You're absolutely right, Mr. Guay. When I talk about a volume of 2 billion to 2.5 billion board feet to build the additional 250,000 homes, I don't think that's a lot. That's a huge volume, even though it's only about 20% of the $10 billion to $12 billion that we export. You have to understand, that volume represents 4% to 5% of what the U.S. uses in a year. That's huge.
Traditionally, the softwood lumber sector has kept stocks very low, as they're expensive to maintain. Companies often cut wood in November, December and January to build roundwood stocks. That wood can be cut in May, delivered in June and paid for in July. So it's very expensive to keep that wood, and that's why stocks are kept at the lowest possible level. That's typical of our industry.
A two-billion board foot drop in the U.S. market would have a huge impact on prices. Our industry is what we call a perfect competitive industry. It's always the combined forces of supply and demand that dictate what prices will be. Removing $2 billion from the U.S. market—