European lumber exports to the UAE contracted 14 per cent in January (to 29,500 cubic metres) — a figure that has flatlined in the wake of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. That is according to new data from Eurostat, the official European Union statistics body, with the Middle East and North African region — one of the fastest-growing corridors for European lumber — now expected to face a steeper contraction as the Iranian conflict takes its toll on the supply chain.
And with shipping companies diverting Gulf-bound cargo to Turkish ports and trucking timber overland into the UAE and Saudi Arabia — adding weeks to transit times and high cost to every consignment that clears — the first full months of the closure will be February and March, and industry observers expect the volume contraction to deepen sharply in Q1 final data.
It comes as the average export price of lumber into the UAE rose 6 per cent month-on-month in January to $332 per cubic metre — 20 per cent above the same period a year earlier, when volumes were clearing at $278 per cubic metre, suggesting Gulf buyers are absorbing higher costs before the disruption emerged.
Last month, one of Sweden’s largest sawmillers, the Setra Group, warned that the Middle East crisis would hit the European industry on two fronts. (Photo Credit: Setra Group)
According to Setra Group’s Executive Vice President, Olle Berg, the damage in the Middle East is hitting the European supply chain on two fronts — bunker costs rising across all trade lanes as oil prices climb, and direct Middle East volumes cut off with no timeline for resolution. “The reduction means that alternative markets and products need to be identified, especially for thicker timber classes in pine,” Berg said, adding that a protracted conflict risked dampening the world economy and delaying what mills across Sweden and Austria had been expecting to be a housing rebound year.
Those January figures sit against an already-stressed cost environment for European sawmillers, with Sweden’s sector alone facing at least SEK 2 billion in new costs for 2026 — driven by EU Emissions Trading System reforms and a rail freight charge that has risen more than 600 per cent since 2010 — before the Hormuz crisis emerged as a further drag on what had been one of the region’s most reliable export growth corridors.
