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spk02: Good morning. My name is Devin and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Potlatch Deltic fourth quarter 2022 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. Thank you. I would like to now turn the call over to Mr. Jerry Richards, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, for opening remarks. Sir, you may proceed.
spk03: Thank you, Devin. Good morning, and welcome to Potlatch Delta's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call is Eric Creamers, Potlatch Delta's President and Chief Executive Officer. This call will contain forward-looking statements. Please review the warning statements in our press release on the presentation slides and in our filings with the SEC regarding the risks associated with these forward-looking statements. Also, please note that a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures can be found on our website at www.potlatchdeltic.com. I'll now turn the call over to Eric for some comments, and then I'll review our fourth quarter results and our 2023 outlook.
spk05: Well, thank you, Jerry. We reported total adjusted EBITDA of $574 million for 2022 after the market closed yesterday. That is the company's second highest EBITDA on record, and it marks our third straight year of strong financial performance. Cumulative EBITDA generated by our leverage to lumber strategy over that three-year period was $1.6 billion. Our wood product segment contributed $291 million of adjusted EBITDA in 2022 and $861 million over the last three years. We shipped just over 1 billion board feet of lumber in 2022, and we had another strong year in terms of safety performance. As discussed on last quarter's call, we successfully completed the rebuild of our Ola, Arkansas sawmill and restarted the large log line on schedule in the third quarter. While the startup phase has taken a bit longer than we had hoped relative to our stretch goal, the mill is on track to reach its 150 million board feet annual capacity on a run rate basis by the end of the quarter. As a reminder, OLA's rebuild also significantly lowers the mill's cash processing costs and improves its log recovery. In 2022, we also announced a $131 million project to modernize and expand our Waldo, Arkansas sawmill. The project will increase the mill's annual capacity by 85 million board feet and significantly reduce cash processing costs. Activity will be focused on site prep in 2023 with equipment delivery and installation to come next year. The existing mill will continue to operate during the project with just three weeks of downtime expected in 2024 to tie in the new equipment. Project completion is expected by the end of 2024. Our timberland segment generated adjusted EBITDA of $249 million in 2022, which was just below the record the segment set in 2021. We harvested 6.5 million tons, which exceeded our planned harvest primarily due to the addition of Ketchmark's timberlands in mid-September. Speaking of Catchmark, we had an excellent year on the M&A front. Catchmark added nearly 350,000 acres of high-quality timberlands in some of the strongest log markets in the U.S. South. Separately, we also acquired 46,000 acres of well-stocked timberlands in Mississippi and Arkansas and three bolt-on timberland transactions. Overall, we added nearly 400,000 acres of attractive timberlands in the U.S. South to our portfolio in 2022. Our real estate segment also had a strong year, contributing adjusted EBITDA of $73 million. On the rural side of the business, we sold 20,000 acres at nearly $2,400 an acre. Those sales included what we believe is the industry's first solar deal, comprising 1,760 acres for $13 million or $7,500 per acre. Real estate has built a backlog of over $100 million of future potential solar deals. We expect that figure will increase as the team finishes stratifying catch marks acres in 2023. Our team also made good progress on potential carbon credit and carbon capture projects in 2022. While it will take time for these efforts to pay off, we are optimistic about growth tied to providing natural climate solutions, and we believe these efforts will result in higher returns as well as higher timberland values. On the development side of our real estate business, we sold 181 lots at an average price of $112,000 per lot in our Chenal Valley Master Plan community in Little Rock. We also closed commercial sales every quarter in 2022, resulting in over $13 million of revenue at an average price of $290,000 per acre. Turning to housing, U.S. sentiment deteriorated quickly in 2022. While a significant decline in affordability has clearly caused the U.S. housing construction market to slow, we continue to believe that the backdrop is favorable over the long term. This is based on a fundamental shortage of housing stock due largely to the combination of underbuilding after the great financial crisis and favorable demographics in the form of millennials. It is also apparent that the Fed's historic pace of interest rate increases has slowed the economy and is causing inflation rate to decline. Many economists are predicting that the Fed could shift into an easing cycle as soon as the middle of 2023. In