2020 Public Bid Results

mwainwright · Post by **mwainwright** » Mon Oct 21, 2019 10:24 am

Replant is truly the home of the silviculture nerds, and that's not meant as an insult.

Sunwatersoil · Post by **Sunwatersoil** » Mon Oct 21, 2019 7:30 pm

No offence taken.

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:44 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Houston

Contract: SILVICON-PL-2020
Client: Silvicon
# of Trees: 1,035,000
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 21st, 2019
Left on the Table: 21.1%

This is FFT funding. Lots of easy fill planting, some normal straight planting, and a few thousand trees in burns. Nice to see such a tight cluster of bids for Windfirm, Hybrid 17, and Whanau. These are all companies with extensive experience in the area. Dewan really seems to be desperately hungry for planting work, leaving that much on the table. Another six-figure number.

01. $ 486,450 - 47.0 cents/tree - Dewan
02. $ 588,915 - 56.9 cents/tree - Windfirm
03. $ 611,685 - 59.1 cents/tree - Hybrid 17
04. $ 626,175 - 60.5 cents/tree - Whanau Forestry
05. $ 639,630 - 61.8 cents/tree - Coast Range
06. $ 656,190 - 63.4 cents/tree - Folklore
07. $ 879,750 - 85.0 cents/tree - Waterside
08. $1,341,360 - $1.30 per tree - Torrent

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:20 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in East Kootenay

Contract: PL21TFH001
Client: BCTS Nelson
# of Trees: 1,392,690
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 22nd, 2019
Left on the Table: 14.3%

Oh dear. Another six-figure amount left on the table, and this time by a more reputable company. Zanzibar has put in a couple of bids now that may have been slightly misjudged. At least the percentage amount is lower than the previous one.

01. $ 737,091 - 52.9 cents/tree - Zanzibar
02. $ 842,572 - 60.5 cents/tree - Evergreen
03. $1,106,511 - 79.5 cents/tree - Brinkman

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:30 pm

Here are the results for another contract for Planting in East Kootenay

Contract: PL21TFH002
Client: BCTS Nelson
# of Trees: 500,600
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 23rd, 2019
Left on the Table: 20.0%

Zanzibar appears to have lost their hunger.

01. $283,853 - 56.7 cents/tree - Brinkman
02. $340,562 - 68.0 cents/tree - Evergreen
03. $395,850 - 79.1 cents/tree - Zanzibar

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:35 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Williams Lake

Contract: PL21DCC002
Client: MOF Williams Lake
# of Trees: 1,439,750
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 25th, 2019

No dollar amounts are currently available for the bids on this contract. I thought it was unusual to only see five bidders on this one. The ranking of the bids (lowest to highest) for contract PL21DCC002 is as follows:

01. Next Generation Reforestation Ltd.
02. Dynamic Reforestation Ltd.
03. Apex Reforestation Ltd.
04. Folklore Contracting Ltd.
05. Seneca Enterprises Ltd.

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:38 pm

Here are the results for another contract for Planting in Williams Lake

Contract: PL21DCC001
Client: MOF Williams Lake
# of Trees: 4,633,968
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 25th, 2019

No dollar amounts are currently available for the bids on this contract. This one also had only five bidders. I'm missing some info, I'll try to fill in the blanks next week. The ranking of the bids for contract PL21DCC001 (lowest to highest) is as follows:

01. Coast Range
02. Apex
03. ?
04. ?
05. Folklore Contracting

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 6:55 pm

The following are the results for a contract for Brushing in Chilliwack

Contract: BR20LMN002
Client: MOF Chilliwack
# of Hectares: 40
OTR: 3 years
Opened: August 15th, 2019
Left on the Table: 58.1% ouch

That's a high price per hectare. Must be tough ground. Most units can be accessed by 4x4. From the Conditions of Tender: "Planned manual brushing is for cutting tall shrub and herb species in areas that were re-planted in Spring 2017 after original plantation were burnt in a 2015 wildfire event. Most of the treatment units currently have well-developed brush layers, but low crop tree stocking density. The primary treatment objective is to prepare treatment areas for a fill-planting treatment in Spring 2020 by eradicating existing dense brush cover."

