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March 2007 - The Logging and Sawmilling Journal

CONTRACTOR PROFILE

BEETLE CHALLENGE

BC logging contractor Mike Closs has successfully taken on the challenge of increasing the size of his operation in recent years and is currently taking on a longer term challenge: harvesting mountain pine beetle-killed wood.

By Paul MacDonald

This past winter, the crew at British Columbia’s Mike Closs Logging had to contend with a spell of cold weather—it was minus 34 degrees Celsius at one point, to be exact. And alth ough production was a bit less than usual, they simply carried on and moved the wood.

“I worked in Fort Nelson in northern BC for three winters, and it was often a steady minus 40 Celsius, so minus 34 is not too bad,” says company owner Mike Closs. “In the north, you learn to be very efficient, have good equipment, maintain that equipment and keep it running, even in cold weather. So I’m inclined to keep things moving when it gets cold.”

Although this kind of cold weather can cause the steel on logging equipment to be brittle, and create other associated problems, Closs says he finds the cold simply advances, rather than causes, equipment problems.

“In minus 25, if your starter is dragging and making a growling sound, it’s probably on its way out anyway. The cold weather sometimes just moves things like that forward, and we deal with it.” And regardless of whether it’s minus 34 Celsius or a sweltering plus 34 Celsius, the crew at Mike Closs Logging, working in the Okanagan region of BC, continues to deliver.

Closs has more iron to manage these days, with the acquisition of another contracting operation and replaceable contract. The contractor Closs acquired had a fair amount of equipment, but he was careful about what they took on, selecting only the pieces that have since meshed very well with his existing equipment line-up. They now have more than 20 pieces of equipment. Though there is some variety in there, there is a definite emphasis on John Deere equipment.

“It’s a lot more equipment to look after,” he notes. “But the purchase gives us more replaceable contract—I thought it would give us some security and be a good long-term strategic move for the company.” They now have 97,500 cubic meters of replaceable annual cut and harvest volumes will probably be around 230,000 meters annually, all of it being done for Tolko Industries, a major forest industry player in the Okanagan Region.

“I could have taken more equipment in the deal, and it might have worked out fine and been a good deal. But older equipment—regardless of where it comes from—can cause problems, and we need dependable, steady, productive equipment,” adds Closs.

Eventually with all equipment, he notes, it’s carefully treading that fine line between whether there is still a good, solid season left or whether it’s time to trade it in for new iron.

“Sometimes a machine can be running great, and you’ll get that extra time out of it. But sometimes it will be operating really well, and then the transmission goes, and then you need some engine work, and then a hydraulic pump might go.” And if it’s a key piece of equipment, like a loader, suddenly you have trucks waiting around and no logs going to the mill, he notes.

“We need to have the equipment out there working steady, being dependable and profitable for us. And we need to have a good company behind us to service the equipment.” As Closs notes, making an equipment purchase—whether it is a loader, buncher or skidder—is one thing. Having the right dealer behind the purchase—with good back-up on parts and service—is the other part of the equation. BC John Deere dealer Brandt Tractor “has been very good to us,” he says.

The Deere line-up at Mike Closs Logging includes a Deere 2054 log loader, three Deere 2054 processors with Waratah heads, one Deere 2554 hoe chucker/road builder, a Deere 853G feller buncher, a Deere 270 excavator, and two Deere 748 GIII grapple skidders.

“Brandt Tractor offers great service and I like the Deere product. Unlike some of the other companies, Deere sells the entire logging line, so we can get what we need.”

That commonality of equipment can be an advantage, he says. “If you’ve got a mechanic out to do something on your skidder, you can get him to do a little repair on your buncher, too.”

Rounding out the equipment line-up for Mike Closs Logging is a Madill T2250B leveling buncher, a Cat 527 track skidder, a Cat 525 grapple skidder, a Hitachi 200 processor with a Waratah head, and a Hitachi 200 Zaxis log loader, all of which are also delivering the timber, day-in, dayout.

When Closs looks at an equipment purchase, first and foremost he wants a piece of equipment that is going to do the job efficiently. He then looks at what is it going to cost to maintain that piece of equipment over the four or five years it will be working for him, and what the residual value is going to be. “The Deere equipment seems to have good retained value when it’s time for us to look for something new,” he notes.

What happens to that equipment while it is working for Mike Closs Logging is also part of the reason for that high retained value. Working out of the company’s field service truck, mechanical supervisor Tom Williams keeps detailed service records for each machine, whether it involves routine maintenance, such as oil and filter changes, or major component work.

