BOISE CASCADE Co

Our results of operations and financial performance are influenced by a variety of factors, including: (i) the commodity nature of a portion of the products we distribute and manufacture; (ii) general economic and industry conditions affecting demand; and (iii) cost and availability of raw materials, including wood fiber and glues and resins. These factors have historically produced cyclicality in our results of operations, and we expect this cyclicality to continue in future periods.

Commodity Nature of a Portion of Our Products

A portion of the building products we distribute and manufacture, including OSB, plywood, and lumber, are commodities that are widely available from multiple sources, with prices and volumes determined frequently in an auction market based on participants' perceptions of short-term supply and demand factors. At times, the price for any one or more of the products we distribute or produce may fall below our purchase or cash production costs, requiring us to either incur short-term losses on product sales or curtail production at one or more of our manufacturing facilities. Therefore, our profitability with respect to these commodity products depends, in significant part, on effective procurement and facilities maintenance programs, and on managing our cost structure, particularly raw materials and labor, which represent the largest components of our operating costs. Composite structural panel and lumber prices have been volatile historically.

The following table provides changes in the average composite panel, including certain panel subcategories, and average composite lumber prices as reflected by Random Lengths, an industry publication, for the period noted below.

Our BMD segment purchases and resells a broad mix of commodity products with periods of increasing prices providing the opportunity for higher sales and increased margins, while declining price environments may result in declines in sales and profitability. However, we mitigate risk by utilizing rich data sets to effectively manage our inventory, which enables us to better navigate these market fluctuations and optimize our financial outcomes. In our Wood Products segment, we manufacture plywood, but not OSB, and therefore our reported prices may not trend with the overall composite panel price index. For further discussion of the impact of commodity prices, see "Our Operating Results" in this Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

General Economic and Industry Conditions Affecting Demand

The level of housing starts is especially important to our results of operations. New residential construction activity has historically been volatile with demand for new residential construction influenced by seasonal weather factors, mortgage availability and rates, housing affordability constraints, home equity levels, unemployment levels, wage growth, household formation rates, domestic population growth, immigration rates, residential vacancy and foreclosure rates, demand for second homes, consumer confidence, and other general economic factors. Furthermore, changing demographics could impact product consumption and demand, including urbanization compounding issues around affordability, increasing importance of multi-family housing, declining size of single-family entry-level housing, increasing proportion of homes using slab-on-grade construction, reduced birthing statistics, and changing baby boomer needs freeing up housing capacity. In addition, EWP demand will be highly influenced by single-family housing starts.

Industry supply for the products we distribute and produce is influenced primarily by price-induced changes in the operating rates of existing facilities, but is also influenced over time by the introduction of new product technologies, capacity additions and closures, the restart of idled capacity, and log availability. The balance of supply and demand in the U.S. is also heavily influenced by imported products, principally from Canada and South America. The level of imported products is influenced by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates, duties, and tariffs.

We believe that our product line diversification provides us some protection from declines in new residential construction. Our products are used not only in new residential construction but also in residential repair-and-remodeling projects and light commercial construction. We believe the overall age of the U.S. housing stock, resales of existing homes, and increased focus on making homes more energy efficient will continue to support long-term growth in repair-and-remodeling expenditures and increased demand through home improvement centers and our other customers that service professional contractors.

Cost and Availability of Raw Materials

Our principal raw material is wood fiber, which accounted for approximately 37% of the aggregate amount of materials, labor, and other operating expenses (excluding depreciation), for our Wood Products segment in 2025. Logs comprised approximately 80% of our wood fiber costs during 2025, and we satisfy our log requirements through a combination of purchases under supply agreements, open-market purchases, and purchases pursuant to contracts awarded under public auctions.

The following table provides the change in our average per-unit log costs for the period noted below:

Our log requirements and our access to supply, as well as the cost of obtaining logs, are subject to change based on, among other things, the availability of logs in each of our operating areas, our operating schedules, competition from other manufacturers, the effect of governmental laws and regulations, impacts of weather or fire on log availability, and the status of environmental appeals. Per-unit log costs in the western U.S. are higher than per-unit log costs in the southern U.S. due to higher harvest and delivery costs, as well as various supply-side constraints, including seasonal weather-related restrictions, slower growth cycles, and a higher proportion of federal and state timberland ownership. Our aggregate cost of obtaining logs is also affected by fuel costs and the distance of the log source from our facilities, as we are often required to arrange for harvesting and delivery of the logs we purchase from the source to our facilities.

We also purchase OSB, which is used as the vertical web to assemble I-joists. OSB accounted for approximately 5% of the aggregate amount of materials, labor, and other operating expenses (excluding depreciation) for our Wood Products segment in 2025. OSB is a commodity, and prices have historically been volatile in response to economic uncertainties, industry operating rates, supply-related disruptions, duties, tariffs, transportation constraints or disruptions, net import and export activity, inventory levels in various distribution channels, and seasonal demand patterns.

Wood fiber also includes, to a lesser extent than OSB, veneer purchased from third parties for engineered wood products production and lumber purchased from third parties for I-joist production at our Canadian EWP facility and for production at our laminated beam plant in Idaho. Veneer and lumber input costs are subject to similar commodity-based volatility characteristics noted above for OSB. We are substantially self-sufficient for veneer needs in our Southeast operations whereas third party purchases are used to satisfy a portion of our veneer requirements at our Western Oregon operations.

We also use various resins and glues in our manufacturing processes, which accounted for approximately 6% of the aggregate amount of materials, labor, and other operating expenses (excluding depreciation) for our Wood Products segment in 2025. The costs of resins and glues are influenced by changes in the prices of raw material input costs, primarily fossil fuel products.

We purchase many of our raw materials through long-term contracts that contain price adjustment mechanisms that take into account changes in market prices. Therefore, although our long-term contracts provide us with supplies of raw materials and energy that are more stable than open-market purchases, in many cases, they may not alleviate fluctuations in market prices.