01. $ 49,600 - $1,240/ha - Fieldstone
02. $ 78,400 - $1,960/ha - GBF Technical Forest Services
03. $ 112,000 - $2,800/ha - Mihis
04. $ 123,000 - $3,000/ha - Osprey

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:13 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Fort St. James

Contract: PL21TJE004
Client: BCTS Fort St James
# of Trees: 627,295
Season: Spring 2020
CRS: Yes
OTR: No
Opened: October 24th, 2019
Left on the Table: 15.7%

This one is very, very spread out. Also, you'll note from the attached Unverified Bid Results graphic that this contract used the Contractor Rating System (CRS) and that changed the "winning order" of bids slightly (although it didn't change the winning low bid). The numbers after company names on the Unverified Bid Results graphic indicate that position of each company AFTER their CRS rating was applied to their bid.

01. $307,397 - 49.0 cents/tree - Blue Collar
02. $355,805 - 56.7 cents/tree - Artisan
03. $365,408 - 58.3 cents/tree - Folklore
04. $381,871 - 60.9 cents/tree - Dynamic
05. $384,101 - 61.2 cents/tree - Apex
06. $400,968 - 63.9 cents/tree - Coast Range
07. $422,893 - 67.4 cents/tree - Seneca
08. $454,020 - 72.4 cents/tree - Celtic

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:21 pm

Here are the results for another contract for Planting in Fort St James

Contract: PL21TJE005
Client: BCTS Fort St James
# of Trees: 1,936,000
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 24th, 2019
CRS: Yes
OTR: No
Left on the Table: 7.9%

This is probably one of the most consistently bid contracts that we've seen this year. This contract also used the Contractor Rating System. Again, that didn't change the low bidder, but it did result in a swap between positions 3 and 4, and between positions 8 and 9, and also bumped the #5 bidder down to position 7.

01. $ 871,585 - 45.0 cents/tree - Blue Collar
02. $ 940,721 - 48.6 cents/tree - Folklore
03. $ 943,235 - 48.7 cents/tree - Coast Range
04. $ 945,326 - 48.8 cents/tree - Apex
05. $ 945,845 - 48.9 cents/tree - Artisan
06. $ 955,014 - 49.3 cents/tree - Celtic
07. $ 974,431 - 50.3 cents/tree - Dynamic
08. $1,069,929 - 55.3 cents/tree - Dewan
09. $1,072,137 - 55.4 cents/tree - NGR
10. $1,176,458 - 60.8 cents/tree - Seneca

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 7:52 pm

That's all for now. There are at least 8 bids opening next week that I can think of off the top of my head, and at least 5 the following week, but that won't be the end of them. It's still early in the season. I have a busy week next week, so I might not be able to post results until the end of the week again, in a batch.

As a summary so far, Rhino and Dewan and (surprisingly) Zanzibar have been the companies this year that have been leaving huge dollars amounts on the table, with misjudged low bids. However, Rhino is probably full now as they appear to have stopped bidding, and Zanzibar suddenly raised their bids quite significantly on the last tender they participated in.

Although I don't have a mathematical summary started yet, it appears that the bids so far are trending about 5-10% higher than last year's numbers, as expected. The average low bid (public tenders) in 2018 was 45.18 cents per tree, and the average overall bid was 53.65 cents. The numbers this year certainly seem higher than last year's final number, and that's factoring in several bids in very easy ground in the northern Interior. Also, bids are more likely to go up than down as get closer to winter, due to capacity considerations. Unfortunately, it may be three full weeks before I have time to do a complete analysis of all the averages. But I'll get to it as soon as I can.

Treeppy · Post by **Treeppy** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:37 am

It is to be noted that the Vanderhoof job won by Rhino, PL21TJE002, was actually awarded to the second bidder, Celtic.
So, I guess, Rhino might not be done bidding for the year after all.

rob.m · Post by **rob.m** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:01 pm

Rhino won the Zanzibar jobs in Quesnel. You forgot to list those Scooter.

Post by **Scooter** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 6:31 pm

I don't have that information, although I heard that they were the low bidder on at least one of those two jobs. That would explain why Vanderhoof went up to Celtic (thanks Treeppy, I hadn't seen that). BCTS Vanderhoof 002 opened on October 3rd, the same day as all the Zanzibar-administered bids. PL21ZAN003 had 1,551,532 trees. PL21ZAN004 had 1,083,950 trees. The Vanderhoof 002 job was 1.14m trees. If Rhino won three jobs in one day, they may have been looking at the totals and decided that they couldn't do 3.7 million extra spring trees, or whatever that added up to. So they probably decided that the two Quesnel jobs were more appealing and/or lucrative, and were able to convince BCTS that they should be allowed to drop the Vanderhoof job (there is a 48 hour window on BCTS jobs to allow the low bidder to drop the job if they can prove that they no longer have the capacity to complete the job). Getting the Zanzibar jobs would be a very valid excuse for dropping Vanderhoof without penalty (without losing the continuous bid deposit of $25,000).

