According to a report of the National Forests Administration in  Romania- Romsilva, the prices of auctioning of sorted wood, logyard prices, increased substantially in 2021 compared to 2020, the largest increases being recorded in the assortments of softwoods, followed by oaks and beech.

Price increases in the market started in the spring of 2021 fueled by the strong demand on the international markets but also by the reduction in volume induced by the introduction of the new official system to monitor wood flows in Romania - UMAL 2.0 .

SUMAL 2.0 is a system designed to combat illegal logging and of compulsory use for the industry in Romania. The traceability works through quantitative correlations between forest management plans - mandatory in Romania, timber assessment documents authorizing the harvesting, timber transport documentes, receipts to the beneficiary, production reports in primary processing, transport documents for wood materials with an extended definition to timber, wood waste, wood chips and even charcoal! The introduction of the system has led to high administrative costs and has created problems in the marketing of wood in the spring of 2021, problems that persist in the fall of 2021, because this system is mandatory  also for self-consumption of firewood of forest owners and the population.

In the autumn of 2021, the wood deficit was amplified by new regulations regarding the environmental assessment of forest management  plans, which largely blocked the application of new forest management  plans, which overlap over Natura 2000 sites. This reduced supply by an additional 8-10%.

The result of the 2 factors - SUMAL 2.0 and the environmental assessment of forest management - led to an artificial resource deficit in the fall of 2021. This in turn led to an explosion of prices of   all  wood  assortments with increases of 20-40% in some cases of prices respective to the prices indicated in the table above. In some auctions beech log prices reached 120 Euro/m3 and Spruce logs 160 Euro/m3. Prices of firewood have also increased significantly reaching 100 Euro/m3   and  even much more delivered to consumers in some regions of Romania.

As the causes of the blockages continue to persist and produce effects, the tension on the wood market in Romania is expected to persist in 2022, affecting the availability of resources for industry and prices at crisis levels.