Daily edition
October 5, 2026
Prepared from public sources. Links lead to original material.
By the numbers
U.S. on-highway diesel: $6.382/gal for September 28, down 14.7 cents from one week earlier. EIA
Madison’s Lumber Prices Index: $505/MBF for the week ending October 2, unchanged from the prior week and down $20/MBF from one month earlier. Madison’s Lumber Reporter
SOUTH — GEORGIA / BIOMASS & MILL INFRASTRUCTURE
70 MW Georgia biomass project moves into construction beside RYAM’s Jesup mill
Construction is underway on Altamaha Green Energy, a 70 MW biomass cogeneration facility next to RYAM’s Jesup, Georgia, high-purity-cellulose mill. The project will use sustainably sourced residues from the regional forestry industry, sell renewable electricity under a long-term agreement with Georgia Power and supply process steam to the Jesup operation.
RYAM expects commercial operation in 2029 and says its initial 14% ownership position could generate about $8 million to $10 million in annual distributions once the project is running. The company also expects the new utility system to avoid roughly $30 million of future capital spending that otherwise would have gone toward maintaining or replacing legacy equipment at Jesup. For southern wood markets, the next commercially important detail is feedstock demand: the company has identified regional forestry residues as the fuel source but has not disclosed annual tonnage or sourcing radius.
Action Detector
MIDWEST — INDIANA / FEDERAL TIMBER BIDS
Navy timber sale puts 281,190 board feet up for bid Thursday
Naval Weapons Station Crane is offering the Breakroom FY27 Timber Sale on two tracts totaling about 111 acres in Indiana. The sale covers approximately 877 trees estimated at 281,190 board feet on the Doyle scale.
Sealed bids are due by 2:00 p.m. local time Thursday, October 8 and are scheduled to be opened publicly at the same time. The sale is structured as a firm-fixed-price lump-sum or per-unit sale, and the solicitation gives the successful buyer two years from award to complete the work.
CANADA — ONTARIO / FOREST BIOMASS FUNDING
Ontario forest-biomass applications close October 15, with modernization awards up to C$10 million
Ontario’s Forest Biomass Program has an October 15 application deadline for projects intended to expand long-term wood utilization, with emphasis on underused species, mill by-products and other forest biomass. Eligible applicants include businesses, municipalities, Indigenous communities and not-for-profit organizations with Ontario-based projects.
The program’s four streams range from Indigenous bioeconomy partnerships and feasibility work to new bioproduct manufacturing and modernization of existing forest-products facilities. Maximum support reaches C$5 million for innovative bioproduct manufacturing and C$10 million for modernization projects, with lower caps but higher percentage coverage in the partnership and feasibility streams.
SOUTH — MISSISSIPPI / SAWMILL CAPACITY
Hood reaches the startup window for its $245 million Waynesboro sawmill rebuild
Hood Industries’ upgraded Waynesboro, Mississippi, sawmill is scheduled for its first day of operation in early October, putting the project into its planned startup window. The roughly $245 million rebuild was designed around continued operation of the existing mill while new systems were installed in phases.
The new plant includes a fully integrated sawmill with a high-performance hybrid sawline, two Continuous Dual Path Kilns, an upgraded planer mill and AI-powered Smart Vision systems for monitoring and optimization. The project matters beyond headline investment because it combines added southern-pine processing capability with a large technology refresh intended to increase fiber recovery, drying capacity and throughput.
Under the Radar
MIDWEST — LOGGING-SITE RESTORATION / RESEARCH
Biochar cut surface soil bulk density 18%–19% on compacted log landings
Forest Service researchers tested biochar, subsoiling and the two treatments together on 15 log landings across the Hoosier, Mark Twain and Shawnee national forests. One year after treatment, surface-applied biochar reduced bulk density by 18%–19% in the top 10 centimeters of soil whether used alone or with subsoiling.
The biochar treatments also increased potassium and plant-available phosphorus, with smaller increases reported for active carbon, total carbon and nitrogen. The result is operationally interesting because log landings are among the most heavily compacted parts of a harvest site; the study puts measurable numbers on a potential post-harvest treatment rather than treating landing recovery only as a grading-and-seeding problem.
FOREST BUSINESS SCHOOL RESOURCE
Forest-products tax credits in one searchable sourcebook
The National Forest Products Tax Credit Sourcebook brings federal and state tax-credit opportunities together for mills, logging companies, wood-energy businesses and other forest-products operations. The searchable site also includes the complete 2026 PDF.
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