The only caveat is that since Rhino probably dropped Vanderhoof under the scenario above, they've probably used their "we don't have the capacity anymore" trump card with BCTS for 2020 work. So they probably won't be bidding on any more BCTS work this fall anyway.

Sunwatersoil · Post by **Sunwatersoil** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:14 pm

Something I've always wondered, how does Zanzibar factor into the public bidding process? What does Zanzibar-administered mean?

jdtesluk · Post by **jdtesluk** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 11:20 pm

My understanding is that they are hired to provide forestry management services for the licensee or in other cases the Gov't agency (i.e. FFT).
The same role is played by Forsite and other consultant forestry companies. So they basically are paid to administrate the contract, including fielding of bids, vetting applicants, monitoring the job, and verifying satisfactory completion.
Zanzibar has a forestry management wing of operations with an office in 100 Mile, and they do layout and survey work, along with the admin jobs. Some of their work also involves joint ventures with First Nations.

chez9 · Post by **chez9** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 6:02 pm

Obviously not vetting the applicants too hard if they allowed Rhino to win the contracts.

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:30 pm

Here are the results for the first of three contracts for Planting in Quesnel

Contract: PL21DQU001
Client: MOF Quesnel
# of Trees: 1,329,070
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 28th, 2019
Left on the Table: 25.6%

Let's start this evening's festivities with the largest dollar amount left on the table yet this season: $159,712. I think AKD is going to get this year's trophy for that dubious award.

01. $ 624,439 - 47.0 cents/tree - AKD
02. $ 784,151 - 59.0 cents/tree - Blue Collar
03. $ 791,497 - 59.6 cents/tree - Folklore
04. $ 798,243 - 60.1 cents/tree - Torrent
05. $ 863,895 - 65.0 cents/tree - NGR
06. $ 903,768 - 68.0 cents/tree - Dewan
07. $1,057,853 - 79.6 cents/tree - Evergreen
08. $1,074,264 - 80.8 cents/tree - Apex
09. $1,230,158 - 92.6 cents/tree - Seneca

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:35 pm

Here are the results for the second of three contracts for Planting in Quesnel

Contract: PL21DQU002
Client: MOF Quesnel
# of Trees: 529,660
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 28th, 2019
Left on the Table: 29.4%

On a roll.

01. $228,415 - 43.1 cents/tree - AKD
02. $295,534 - 55.8 cents/tree - NGR
03. $322,476 - 60.9 cents/tree - Dewan
04. $385,797 - 72.8 cents/tree - Apex
05. $426,266 - 80.5 cents/tree - Folklore
06. $440,535 - 83.2 cents/tree - Blue Collar
07. $441,848 - 83.4 cents/tree - Evergreen
08. $460,476 - 86.9 cents/tree - Seneca
09. $554,954 - $1.05 per tree - Torrent

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:39 pm

Here are the results for the last of three (MOF) contracts for Planting in Quesnel

Contract: PL21DQU003
Client: MOF Quesnel
# of Trees: 2,331,635
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 28th, 2019
Left on the Table: 2.5%

A great bid by Seneca. Congratulations. Also, one of the most tightly bid contracts of the year. People obviously put a lot of effort into considering this one.

01. $1,134,406 - 48.7 cents/tree - Seneca
02. $1,162,800 - 49.9 cents/tree - Folklore
03. $1,193,781 - 51.2 cents/tree - NGR
04. $1,221,397 - 52.4 cents/tree - Blue Collar
05. $1,223,873 - 52.5 cents/tree - Coast Range
06. $1,271,525 - 54.5 cents/tree - Apex
07. $1,297,497 - 55.6 cents/tree - AKD
08. $1,433,214 - 61.5 cents/tree - Dewan

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Oct 29, 2019 9:41 pm

That's all for tonight. I also heard that Windfirm got the second Silvicon contract, although I don't have details yet.

Based on the numbers above, I see more confirmation that the average bids seem to be trending slightly higher than last fall. And increasing as the bidding season progresses.

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Oct 30, 2019 5:44 pm

Here are the results for the first of many BCTS jobs for Planting out of Williams Lake
(The other three open at various points over the next three weeks).

Contract: PL21TLE001
Client: BCTS Williams Lake
# of Trees: 1,875,747
Season: Spring 2020
Contractor Rating System: Yes
Option-to-Renew: No
Opened: October 30th, 2019
Left on the Table: 2.8%

I viewed this and thought that this was a very nice job. Lots of nice blocks, although it's somewhat spread out. I think that NGR will be happy with this one. But watch those MITD's!

