New Brunswick Regulation 2026-25, made under the Private Woodlot Sustainability Act, introduces technical refinements to how timber prices are defined, calculated, and adjusted for regulatory and valuation purposes within the province’s private woodlot system. The amendments primarily modify New Brunswick Regulation 2023-38 and are aimed at improving the precision and consistency of the pricing formulas used to determine average and adjusted timber values, particularly for mixed hardwood and poplar products used in lumber and pallet manufacturing.

A key change is made to the definition of “average price” in section 2 of the existing regulation. The amendment clarifies that certain species or groups of timber are excluded from the calculation where specified in subsection 3(4). This refinement narrows the scope of the pricing formula and ensures that specific timber categories, which may have distinct market behaviours or valuation structures, are not inadvertently included in generalized averages. The adjustment improves interpretive clarity and reduces ambiguity in how the benchmark price is derived for regulatory reporting and compensation mechanisms.

The most substantive technical revision is the replacement of subsection 3(4), which establishes a revised methodology for calculating the average price of certain timber products. The new formulation applies specifically to mixed hardwood in the pulpwood class used for lumber or pallet manufacturing, as well as poplar in both sawlog and pulpwood classes used for similar end uses. Rather than relying on a single aggregated price, the regulation now requires a weighted calculation based on monthly prices published by recognized price reporting agencies.

Under the revised structure, the average price is determined by combining specific product categories with assigned weightings that reflect their relative market importance. Mixed hardwood pallet lumber sized 5/8 x 3½ x 40 inches is assigned a 36 percent weighting, while a larger 5/8 x 5½ x 40 inch variant carries a 54 percent weighting. Poplar-based pallet lumber is also incorporated, with the 5/8 x 3½ x 40 inch dimension weighted at 3 percent and the 5/8 x 5½ x 40 inch dimension weighted at 7 percent. These coefficients are designed to reflect the proportional contribution of each product type to the overall market basket used for pricing purposes, ensuring that the resulting average more accurately mirrors real-world production and trade patterns.

Further amendments are made to subsection 4(2), which governs the calculation of adjusted monthly timber prices. The revised provision clarifies that adjustments are applied to the average price of each species or group of species over a defined historical period, specifically from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2024. The calculation now explicitly requires that each monthly price be adjusted using data from relevant Statistics Canada tables, with December 2024 established as the base reference month. This creates a standardized temporal benchmark that ensures comparability across the dataset and reduces distortions arising from inflation or market fluctuations over time.

New Brunswick (25/2026) June 3, 2026
Disclaimer: Insights are for informational purposes only and does not reflect RRI’s official position or constitute legal opinion.