“We do maintain our equipment well,” says Closs. “We have 250-hour intervals on oil and filter changes, and we’re pretty diligent about that.”

The general approach at Mike Closs Logging is to give the crew the good working tools—in terms of equipment—they need to do a good job. “The key equipment—bunchers, processors, log loaders—the equipment that can take your operation down, is replaced every four to five years,” explains Closs.

“One of our skidders is getting up there in hours, but we have a spare back-up machine. With the upfront production equipment, it has to be out there working every day.”

Mike Closs (above) notes that selecting the right equipment—from bunchers to processors to trucks—is one thing, but having the right dealer behind the purchase, with good back-up on parts and service, is the other part of the equation.

Equipment-wise, Closs says the operation is pretty much where it needs to be, at least for the time being. With a switch to short wood on Tolko’s part coming soon, he has some new log trailers and a new truck on order. And the five sub-contractor trucks he hires will have to make some equipment changes of their own.

Closs takes great pride in making sure his logging operations mesh well with Tolko’s sawmill needs. “We’ve got to be flexible,” he says. “Tolko is our customer and we need to be able to give them what they want. If they have a shortage of fir peelers, or if they want to send us into some bigger wood or a steep block, you’ve got to be able to do it.”

And they’ve got the experience to get it done. Before purchasing the contracts for Tolko, Closs Logging did BCTS Timber sale wood, which saw them on the move throughout the southern Interior. “With that kind of experience behind us, we can handle just about anything Tolko gives us, without a lot of supervision.” If Tolko asks them to take on a job, the response is “Sure, when do you need it done?”

Aside from perhaps an initial pre-work and walk-through, they do not require much in the way of direction from Tolko, notes Closs. “We kind of just go in there and get the job done.”

Getting the job done now entails logging almost entirely in mountain pine beetle-infected lodgepole pine, which poses its own challenges. “With the beetle being such a huge epidemic, we are harvesting bigger blocks, and leaving retention patches within the blocks for wildlife and biodiversity.”

The beetle is attacking all the pine out there, and the small wood the company is working in has created some production challenges. The average piece size is .20 cubic metres per tree. “We’re looking at processing five trees to get one cubic metre of wood, which is pretty small for us,” says Closs.

Log processing is a key part of any efficient logging operation, and even more so in this kind of small wood. “It’s critical to have a lot of throughput with your processors because the number of cubic metres you have going through every hour is down because of the smaller wood.” And those smaller trees, of course, have to be processed one at a time. Their Waratah heads have performed admirably with the smaller wood. “They have been dependable and productive heads for us,” says Closs.

And while their logging operations are normally flexible, they have to ramp that up even further due to the unpredictable nature of the beetle attack. “If we weren’t harvesting beetlekilled timber, we would be working on a five year harvest, planning roads and harvest areas for each harvesting season. With the beetle, that goes out window.”

The BC Ministry of Forests is chasing after the beetle, and trying to focus the harvesting of licensees such as Tolko on the areas that will yield the most salvage wood. “But even with
that, there could be a big blow-up of the beetle in an area from one year to the next, and we have to change plans, move our equipment and harvest in a new area,” says Closs.

A Madill T2250B leveling buncher at work for Mike Closs Logging in BC’s southern Interior. The company is currently logging almost entirely in mountain pine beetle-affected lodgepole pine.

You either learn quickly to be extremely efficient in these kinds of demanding situations, Closs believes, or you simply don’t last “There’s no room out there for any deadweight in the forest industry, whether it’s on the sawmill or on the logging end.”

With rising fuel, equipment and labour costs, and a real shortage of skilled logging workforce out there these days, Closs has to keep an eye on everything if the operation is going to stay efficient and in the black. “Profits in the industry these days are pretty marginal, especially when you look at the investment you are making and the business risks you take.”

That said, however, he added that it’s all part of the challenges that Mike Closs Logging and its employees tackle every day. “As a logger, part of the job is to overcome obstacles. Everything Mother Nature throws at us, cold weather, deep snow, extreme heat, mud or steep ground, we seem to be able to overcome it.”

And Closs notes that he’s very pleased with the transition the company has made from the small business wood to working for a major licensee. “We’ve come a long way in four or five years. Instead of being out of town on BCTS timber sales, we’re now working in one area with a major licensee. Instead of staying at motels, we’re all going home at the end of the day. That works better for everybody.”

This page last modified on Monday, August 06, 2007