Drilling Deep: Pallets are latest thing to get squeezed in supply chain

Wood is a problem and plastic is expensive; one more pressure point to worry about

Source: Wikipedia

There is almost nothing that is not being impacted by rising commodity prices and tight availability in the supply chain.

Add the humble pallet to the list. On this week’s Drilling Deep podcast, host John Kingston speaks with an expert on pallet markets, Matt Zielenski of the Freedonia Group, on how the price of lumber is affecting pallets and where there are other signs of squeezes in the pallet supply chain.

Also on this week’s Drilling Deep: a price for West Texas Intermediate crude oil we haven’t seen in a long time.

More articles by John Kingston

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Drilling Deep: the case for lease purchase deals even as lawsuits grow

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One Comment

  1. Bill Stankiewicz

    Pallets continue to be in short supply within the USA markets. I have seen successful usage of recycled cardboard pallets that are structurally sound for up to 3500 pounds used as a substitute.

    Many thanks,

    BILL STANKIEWICZ
    SAVANNAH SUPPLY CHAIN GUY
    1-404-750-3200

Comments are closed.

John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.