135 The cost effect of forest machine relocations on logging costs in Finland Kari Väätäinen * , Antti Asikainen, Lauri Sikanen and Antti Ala-Fossi Väätäinen, K., Asikainen, A., Sikanen, L., Ala-Fossi, A. 2006. The cost effect of forest machine relocations on logging costs in Finland. – Forestry Studies|Metsanduslikud Uurimused 45, 135–141. ISSN 1406-9954. Abstract. In Finland, 70 to 80% of all logging contractors have their own truck leet for relocation of their forest machines. Some of the smaller contractors – usually having less than 3 machines – are relying on outsourcing for ma- chine relocation. Even though the cost of machine relocation carried out by machine relocation service companies can often be cheaper than the use of contractors’ own relocation trucks, contractors prefer to have their own trucks. The explanation for that is that contractors need to carry out the machine relocation at speciic times with minimum machine delays. A cost calculator for forest machine relocations was formulated and the most relevant issues related to forest machine relocation in Finland are presented in the paper. On average, the relocation cost of forest machines was about 6 to 10% of the total logging (cutting and forwarding) costs. In the case of a logging contractor with one low-bed truck and one harvester-forwarder system, the machine relocation cost was 0.80 €/m³ (Based on 35 000 m 3 of annual harvesting). Whereas, in the case of a contractor with one truck and two harvester-forwarder systems the cost of machine relocation was 0.52 €/m 3 (Based on 70 000 m 3 of annual harvesting). The study found that the annual use of logging contractors’ machine relocation trucks is relatively low. The low annual use of truck results in a higher share of the capital costs, and thus, results in high relocation costs. In the future, bigger contractors with larger harvesting amounts and control over several forest machines will improve the cost-competitiveness of machine relocations. Key words: forest machine relocation, relocation cost, low-bed truck, log- ging contractor Authors’ address: Finnish Forest Research Institute, Joensuu Research Unit, Yliopistokatu 6, 80100 Joensuu, *e-mail: kari.vaatainen@metla.i Introduction The annual logging removal of industrial roundwood is around 55 million m³ in Finland (Mustonen, 2005). There are about 800 trucks specially for relocating forestry machines (Asikainen, 2004; Jaakkola, 2006), which means 68 750 m³ cuttings per annum for each forest machine relocation truck, on average. The number of forest machine relocation trucks will increase in Finland mainly because of the increased harvesting of energywood from forests (Asikainen et al., 2005). According to Jaakkola (2004) and Lehtomäki (2006) approximately 70–80% of forest machine contractors in Finland have their own trucks for machine relocation. Some of the smaller logging contractors, owning one or two machines, rely on outsourcing for machine relocation. Occasionally, bigger logging contractors use the service of machine relocation companies especially when own relocation leet is overloaded. In Forestry Studies|Metsanduslikud Uurimused 45, 135–141, 2006