fact, markets are pricing in this expectation. Mortgage rates have dropped over 100 basis points recently. Acknowledging it will take time, we continue to expect that U.S. housing starts will return to levels above the long-term average of 1.5 million units per year once homes become more affordable. In the meantime, the number of housing units under construction remains elevated at 1.7 million units in December. We expect that the elevated level of housing units under construction will support lumber demand during the spring building season. In addition, home buyers and builders are responding to affordability issues. For example, remote work opened the possibility to move to less costly parts of the country for a lot of people. Builder concessions or a shift in product mix to smaller homes or fewer amenities are other examples that are occurring. Lower mortgage rates and improved consumer confidence are the key remaining ingredients needed to get housing construction back on track. Shifting to repair and remodel, which is the largest market segment for lumber demand, the underlying fundamentals continue to be favorable for a variety of reasons. Existing U.S. housing stock remains the oldest in the history of the statistic at 42 years on average. This is important because older homes are significantly smaller than new homes on average, and older homes typically need more repairs. Higher mortgage rates mean that people are much more likely to stay in their existing homes. Remodeling is a very attractive option for homeowners given strong levels of home equity across the U.S., a job market that remains strong, and the fact that consumer balance sheets remain in good shape. In addition, higher interest rates usually have less of an effect than other factors on repair and remodel demand. Pundits expect repair and model spending to continue to grow this year. Harvard's leading indicator of remodeling activity report forecasts R&R spending growth will remain positive and be 2.6% higher year-over-year in the fourth quarter of this year. This sentiment is supported by our home center customer takeaway, which remains strong. We continue to be optimistic about lumber demand in the R&R market segment. The Random Links composite lumber price reached a bottom recently and has increased three weeks in a row to $412 per thousand board feet. Lumber futures are trading at a $100 premium to cash prices. We expect lumber prices will continue to improve from current levels as supply chain stocks up for the spring building season. Moving to capital allocation, we returned $263 million of cash to shareholders in 2022. That amount included a $76 million special dividend, which was driven by our strong results in the first half of the year. We remain committed to growing our regular dividend sustainably. The key to doing so is by increasing our stable cash flows through accretive acquisitions, such as the Catchmark merger and the bolt-on Timberland transactions that we completed in 2022. We increased our regular dividend 2.3% in December, Our regular dividend payout represented 43% of our cash available for distribution in 2022. We also remain committed to repurchasing our shares only when they trade at a significant discount as part of our overall focus on growing shareholder value over time. To that end, our board approved a new $200 million share repurchase program in August. We bought back $55 million of stock during the year at an average price of $45 per share which is well below our estimated NAV. Our opportunistic approach also applies to our borrowing costs. In 2022, we utilized interest rate swaps from 2020 to reduce our weighted average borrowing costs by 80 basis points in a year in which the Fed increased interest rates by over 4 percentage points. Our weighted average borrowing costs are now 2.4%, the lowest of the timber REITs. At the end of the year, we had $344 million of cash on the balance sheet and liquidity of nearly $650 million. Our leverage remains low and our financial strength provides a solid platform to continue growing shareholder value. Shifting gears, our environmental, social, and governance reporting team had a very busy year in 2022. We published our third annual ESG report in May, our first carbon and climate report in September, and we launched our ESG website in Q4. We were also named to Newsweek's list of most responsible companies for the second year in a row. Finally, we announced our commitment to greenhouse gas reduction goals at the end of the year. Potlatch-Deltic has a strong ESG story and we are committed to do our part to mitigate climate change and continue our legacy of responsibility across the ESG spectrum. In summary, 2022 was another great year for Potlatch Deltic. That is a real tribute to our employees who had a lot on their plate. Their dedication and hard work allowed us to complete the Catchmark merger, three Bolton Timberland acquisitions, and the Ola rebuild and startup, all while delivering excellent financial results. Our strong balance sheet, liquidity, and strategy provide a solid platform to continue increasing shareholder value. I will now turn it over to Jerry to discuss our fourth quarter results and our 2023 outlook. Thank you, Eric.
