Russian Birch Firewood £60.00/cube delivered

[Treewarrior]

Had this e-mail today.

 

Comments?

 

Dear John,

 

My name is Elena Prokop and I am representing a Russian wood-processing company which produces and sells in the Russian Market birch fire-wood. We sell about 4000 cub.m. per month.

 

Our wood has the following characteristics:

 

Length 35-40 cm

 

Width 8-15 cm

 

Internal humidity 18-25%

 

Packed into pallets 1200*800 cm, volume 2 cub.m

 

We would like to offer you our wood delivered up to your compound. One truck contains 34 pallets or 68 cub.m. We could supply up to 60 trucks monthly. Terms of payment at the day of receiving the goods.

 

Please let me know if you’re interested in our offer and I will tell you the price and whatever else data you might need.

 

Best regards,

 

ElenaFrom: [email protected]

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:42:30 -0500

Subject: Re: Russian supplier of firewood

To: [email protected]

 

 

Would be interested in looking at the price of a load.

 

Prices please delivery to Middlewich Cheshire.

 

Please send photos of product

 

Dear John,

We are just starting with British market and regarding price we could offer 60 pounds per cub.m. with included delivery to the point you have indicated.

Even if this wouldn't be interesting for you please let me know your opinion and price suggestions. If the price is viable for you I will send you the pictures in response

Thank you in advance,

Elena

[County4x4]

I got it too...

 

Wonder if you'd get lumbered with a bunch of customs charges on top of that once it landed?

 

Andy

[Treewarrior]

Was wondering if it was a bit iffy?

[County4x4]

Probably genuine on the face of it - not asking for payment up front or anything like that - and there's plenty of wood coming out of that part of the world - several ebay sellers offering east European stuff as well.

 

Never imported anything by the truck load but used to deal with a lot of gear from the States, and customs/import charges could add a fair chunk to the total price.

 

Andy

[Sam Thompson]

Hotmail address, from a business that large?

 

 

Hum....

[Eagle]

If you are dealing with Russia and they only have a hotmail email address you'll be barking mad to go through with this. You always need to know exactly who you are dealing with otherwise it'll probably be a scam. Russia is notorious for these scams and for sending fake shipping documents to get people to part with money. You need to be able to verify everything is genuine and without speaking Russian that will be hard....and you need to be able to deal direct with a known official company.

 

There is someone of this name claiming to be working in Logistics for Porsche Russia, but that isn't confirmed. My advice is to be very, very careful and do not part with any money at all until something arrives into your yard, should you go ahead with it.

[slasherscot]

68cu3 of birch on 1 lorry load i think not LOL........it would either be over weight or loaded up to the moon..........ask to see some on the Uk mainland or customers they all ready sold too.

[Johny Walker]

that works out @ £4080 !!!!!! per load ,dosnt it

[Treewarrior]

Cheers for the comments.Thought it was a bit iffy.

[JayVee]

Slasherscot is right. 68 cubes in a container is unlikely. The capacity of a standard 40 foot container is 67 cubic metres. Including pallets it doesn't seem feasable.

 

I instigated the thread about importing firewood from Finland to the UK a few weeks back and got a lot of good feedback. I'm from Finland and most of the Russian birch would most likely be coming from the border region between Finland and Russia known as Karelia. If the offer from Russia is kosher you are looking at three things: 1. (as someone already stated) custom duties 2. Import standards. Russia is outside the EU, therefre there will be all kinds of hoops to jump through to get it cleared. I think the forestry commission has a booklet on these rules and regulations regarding the import of non EU wood. 3. Environmental/political. Greenpeace has been on Russia's case about their logging for several years. There is also that political risk to think of.

 

As for the price. It sounds a little on the cheap side. Russia is further than Finland, and the lowest I have been able to get the price to including freight to the UK is GBP 69 per cubic metre. That would be a mix of hardwood and not exclusively birch and it would be 65 cubic metres top filled into a 40 foot container with no pallets. How they can get it from Russia to the UK (which is further than Finland) in palletes for 15 % cheaper is beyond me. Since freight is about half the cost that would mean the wood is 30 % cheaper than in Finland and I know that's not the case in Russia.