Due to the Contractor Rating System, Celtic and Torrent actually reversed positions in the "award rankings," so Celtic is technically in fourth place while Torrent is in fifth. I doubt this one will move up the line though.

01. $ 971,879 - 51.8 cents/tree - NGR
02. $ 998,908 - 53.3 cents/tree - Dynamic
03. $ 999,872 - 53.3 cents/tree - Folklore
04. $1,027,629 - 54.8 cents/tree - Torrent
05. $1,057,381 - 56.4 cents/tree - Celtic
06. $1,092,556 - 58.2 cents/tree - Coast Range
07. $1,296,517 - 69.1 cents/tree - Apex
08. $1,395,105 - 74.4 cents/tree - Blue Collar
09. $1,515,608 - 80.8 cents/tree - Seneca

Post by **Scooter** » Thu Oct 31, 2019 5:50 pm

Contract PL21TJE003 for BCTS in Vanderhoof has been awarded to the second place bidder, Folklore.

That tender opening was originally referenced in this post: http://www.replant.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic. ... 309#p92575

Post by **Scooter** » Thu Oct 31, 2019 5:59 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Cascades

Contract: PL21TEF619
Client: BCTS Merritt
# of Trees: 2,031,406
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 31, 2019
Left on the Table: 5.0%

Zanzibar must be very, very thankful for Leader's bid on this one. Otherwise, they would have left about $600k on the table. That would have been an all-time record, to the best of my recollection.

01. $1,330,870 - 65.5 cents/tree - Zanzibar
02. $1,397,891 - 68.8 cents/tree - Leader
03. $1,908,170 - 93.9 cents/tree - Seneca
04. $1,914,935 - 94.3 cents/tree - Blue Collar

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:47 pm

I just revised the numbers in the previous set of results slightly. I had the wrong number of trees, thanks to an amendment from the original number. Thanks to the reader who pointed that out.

Also, a clarification. That wouldn't have been the largest dollar amount left on the table. How could we forget this one, with $743,000 in lost opportunity:
http://www.replant.ca/phpBB3/viewtopic. ... =50#p88281

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 6:53 pm

Here are the results for the first of four Forsite contracts for Planting in 100 Mile House

Contract: PL21CCF001
Client: Forsite Consultants Forest Management
# of Trees: 919,250
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 29th, 2019
Option to Renew: No
Left on the Table: 9.1%

This contract is just a bit to the northeast of Clinton, I think. This one is FES funding, but this is the only one of the four contracts for Forsite that is not an option-to-renew.

01. $468,010 - 50.9 cents/tree - Torrent
02. $510,728 - 55.6 cents/tree - Folklore
03. $581,255 - 63.2 cents/tree - Leader
04. $610,716 - 66.4 cents/tree - Brinkman
05. $625,091 - 68.0 cents/tree - Fieldstone
06. $645,244 - 70.2 cents/tree - Seneca
07. $652,417 - 71.0 cents/tree - Apex
08. $842,887 - 91.7 cents/tree - Celtic

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:00 pm

Here are the results for the second of four Forsite contracts for Planting in 100 Mile House

Contract: PL21FOR001
Client: Forsite Consultants Forest Management
# of Trees: 1,438,259
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 29th, 2019
Option to Renew: Yes
Left on the Table: 2.5%

Apex isn't usually too aggressive in their bids, so it's good to see them getting some work.

01. $ 753,153 - 52.4 cents/tree - Apex
02. $ 772,009 - 53.7 cents/tree - Dynamic
03. $ 818,456 - 56.9 cents/tree - Folklore
04. $ 843,980 - 58.7 cents/tree - Evergreen
05. $ 961,161 - 66.8 cents/tree - Brinkman
06. $ 983,410 - 68.4 cents/tree - Leader
07. $1,001,312 - 69.6 cents/tree - Torrent
08. $1,017,650 - 70.8 cents/tree - Zanzibar
09. $1,229,731 - 85.5 cents/tree - Seneca
10. $1,292,068 - 89.8 cents/tree - Celtic

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:07 pm

Here are the results for the third of four Forsite contracts for Planting in 100 Mile House

Contract: PL21FOR002
Client: Forsite Consultants Forest Management
# of Trees: 1,222,916
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 29th, 2019
Option to Renew: Yes
Left on the Table: 7.8%

Two in the same area for Apex, very convenient.