spk03: Starting with page five of the slides, adjusted EBITDA was $52 million in the fourth quarter compared to $101 million in the third quarter. The quarter-over-quarter decline in EBITDA was primarily due to lower lumber prices, lower index saw log prices, and seasonally lower harvest volumes. I'll now review each of our operating segments and provide more color in our fourth quarter results. Information for our timberland segment is displayed on slides six through eight. The segments adjusted EBITDA decreased from $65 million in the third quarter to $51 million in the fourth quarter. Our saw log harvest in the north was 456,000 tons in the fourth quarter, which is flat compared to the third quarter. As we discussed on last quarter's call, our harvest volume fell short of plan in the third quarter, primarily due to log and haul contractor availability issues. Our northern team did a good job securing additional contractors and increasing the harvest in the fourth quarter, which reduced the harvest shortfall for the year. Northern saw log prices were 18% lower on a per ton basis in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. The decline in saw log prices primarily reflects lower prices for index saw logs. In the south, we harvested 1.4 million tons in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter was the first full quarter of operations on Ketchmark's timberlands since we closed the merger in September. Solid execution and flexibility by our southern timberlands team were key to achieving that result. Our southern saw log prices were 3% higher in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. The increase was driven by a full quarter of volume in Ketchmark's stronger southern markets, which more than offset a seasonally lower mix of hardwood saw logs. Pine saw log prices in our legacy wood baskets were 2% higher in the fourth quarter than the third quarter. Moving to wood products on slides 9 and 10, adjusted EBITDA declined from $31 million in the third quarter to $2 million in the fourth quarter. Our average lumber price realization decreased nearly $100 per thousand board feet, or 17% in the quarter. By comparison, the Random Links framing lumber composite price was 23% lower in the fourth quarter than the third quarter. As a reminder, the lag we experienced between booking and shipping orders is not captured by the composite, which is closer to a real-time indication of price. Our average lumber price realizations per 1,000 board feet were $487 in October, $480 in November, and $450 in December. Lumber shipments decreased 7 million board feet from 265 million board feet in the third quarter to 258 million board feet in the fourth quarter. Our planned shipments in the fourth quarter were lower than expected, primarily due to a slower ramp up at OLA than planned. As Eric mentioned, the team is making good progress at OLA, and we are on track to reach our full production run rate by the end of the first quarter. Shifting to real estate on slides 11 and 12, The segments adjusted EBITDA was $7 million in the fourth quarter compared to $14 million in the third quarter. EBITDA generated by rural sales declined sequentially due to the sale of fewer acres at a lower average price in the fourth quarter. This was expected as both our and Catchmark's rural land sales were heavily weighted to the first half of the year in 2022. EBITDA generated by our Chenal Valley Master Plan community also declined sequentially. We closed the sale of 24 residential lots in the fourth quarter compared to 48 lots in the third quarter. We also sold fewer commercial real estate acres in the fourth quarter. Having said that, we have closed at least one commercial sale every quarter this year for an average price of $290,000 per acre. Turning to financial items, which are summarized on slide 13, our total liquidity was $643 million. This amount includes $344 million of cash, as well as availability on our undrawn revolver. We refinanced the $40 million of debt that matured in December. We had previously locked the refinance rate, which reduced our interest rate on this debt approximately 100 basis points and lowered our annual interest cost by approximately $400,000. Overall, we used interest rate slots to reduce the weighted average borrowing cost on our outstanding debt to 2.4% this year. Including the refinance of Catchmark's debt in the third quarter, our annual interest cost run rate has declined nearly $9 million. We repurchased $50 million of our shares in the fourth quarter at an average price of $46 per share. We also paid a $76 million special dividend in December. Capital expenditures were $20 million in the fourth quarter. That amount includes real estate development expenditures, which are included in cash from operations in our cash flow statement, and it excludes Timberland acquisitions. As Eric mentioned, we were the successful bidders on three bolt-on Timberland acquisitions in Mississippi and Arkansas earlier this year for $101 million in the aggregate. We used cash to close all three transactions, including $14 million to close the last of the three transactions early in the fourth quarter. Integration of Catchmark continues to go well, and we have now achieved cash synergies of $19 million on a run rate basis. We remain on track to achieve CAAT synergies of $21 million versus the $16 million target that we communicated when we announced the transaction at the end of May. I'll now provide some high-level outlook comments. The details are presented on slide 14. We plan to harvest approximately 7.7 million tons in our timberland segment in 2023. Harvest volumes in the north are planned to be seasonally lower in the first quarter at a level comparable to the first quarter of 2022. We expect northern saw log prices to decline about 30% in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter. In the south, we plan to harvest approximately 1.5 million tons in the first quarter. We expect our southern saw log prices to decrease modestly assuming customer log inventories remain full. We