from private forests comprising 1 million cubic metres.

	Total roundwood purchases	Roundwood purchases from publicly-owned forests	Roundwood purchases from privately-owned forests
2015	2.778	2.063	0.715
2016	2.856	2.237	0.619
2017	2.937	2.213	0.724
2018	3.002	2.198	0.804
2019	3.198	2.445	0.753
2020	3.066	2.131	0.934
2021	3.212	2.044	1.168
2022	3.111	2.232	0.879
2023	3.305	2.295	1.01

Purchases of Roundwood Products

Figure 2 shows the volume of roundwood purchases by product in 2023. Large sawlog accounted for the highest proportion of roundwood purchase volume at 1,312 thousand cubic metres in 2023, followed by pulpwood at 921 thousand cubic metres and small sawlog at 831 thousand cubic metres.

	volume
Large sawlog	1312
Small sawlog	831
Stakewood	101
Pulpwood	921
Roundwood for use as biomass	140

Table 1A Total Roundwood Purchases 2023

Table 1B Coniferous Roundwood Purchases 2023

Table 1C Non-coniferous Roundwood Purchases 2023

Table 1D Roundwood Purchases From Publicly-owned Forests 2023

Table 1E Roundwood Purchases From Privately-owned Forests 2023

Table 1F Non-roundwood Purchases 2023

Table 2A Total Roundwood and Non-roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)

Table 2B Coniferous Roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)

Table 2C Non-coniferous Roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)

Table 2D Roundwood Purchases from Publicly-owned Forests by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)

Table 2E Roundwood Purchases from Privately-owned Forests by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)

Table 2F Non-roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)

Table 3A Total Roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 cubic metres)

Table 3B Roundwood Coniferous Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 cubic metres)

Table 3C Roundwood Non-coniferous Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 cubic metres)

Table 3D Roundwood Purchases from Publicly-owned Forests by Product 2023 ('000 cubic metres)

Table 3E Roundwood Purchases from Privately-owned Forests by Product 2023 ('000 cubic metres)

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Table 1A Total Roundwood Purchases 2023
Year	'000 tonnes	'000 cubic metres
2015	2,459	2,778
2016	2,531	2,856
2017	2,599	2,937
2018	2,654	3,002
2019	2,824	3,198
2020	2,703	3,066
2021	2,829	3,212
2022	2,728	3,111
2023	2,916	3,305

Table 1B Coniferous Roundwood Purchases 2023
Year	'000 tonnes	'000 cubic metres
2015	2,459	2,777
2016	2,530	2,855
2017	2,599	2,937
2018	2,654	3,002
2019	2,824	3,197
2020	2,702	3,065
2021	2,829	3,212
2022	2,728	3,111
2023	2,915	3,304

Table 1D Roundwood Purchases from Publicly-owned Forests 2023
Year	'000 tonnes	'000 cubic metres
2015	1,825	2,063
2016	1,981	2,237
2017	1,957	2,213
2018	1,942	2,198
2019	2,149	2,445
2020	1,874	2,131
2021	1,791	2,044
2022	1,948	2,232
2023	2,024	2,295

Table 2A Total Roundwood and Non-roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)
'000 tonnes
Product	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Large sawlog	869	931	958	1,040	956	1,031	1,164	1,082	1,131
Small sawlog	634	644	670	659	796	731	735	695	737
Stakewood	56	58	60	59	64	49	61	76	90
Pulpwood	763	723	750	769	851	733	731	695	832
Roundwood for use as biomass	137	174	161	127	157	160	138	180	125
Brash and tree stumps	23	27	23	6	7	0	8	10	7
Woodchip	192	221	237	268	284	332	361	295	331
Sawdust	59	80	103	93	97	151	78	86	67
Short-rotation coppice	2	16	19	17	13	16	13	6	7
Post-consumer recovered wood	11	17	21	24	25	26	31	27	36
Total	2,747	2,892	3,002	3,062	3,251	3,229	3,319	3,152	3,364

Table 2B Coniferous Roundwood Purchases by Product 2023 ('000 tonnes)
'000 tonnes
Product	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Large sawlog	869	931	958	1,040	956	1,031	1,164	1,082	1,131
Small sawlog	634	644	670	659	796	731	735	695	737
Stakewood	56	58	60	59	64	49	61	76	90
Pulpwood	763	723	750	768	851	733	731	695	832
Roundwood for use as biomass	137	174	161	127	157	160	138	180	125
Total	2,459	2,530	2,599	2,654	2,824	2,702	2,829	2,728	2,915

Wood Input Purchases by Industry 2023