Louisiana Timber Prices Q4 2025

Louisiana timber prices closed out 2025 under significant pressure, particularly for pulpwood producers. While pine sawtimber and hardwood sawtimber held relatively firm, pine pulpwood prices collapsed to some of the lowest levels in the US South — a trend driven by permanent mill closures, weak housing demand, and a broader structural shift in the South’s fiber market. This report summarizes current stumpage prices for Louisiana’s major timber products and examines the key forces shaping the market heading into 2026.

Q4 2025 Louisiana Stumpage Prices

How to Estimate What Your Timber Is Worth

These Louisiana timber prices give you the market rates per unit of timber in your area, but they’re not particularly useful on their own—you need to know how much wood you actually have standing on your land.

The most accurate way to determine your timber volume is to hire a professional forester to conduct a timber cruise, which involves systematically measuring sample plots across your property. This can cost $1,000 or more depending on your acreage and timber complexity.

For a quicker, DIY estimate, you can use our own native mapping software for free. It includes an amateur-friendly cruise system that walks you through measuring your timber and calculating volumes by species and product class.

Once you have volume estimates (in MBF, cords, tons, etc.), you can multiply them by the stumpage prices above to get a rough sense of your timber’s market value. For example:

• 50 MBF of pine sawlogs × $400/MBF = $20,000
• 100 cords of mixed hardwood pulpwood × $15/cord = $1,500

Keep in mind: Actual sale prices vary based on access, timber quality, market timing, and logger availability. These calculations give you a ballpark figure—always consult with a forester before making harvest decisions.

Market Update

The IP Campti Closure Changed Everything for Pulpwood

The dominant story in Louisiana’s timber economy this year was the permanent closure of International Paper’s Red River containerboard mill in Campti, which shut its doors on April 11, 2025. The mill had been one of the largest private employers in Natchitoches Parish, employing 674 workers and purchasing approximately 1.6 million tons of pulpwood annually — representing roughly $100 million in stumpage value leaving Louisiana’s timber economy each year.

The ripple effects were immediate. Loggers who had delivered to Campti were suddenly forced to haul wood to mills farther away, eroding margins and depressing stumpage offers. Louisiana pine pulpwood, which had already been drifting lower through the first half of 2025, fell below $4/ton by Q4 — placing the state among the cheapest pulpwood markets in the entire US South, alongside Arkansas and southeast Texas.

This closure was not an isolated event. More than ten major pulp and paper facilities shuttered across the South between 2023 and 2025, removing an estimated 25 million tons of annual fiber demand from the regional market. International Paper also closed mills in Georgetown, SC, and Savannah and Riceboro, GA during the same period. The consequence for Louisiana landowners is structural, not cyclical: pulpwood demand in this state is unlikely to recover without replacement mill investment, and that investment has not yet materialized.

Lumber Prices and Housing Kept Sawtimber in Check

Sawtimber prices were more resilient, but they weren’t immune to broader market headwinds. Wholesale Southern Yellow Pine lumber hit its annual low in mid-December 2025 before a modest recovery, and mill utilization across the South dropped from 85% in 2021 to just 68% by Q3 2025. Canadian lumber tariffs — which escalated to roughly 45% by October 2025, the highest level in the history of the softwood lumber dispute — theoretically benefit domestic Southern pine producers by pricing out Canadian competition, but in practice they’ve added cost and uncertainty throughout the supply chain.

The fundamental problem remains housing. Single-family housing starts fell 7% to 943,000 units for full-year 2025, with October’s pace dropping to 874,000 — down nearly 8% year-over-year. Despite an estimated housing shortage of 3.8 to 4.7 million units nationally, elevated mortgage rates and affordability constraints continued to suppress new construction. Without a meaningful housing recovery, sawtimber demand faces a ceiling, and Louisiana’s mills have limited incentive to aggressively bid up stumpage prices.

A Bright Spot: Sumitomo Takes Over Plain Dealing

Not all the 2025 news was grim. Sumitomo Forestry America completed its acquisition of the Teal Jones Plain Dealing sawmill in north Louisiana on July 1, 2025, purchasing a 57% controlling stake for approximately $42 million. The Japanese forestry giant has announced plans to develop the site into its first US “timber industrial complex,” potentially adding mass timber manufacturing to the existing 300-million-board-foot sawmill operation.

For landowners in Bossier, Claiborne, and surrounding north Louisiana parishes, this is meaningful news. The Plain Dealing mill is a significant consumer of pine sawtimber, and Sumitomo’s long-term investment signals confidence in Louisiana’s timber supply base at a time when much of the industry news has pointed the other direction.

What to Watch Heading Into 2026

Pine pulpwood markets are unlikely to recover without new fiber-consuming mill investments, and those take years to develop. Landowners with stands that are primarily pulpwood-sized timber may be better served delaying harvests if their financial situation allows.

Pine sawtimber and hardwood sawtimber present a more balanced outlook. South-wide sawtimber prices showed some signs of strengthening in Q4 2025 — Southern pine lumber prices increased during the quarter, and hardwood pulp prices rose 10% — suggesting that the worst of the sawtimber price pressure may have passed. The Canadian tariff situation and any Federal Reserve rate cuts that improve housing affordability in early 2026 could provide meaningful upward pressure.

For a market as local as timber, the most important thing any Louisiana landowner can do before selling is obtain multiple bids from licensed timber buyers and a stumpage appraisal from a Registered Forester. State-level averages mask wide variation across parishes, and the difference between a well-marketed timber sale and a poorly timed one can easily exceed the range shown in the table above.

Stumpage prices compiled from TimberMart-South Q4 2025, LSU AgCenter Timber Tales, and LDAF Quarterly Reports. Prices are estimates for informational purposes only and do not constitute a timber appraisal. Contact a Registered Forester before selling timber.