plan to shift 1.1 billion board feet of lumber in 2023. In the first quarter, we plan to shift 255 to 265 million board feet of lumber. The effect of seasonally lower cut rates in our northern sawmills and a planned maintenance outage in our Warren Arkansas sawmill are expected to offset increased production at our Ola Arkansas sawmill in the first quarter. Our average lumber price thus far in the first quarter is approximately 14% lower than our fourth quarter average lumber price. This is based on approximately 125 million board feet of lumber. Our lumber prices have been increasing recently, and our spot price is currently about 8% lower than our fourth quarter average lumber price. As a reminder, a $10 per thousand board foot change in lumber price equals approximately $12 million of consolidated EBITDA for us on an annual basis. Shifting to real estate, we expect to sell approximately 18,000 acres of rural land and 150 Chenal Valley residential lots in 2023. Additional real estate details are provided on the slide. We estimate that interest expense will be approximately $2 million in the first quarter and $9 to $10 million per quarter for the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2023. Interest expense is lower in the first quarter than the other quarters because that is when we receive our annual patronage payments from the farm credit banks. Also, interest income on our cash balance has increased due to higher short-term interest rates. Turning to capital expenditures, We are planning to spend $135 to $145 million in 2023, excluding any potential acquisitions. That estimate includes $74 million for the Waldo Arkansas sawmill modernization expansion that we announced last June. Overall, we expect our total adjusted EBITDA will be lower in the first quarter due to lower lumber and index saw load prices. Having said that, we believe that lumber price prices reached the bottom in January and we are optimistic the recent improvement will continue. We're well positioned to continue growing shareholder value over the long term. That concludes our prepared remarks. Devon, now I'd like to open the call to a Q&A.
spk02: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star and then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from Mark Weintraub with Seaport Global.
spk08: Thank you. In terms of the share repurchase, so you still got $150 million left on the $200 million authorization. How should we think about the type of pace you'd likely execute? Recognizing you said that you're only going to do it when the stock's at a discount, but clearly it has been. But at the same time, obviously your cash generation, at least in the first part of the year, is going to be a bunch lower. So how should we think about it? You do still have quite a bit of cash on the balance sheet and obviously the untapped revolver.
spk05: Yeah, good question, Mark. Buying back shares opportunistically when our stock trades at a large discount to NAV like it does today, that remains a very important part of our capital allocation strategy. But needless to say, there is a lot of uncertainty in the markets right now. we continue to believe that share repurchases are an attractive use of our capital, and we're going to constantly balance that against other capital allocation options. But at the end of the day, there really isn't a prize for moving aggressively with share repurchases, and we think our cautious approach to capital allocation served us very well in the past. Most companies get share repurchases wrong, so I don't think I can give you a definitive answer on the pace other than You know, we're going to be constantly evaluating where our stock is at relative to NAV and other valuation metrics against these other capital allocation alternatives that we have. And those alternatives, they come and go over time. So it's very hard to predict how the pace is going to play out.
spk08: And maybe just as a quick follow-up, is there a certain level of cash that you want to retain on the balance sheet that – can kind of help us guide in what your thought process might be?
spk03: Yeah, so that's a good follow-on question, Mark. So, you know, in terms of level of cash, I mean, historically I've thought about $100 million. You know, it's kind of a base level we like to hold. And then on top of that, as a reminder, we have $74 million that we're going to spend on the Waldo project this year. So, you know, something approaching $200 million would be kind of the baseline at this point.
spk08: Okay, that's helpful.
spk00: I'll turn it over.
spk02: Our next question comes from Paul Quinn with RBC Capital Markets.
spk04: Hey, thanks very much. Just a question out of Newark that you mentioned under harvest in the north in 2022. Just wondering how material that is and whether you're going to make up that volume in 2023. Yeah.
spk03: Actually, I'll take that one. Paul, this is Jerry. So in terms of the under harvest, that's primarily pulpwood and tonwood. So there's a couple of things going on. One, we've seen pricing for pulpwood for the last few years have been pretty weak in the region. And for us, historically, that's a low margin part of our business. So when it doesn't pay to haul the wood out, we don't. And then the other thing we've had, certainly it was an issue in Q3, is contractor availability. So our team did a really good job of, one, securing more contractor availability in Q4, but They certainly prioritized shipping saw logs over pulpwood and tenwood. So, you know, and at the end of the day, you know, happy to report that, you know, 265 million board feet was the plan for the year, and they hit that for the year. So I think going forward, I don't know that that pulpwood and tenwood gets made up. So I think that's in the review there.
spk04: Okay. And then just on the wood product side, just, you know, knowing that you've got that plywood asset, but I'm not sure how well it ran in the quarter, but Were your lumber operations breakeven and were they affected by the slower than expected ramp up at OLA?
