High Fuel Costs Are Squeezing Local Loggers and a Java Sawmill Already Hurt by a Slump

JAVA --High fuel costs are squeezing local loggers and a Java sawmill already hurt by a slump in new home construction. Lumber demand, which is the highest it’s been in the past five years, is not the problem for the Gregory Lumber Inc. Sawmill, explained co-owner John Gregory. The problem is the increased cost of production when lumber prices remain low. “If we don’t get a handle on this cost of petroleum, there’s not going to be any recovery. We can’t stand anymore, ” Gregory told U. S. Rep. Robert Hurt, who toured the sawmill, a logging site and the VanDerHyde Dairy’s energy-generating digester on Tuesday. While the sawmill runs on electricity (another cost concern), trucks leaving the sawmill use about 1, 100 gallons of diesel fuel a day or roughly $4, 500 a day, not counting the trucks of the loggers coming in, Gregory said. Gregory Trucking, headed by Stone Gregory, hauls 85 to 90 loads of lumber and wood chips a week from the sawmill. Another trucking company hauls an additional 22 loads a week. The rise in diesel fuel costs also increases the price of materials and equipment Gregory Lumber uses, John Gregory said. The company is surviving rising fuel costs by improving efficiency, not letting engines idle and working with fewer people. At the same time, lumber customers continue asking for price breaks the company can’t afford to give, he added. “I hate to use the word ‘survive. ’ I didn’t come to work to survive, ” John Gregory said. “I came to work to thrive. ” Loggers that bring timber to the sawmill are also under financial stress as diesel fuels not only their trucks but the off-road machinery. Chad Shelton, who works with H. J. Shelton Logging Inc. In Chatham and is on the board of the Virginia Loggers Association, calculated that fuel cost him $76, 000 more in 2011 than it did in 2010. While he used more fuel, the higher cost was also due to rising prices. Lower fuel costs could free up money for companies to expand, buy new equipment or service debt, explained Rocky Gregory, John’s son. “We need to source our own fuel and source it cheaper, ” he said. Hurt pointed to his support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship crude oil from Canada and northern states to Texas, as a way of helping do that. Hurt said he supports an “all of the above” energy policy that opens domestic supply, whether it be off the coast of Virginia, the Gulf of Mexico or in Alaska. The 5th District Congressman said he routinely hears from constituents about high gas prices. “It points to the importance of us in Washington going to work and trying to create a sensible domestic energy policy, ” Hurt said. Source: www2.newsadvance.com