01. $633,438 - 51.8 cents/tree - Apex
02. $683,050 - 55.9 cents/tree - Evergreen
03. $692,186 - 56.6 cents/tree - Dynamic
04. $713,687 - 58.4 cents/tree - Folklore
05. $758,449 - 62.0 cents/tree - Leader
06. $777,484 - 63.6 cents/tree - Zanzibar
07. $789,869 - 64.6 cents/tree - Torrent
08. $841,198 - 68.8 cents/tree - Brinkman
09. $894,900 - 73.2 cents/tree - Fieldstone
10. $932,902 - 76.3 cents/tree - Celtic
11. $955,057 - 78.1 cents/tree - Seneca

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:15 pm

Here are the results for the last of four contracts for Planting in 100 Mile House

Contract: PL21FOR003
Client: Forsite Consultants Forest Management
# of Trees: 788,950
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 29th, 2019
Option to Renew: Yes
Left on the Table: 0.01%

We almost have a record here. I believe that I only remember one contract where the difference between the low and second place bidders was closer than this one ($419). This contract is closer to Cache Creek, with all the blocks up the Scottie FSR.

01. $406,806 - 51.6 cents/tree - Folklore
02. $407,225 - 51.6 cents/tree - Evergreen
03. $450,101 - 57.1 cents/tree - Leader
04. $465,711 - 59.0 cents/tree - Dynamic
05. $485,205 - 61.5 cents/tree - A&G
06. $517,883 - 65.6 cents/tree - Torrent
07. $520,721 - 66.0 cents/tree - Zanzibar
08. $530,659 - 67.3 cents/tree - Brinkman
09. $545,568 - 69.2 cents/tree - Apex
10. $550,865 - 69.8 cents/tree - Fieldstone
11. $684,392 - 86.7 cents/tree - Seneca
12. $692,516 - 87.8 cents/tree - Celtic

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 7:23 pm

Again, a week with bids trending upwards. Almost all of the winning bids this week, except for the couple jobs at the start of the week, were above fifty cents per tree (and the overall average bids were probably well into the mid-sixties). And a lot of these contracts were for very easy ground.

Next week has public bids opening in at least five more areas.

jdtesluk · Post by **jdtesluk** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 8:45 pm

Scooter wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 5:59 pm Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Cascades

Contract: PL21TEF619
Client: BCTS Merritt
# of Trees: 2,031,406
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 31, 2019
Left on the Table: 5.0%

Zanzibar must be very, very thankful for Leader's bid on this one. Otherwise, they would have left about $600k on the table. That would have been an all-time record, to the best of my recollection.

01. $1,330,870 - 65.5 cents/tree - Zanzibar
02. $1,397,891 - 68.8 cents/tree - Leader
03. $1,908,170 - 93.9 cents/tree - Seneca
04. $1,914,935 - 94.3 cents/tree - Blue Collar

Headline on this one may be that the bids are nearly 20c higher than previous years for the same job (or so I'm told)! This is a very good sign for planters. However, one must wonder how far they can go before the licensees start cancelling more programs. Zanzibar and Leader have a long history in this area. I think those other two bids were just flyers trying to score a rich job. Lots of that going on right now.

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 8:54 pm

High prices there are probably deserved, considering the reputation of that job. By that, I mean that a lot of people say that the BCTS Merritt job has "rigorous specifications." But I'm sure the foresters are happy to pay that premium in order to have planters meet their expectations.

jdtesluk · Post by **jdtesluk** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 9:17 pm

I just edited my last post there, but didn't get it all in there. Was going to say I think those two high bids are just flyers looking for a rich job. Zanzibar and Leader have long histories in this area. It can be very technical with cattle planting, and the Cascades implies the area south of Merritt toward the Coquihalla I hit my PB on that job about 15 years ago. I expect it will be very good.

TripleS · Post by **TripleS** » Sat Nov 02, 2019 10:12 am

Considering this is my backyard and where the bulk of my work is, I was surprised at how high the bids were too, so I asked around. Approximately 42% of the trees are fill plants, there are several heli access blocks too, and a bunch of quad access/walk in as well . The work is also quite spread out (Merritt, Princeton, Lillooet...). While the planters should do well, the bid is not as amazing as it first appears. There can be some nasty fills in these parts, particularly if the blocks are older and grassed in. I wonder if these fill plants are the result of Brinky and Coast Range's stellar quality

?

