Each Lunar New Year is linked with a heavenly zodiac sign and a material element, so it’s little wonder that people who believe in astrology think they can divine what 2015 will mean for B.C. business owners.
The 2015 zodiac sign is the sheep; the element is wood. Because wood, or trees, is connected with the colour green, people refer to the year as the year of the green wooden sheep.
But that doesn’t mean that 2015 will be a good year for B.C. wood manufacturing, Richmond-based fortune teller and astrologer Sherman Tai told Business in Vancouver.
“Knowledgeable professional people will hear ‘green wooden sheep’ and think that this will be a good year for wood. But really it will be a good year for metal.”
Tai explained that as surely as a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen produces water, the mix of wood and sheep becomes metal.
“When you have that combination, there is a chemical reaction. The key element after the chemistry will be metal, so it might not be too good for wood elements.”
Wood, Tai said, was the lucky element last year because 2014 had the zodiac symbol of the horse and the element was also wood. The five material elements in Chinese astrology – water, earth, metal, wood and fire – take place for two years at a time and rotate.
Tai was right on the money last year as B.C.’s 2014 wood products sector boomed.
Stock prices for companies such as West Fraser Timber (TSX:WFT) hit all-time highs throughout the year and continued to do so into January.
South Korean demand for B.C.’s wood pellet sector surged. In 2014’s third quarter, the most recent quarter for which data is available, B.C. exported 70,000 tonnes of wood pellets to South Korea, or five times the volume of the same quarter in 2013.
“Demand is so strong that Korea needs much more supply,” said Steve Kim, who is a director at the Canada-Korea Business Association and has helped link Korean investors with B.C. wood pellet producers.
“One investor from Korea, who has a licence for some of the wood pellet market there, has been in B.C. looking for 60,000 tonnes of wood pellets in March. He’s come up empty so far.”
Wood Resources International president Hakan Eckstrom believes lack of supply will mean that B.C. wood pellet exports will stagnate in 2015 and not pick up until late in the year or early 2016, when the first of five announced pellet mills will start commercial operation.
Conversely, those at B.C. companies that produce metals envisage a strong 2015.
“Obviously, I believe the fortune teller,” Goldcorp Inc. chairman Ian Telfer told BIV.
“I’m very bullish on the future of the gold price. The combination of limited enthusiasm for gold over the past few years has meant less exploration and fewer mines being developed. So that will start leading shortly to less production. That, combined with the volatility in the world, makes me think the future of gold is bright.” •
