The specialized forest products shipping industry is characterized by a limited number of players, such as Gearbulk. As far as trade lanes are concerned, well-established exporters of forest products are located in the Pacific-Northwest, Eastern Canada and Scandinavia, although competition is heating up from suppliers in South America (Brazil and Chile), Russia and even China. Major importers of forest products include China and Europe. Forest products are nowadays increasingly being carried in containers. One of the main reasons for the increasing container penetration rate in the forest products sector lies in the fact that, whereas parcel sizes used to be too big to fit into a container in the past, nowadays a first transformation of the cargo takes place at the origin, such that it increasingly loses weight but gains value. This makes it perfectly suitable for supply chains involving regular shipments in containers.