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Nov 05, 2019 7:10 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Williams Lake

Contract: PL21TLE004
Client: BCTS Williams Lake
# of Trees: 473,765
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: November 5th, 2019
Left on the Table: I guess we'll never know

Looks like some people didn't understand the vague wording in this one. I have no idea why five of six companies were considered to be ineligible, but it may have related to a request for references on being able to plant research plots. This contract is a single block near Williams Lake which has a large number of research plots scattered throughout. Those plots are to be planted at 6000 stems/Ha density (yes, 30's) although it's a specific pattern, so you basically plant 2000 stems/Ha but put two companion trees within 12 inches of the alpha trees in each plot. Anyway, the conditions of tender were worded in a way that many people may have assumed that the reference check would happen after the contract was awarded. I don't know.

The funny thing is that some of the other companies may have bid lower than Torrent, so the government might have cost the taxpayers a bit of money by mistake. Maybe that's why the bid amounts for all the other companies are hidden. Why are the other bids hidden? Normally, if someone fails a reference check, their bid is still visible.

01. $240,108 - 50.7 cents/tree - Torrent
NGR, Seneca, Folklore, Apex, and Blue Collar were all deemed ineligible.

I'm quite amused by this.

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:05 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Prince George

Contract: PL21TGC001
Client: BCTS Prince George
# of Trees: 1,797,185
Season: Spring and Summer 2020
Opened: November 5, 2019
Contractor Rating System: Yes
Option to Renew: No
Left on the Table: 10.0%

This one had 850k of spring trees and 947k of summer trees.

01. $ 829,424 - 46.2 cents/tree - Spectrum
02. $ 912,464 - 50.8 cents/tree - Celtic
03. $1,067,779 - 59.4 cents/tree - Brinkman
04. $1,157,369 - 64.4 cents/tree - Folklore
05. $1,199,075 - 66.7 cents/tree - Apex
06. $1,303,201 - 72.5 cents/tree - Seneca
07. $1,749,094 - 97.3 cents/tree - Dynamic

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:12 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in 100 Mile House

Contract: PL21DMH001
Client: MOF 100 Mile
# of Trees: 1,184,190
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: November 5, 2019
Option to Renew: Yes
Left on the Table: 4.0%

I think this is probably fairly close (geographically) to the other two contracts that Apex won earlier (the Forsite contracts).

01. $652,148 - 55.1 cents/tree - Apex
02. $678,411 - 57.3 cents/tree - Folklore
03. $708,118 - 59.8 cents/tree - Dynamic
04. $777,003 - 65.6 cents/tree - Brinkman
05. $910,322 - 76.9 cents/tree - Seneca

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Nov 06, 2019 9:17 pm

Here are the results for another contract for Planting in 100 Mile House

Contract: PL21DMH002
Client: MOF 100 Mile
# of Trees: 1,523,700
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: November 5, 2019
Option to Renew: Yes
Left on the Table: 7.6%

Two good (logical) tenders here in a row. There will be one more MOF contract in 100 Mile, plus two for BCTS that haven't even come out yet. And that's on top of the previous jobs for Forsite. There are a lot of trees being planted in Elephant Hill Fire area this year. My camp will also be up in that area doing BCTS Kamloops work.

01. $ 786,484 - 51.6 cents/tree - Dynamic
02. $ 846,295 - 55.5 cents/tree - Evergreen
03. $ 888,159 - 58.3 cents/tree - Folklore
04. $ 902,778 - 59.2 cents/tree - Apex
05. $1,154,379 - 75.8 cents/tree - Seneca
06. $1,177,575 - 77.3 cents/tree - Brinkman

Post by **Scooter** » Thu Nov 07, 2019 5:07 pm

Here are the results for a bid for Planting in Burns Lake

Contract: SILVICON-PL-2020
Client: Silvicon
# of Trees: 835,000
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: October 28, 2019
Left on the Table: 11.8%

01. $ 394,955 - 47.3 cents/tree - Windfirm
02. $ 441,715 - 52.9 cents/tree - Whanau Forestry
03. $ 509,350 - 61.0 cents/tree - Waterside
04. $ 510,185 - 61.1 cents/tree - Folklore
05. $ 516,856 - 61.9 cents/tree - Hybrid 17
06. $ 809,950 - 97.0 cents/tree - Dewan
07. $1,060,450 - $1.27/tree - Torrent

Post by **Scooter** » Fri Nov 08, 2019 2:21 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Kootenay Lake

Contract: PL21TFD001
Client: BCTS Nelson
# of Trees: 903,464
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: November 7, 2019
Contractor Rating System: Yes
Option to Renew: No
Left on the Table: 3.5%

This is a nice bid. Although it doesn't affect the winner, bids from two of the competing companies in this one (Brinkman and Fieldstone) happened to be very close to each other, only about $238 separating them.

