by Freedonia Industry Studies
June 25, 2021
While there’s been a lot of talk about the nationwide shortage of lumber – which has caused prices to rise and led to delays at numerous construction sites across the US – that is not the only construction material that’s in short supply. Construction professionals across the country face supply issues with a number of other construction materials, too, among them oriented strand board, or OSB. OSB is an engineered wood product used in a wide range of construction applications, key among them:
Demand for OSB has been elevated over the past year due to high levels of new housing construction (where OSB is used extensively) and homeowner interest in home remodeling, which has boosted used of the material as homeowners add bathrooms, expand kitchens, and convent old spaces into home gyms and offices.
Thus, the announcement by Huber Engineered Woods – a leading OSB supplier – that it would be erecting a new OSB plant was welcome news to the construction industry. The new site will take advantage of its proximity to the extensive forest stocks in the Upper Midwest to obtain raw materials for OSB that can be used in construction projects across the region and in the US as a whole. While the facility is not expected to begin operations until 2024, demand for new housing and home improvement projects is anticipated to remain strong going forward.
For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, particularly such studies as Flooring Wood Panels and Oriented Strand Board, as well other studies in the Construction and Building Products and Consumer Goods areas. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.