Log exports from Tauranga are expected to be largely unaffected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami which has devastated the country's eastern coast.

Japan was once the main market for Tauranga log exports, but now only takes about 10 per cent of the four million tonnes of logs that are exported by the Port of Tauranga each year, says the port company's commercial manager Graeme Marshall.

At about 30,000 tonnes a ship, it is only 13 ship loads that take about 400,000 tonnes of New Zealand logs to Japan each year, to mainly southern ports.

The areas and coastal ports affected by the earthquake and tsunami haven't taken New Zealand logs for quite some time, says director of Pentarch Forest Products NZ, Peter Hill.

'New Zealand logs normally go into Susaki, which is on Shikoku, and they also go into the Osaka area as well, and none of those areas have been affected by the quake,” says Peter.

'The sawmills that take those logs are all in working order.”

Most of the New Zealand logs, 90-95 per cent are used in the packaging industry, says Peter.

'They tend to build their houses with Russian wood, their own domestic wood and American Douglas fir, rather than out of New Zealand radiate pine, but the company that will I think eventually see a lift in their business is Juken NZ Ltd.”

JNL is a Japanese owned company with mills in Northland, on the east coast and in the Wairarapa. It produces higher value added products for the housing industry in Japan.

Pan Pac Timber in Napier is another Japanese owned company that produces high value kiln dried lumber.

'We just had an industry meeting and we didn't see much affect on NZ logs into Japan simply because they go into different areas and they go into different markets,” says Peter.

'And the sawmills that our logs go into in Japan haven't been affected by the earthquake.

'There are a number of mills up on that east coast northeast of Tokyo that have taken New Zealand logs in the past which are no longer there, they were washed away.”