01. $542,028 - 60.0 cents/tree - Nature's Treasures
02. $561,261 - 62.1 cents/tree - West Arm Silviculture
03. $672,746 - 74.5 cents/tree - Fieldstone
04. $672,984 - 74.5 cents/tree - Brinkman
05. $680,849 - 75.4 cents/tree - Evergreen

Post by **Scooter** » Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:43 pm

There has been some attention paid to lumber pricing recently. There's a lot of information in the news about mills closing in BC. There's no doubt that the forestry industry is suffering major setbacks.

Some people have suggested that low lumber prices are to blame. Others have suggested that high stumpage rates (due to a long lag time in formula readjustment) are to blame. Still others say that it has nothing to do with the financial side of things, and the big problem is that the industry needed to contract in the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic that played out over the past fifteen years. In that respect, many people say that these curtailments and shutdowns were a long time coming, and that anyone who understood the industry would know that these shutdowns were inevitable.

I decided to take a quick look at historical lumber pricing this evening, to see if I could get a better understanding of what has happened. When I looked at the charts, I saw that today's pricing in BC is around $396 per thousand board feet (the usual industry metric). I then looked backward to see if I could compare that level with industry averages over the past twenty years. I was surprised. With the exception of a brief very strong surge in pricing (above $600/MBF) in 2018, the current price is essentially the strongest price since 2004! Caveat, there was also one very brief period around 2013 when prices rose very briefly above $400/MBF but then dropped again right away.

So if the current prices are almost the strongest prices in the past twenty years, and well above the overall average pricing of the past twenty years, then how can "weak lumber pricing" be the problem? I immediately realized that I have to adjust for inflation. For the same reasons that the planting industry has complained that real average daily earnings have not kept up with inflation, we need to apply the same logic to lumber prices. After all, we've done studies on tree prices that have indicated that once inflation has been factored in, our average wages from the early 2000's to 2018 dropped by about 21-24% in real terms, even though minimum wage and overall hourly wage rates in BC during that same period (when measured against inflation) have both increased.

Anyway, I brought in the CPI info from StatsCan, and applied it to the historical annual average lumber prices. I had to make an estimate (1.8%) on the current year CPI, since that data isn't available yet. I then took my inflation-adjusted lumber prices and created a chart in Excel. You can see it below. The dark solid line represents annual average lumber prices/MCF adjusted for inflation. The dotted horizontal line represents the average over those two decades.

Based upon this adjusted data, it appears that the current price for lumber (around $396/MBF) has only been met or exceeded for two periods since 2006: a very strong period last year, and a short period where prices were as strong as today around 2012-2014.

Post by **Scooter** » Mon Nov 11, 2019 11:56 am

I don't know why my line chart keeps disappearing from that post.
Here it is.

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 12:07 pm

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Prince George

Contract: PL21TGC002
Client: BCTS Prince George
# of Trees: 1,617,291
Season: Spring & Summer 2020
Opened: November 12, 2019
Contractor Rating System: Yes
Left on the Table: 4.7%

This is one that is very much worth looking at. This contract went for only 46.0 cents last year, and is the one that started off the slew of higher bids in 2018. So the bid price has jumped by 24.6% from last year's bid price (and even that one was 15% higher than the previous year). The contract is very similar to last year's. In fact, some of the blocks are the same that were on last year's contract, and just didn't get planted due to a tree shortage.

If you look at the Unverified Bid Results graphic, you can see that although Celtic's bid was highest, they jumped ahead of Seneca into 5th place due to the Contractor Rating System rankings.

01. $ 927,431 - 57.3 cents/tree - Folklore
02. $ 971,207 - 60.0 cents/tree - Brinkman
03. $1,046,995 - 64.7 cents/tree - Spectrum
04. $1,182,395 - 73.1 cents/tree - Apex
05. $1,315,507 - 81.3 cents/tree - Seneca
06. $1,350,757 - 83.5 cents/tree - Celtic

jdtesluk · Post by **jdtesluk** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 2:16 pm

What we really need Scooter is an interactive map for bids, that pop like the BC Wildfire Map. As you mouse over them, each bid should display all of the above information, particularly the increase over last year's winning bid for the same job. The map should have a toggle switch so that you can bring up all bids by an individual company, or filter according to funding program, price, or season.

That shouldn't be too hard to whip up. Let us know when you've got this up and running

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 2:28 pm

I'd try to get that done in the next hour, but I'm making soup.

salbrecher · Post by **salbrecher** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:02 pm

Scooter wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 7:43 pm There has been some attention paid to lumber pricing recently. There's a lot of information in the news about mills closing in BC. There's no doubt that the forestry industry is suffering major setbacks.

Some people have suggested that low lumber prices are to blame. Others have suggested that high stumpage rates (due to a long lag time in formula readjustment) are to blame. Still others say that it has nothing to do with the financial side of things, and the big problem is that the industry needed to contract in the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic that played out over the past fifteen years. In that respect, many people say that these curtailments and shutdowns were a long time coming, and that anyone who understood the industry would know that these shutdowns were inevitable.

I decided to take a quick look at historical lumber pricing this evening, to see if I could get a better understanding of what has happened. When I looked at the charts, I saw that today's pricing in BC is around $396 per thousand board feet (the usual industry metric). I then looked backward to see if I could compare that level with industry averages over the past twenty years. I was surprised. With the exception of a brief very strong surge in pricing (above $600/MBF) in 2018, the current price is essentially the strongest price since 2004! Caveat, there was also one very brief period around 2013 when prices rose very briefly above $400/MBF but then dropped again right away.

So if the current prices are almost the strongest prices in the past twenty years, and well above the overall average pricing of the past twenty years, then how can "weak lumber pricing" be the problem?

Most of the articles that talk about mill closures refer to high log costs being a significant issue, among other things. You are right that lumber prices are pretty good in the scheme of things but the cost of getting a log out of the forest has doubled and almost tripled since I started working in operational forestry in 2009. Licensees have logged the low cost pine beetle salvage wood/lower cost blocks and the remaining stands are higher cost with more marginal lower value wood, ands have higher logging, development, road building, transportation,and labour costs etc. So even though lumber prices aren't too bad, log costs have gone up significantly making the stands uneconomical given the lumber prices.

Post by **Scooter** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:08 pm

That makes sense.

You might be able to answer a question. From your industry perspective, do you think there's any potential in creating tree farms? By that, I mean literally farms, where tracts of wood are grown and managed intensively for wood production, rather than under BC's current model. I believe I read somewhere that Sweden harvests the same general land base as BC, but because of their intensive post-planting work (stand-tending, thinning, species management, etc.) they are able to get much larger volumes from the same geographic areas. Now the obvious conclusion would be that their species have better growing conditions, but they obviously have a very similar climate to BC. I'm a big fan of thinking that post-harvest treatments (brushing/thinning) are good for the forests and good for industry, but it seems that this type of work is brushed aside by a lot of forests who don't see direct value-added input.

salbrecher · Post by **salbrecher** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 4:35 pm

A very short answer would be that the current tenure system does not encourage or recognize those investments by licensees. Our current tenure system does not provide the security that an investment made today will be realized by the same licensee when harvested at rotation.

Sweden's land ownership is roughly 50% private ownership from citizens, companies own 25%, and the remainder mostly smaller private companies or state owned. That should tell you something about the security and investment that comes with private ownership.

Would you be willing to privatize crown land to get a larger yield from it?

Alternatively and more realistically. government could incentivize (pay) for those investments (fertilizing, site prep, larger stock, thinning, pruning, etc) through enhanced silviculture costs in the appraisal manual.

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:17 am

My gut feeling is that privatization of crown land is a terrible idea.

Having said that, the two provinces that I'm most familiar with have radically different proportions of crown land. BC is about 95% crown land (94% provincial and 1% federal) whereas Nova Scotia is only 29% crown. I also do a lot of work in New Brunswick (48% crown) and Alberta (60% crown). So there's a lot of variety from province to province.

Post by **Scooter** » Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:26 am

Here are the results for a contract for Planting in Burns Lake

Contract: PL21TAS0100
Client: BCTS Burns Lake
# of Trees: 1,186,794
Season: Spring 2020
Opened: November 7, 2019
Left on the Table: 9.9%

The numbered company is Chris Howard's new company, Whanau Forestry. Chris was a supervisor at Folklore in the 1990's, and then went on to become a co-owner at Elf Silviculture for many years. They're a very small company that is local to that area.

01. $585,698 - 49.3 cents/tree - 0690528 BC Ltd. (Whanau Forestry)
02. $643,527 - 54.2 cents/tree - Waterside Ventures
03. $654,156 - 55.1 cents/tree - Windfirm
04. $691,700 - 58.3 cents/tree - Dynamic
05. $695,370 - 58.6 cents/tree - Folklore