spk05: They were definitely affected by the slower ramp up at OLA. We missed our production and shipment targets at OLA in the quarter simply because we're not where we want to be from a cut rate standpoint. From an earnings standpoint, we made money in wood products in the fourth quarter, a couple million dollars. Plywood was definitely under some pressure in Q4. That's to be expected with, you know, a good chunk of our plywood mix competes with OSB and commodity, you know, housing type applications. And some of it's more industrial high-end applications. That part of the business is surprisingly is holding up reasonably well. But the other side, the non-repaired side of our plywood business was under some pressure in Q4.
spk04: Okay, and then thanks for the detail on lumber prices by month. I'm just wondering, you know, we had a big announcement by Canfor up in Canada last week, and just wondering how much prices jumped, you know, down in Idaho as a result of that announcement. Was that material at all?
spk05: Oh, yeah, that was definitely material, and you raise a good point, which is our southern prices weren't really impacted by the CAM-4 announcement. It was really all about Idaho lumber prices, M-4 in particular. Yeah, we saw a jump in the $30, $40, $50, $1,000 kind of range almost immediately from when that announcement was made.
spk04: And I suspect you're anticipating further capacity closures in BC in 2023 here?
spk05: Yeah. So, so far, you know, we've seen, I don't know, roughly 2 billion board feed of either permanent shutdowns or curtailments over the last 12 months. You know, we continue to hear – we don't operate up in BC, as you know, but we continue to hear that BC is relatively high cost. And so, you know, with these lower prices – I hear a lot of chatter about mills curtailing or closing, and yeah, I think there's an expectation that there could be more curtailments or closures, but that's really up to those producers in that region.
spk04: Okay, and then just lastly, with the lower lumber pricing environment, is that freed up some of the timberland opportunities, i.e., is there more deals in the marketplace, or do you anticipate that in 2023?
spk05: Yeah, the Timberland M&A market right now, Paul, it's pretty quiet. We're coming off a really active 2022, so I guess it's no surprise the market's going to have a little bit of a pause here. But with housing starts pulling back and with lumber prices pulling back, I'm guessing that sellers are choosing to wait until there's some signs of a recovery in housing starts and lumber demand to bring properties to market. You know, also, we suspect sellers might be holding back as carbon potential is becoming a bigger and bigger deal. But so far, it looks like it's going to be a pretty quiet year on the Timberland M&A front.
spk04: All righty. That's all I had. Thanks, guys.
spk02: Thanks, Paul. Our next question comes from Ketan Mamtoro with BMO Capital Markets.
spk01: Hi, good morning. This is Roshni on behalf of CAPA and BMO. Just to start off with, you know, back off Paul's question here. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of lumber demand and channel inventory trends? Have you seen a change in the last recent weeks with all the curtailment announcements?
spk05: Well, we're not quite yet to the spring building season yet, so we haven't really seen a firm uptick in demand. I think dealers have been running with relatively low inventories all along, and people are wondering how far prices are going to drop, so they've been holding off on buying. I think we have seen a little bit of a pickup in demand here lately. People are starting to think, okay, prices have reached the bottom. They're probably not going to go any lower, so it's time to step up buying. Now, how that translates into end-user demand, it's really hard for me to say, is we don't really sell to direct users. I will say that on the R&R side, we sell to a number of home centers, and that side of our business has stayed remarkably strong. We're really happy with the R&R segment right now, and so we're feeling good about that segment. There's no doubt housing starts are coming down this year relative to last year. That's going to hurt overall lumber demand, but as we look out into 2024, we think the Fed's going to be cutting rates later this year, and we think starts will be We'll be back at it again as we get out to 2024. We have started to see a few positive signs in housing. The home builder confidence has moved up off the lows. I've seen mortgage rates come down 100 basis points or so, and I read articles about home builders buying down mortgage rates. I think I read somewhere that one of the builders is offering a 5% mortgage rate to try to entice buyers. So it's not like it's a complete disaster out there like it was after the great financial crisis, but we're not yet to the spring building season.
spk01: Thanks for that color. And by the way, could you tell us what the right way to think about, you know, decline in log prices in Idaho and Q1 is? How do you think about that?
spk03: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, certainly, you know, in Idaho, and when you talk log costs, that's certainly the logs that we're buying from ourselves. to manufacture lumber and plywood. No question, as lumber pricing has come down and we index the price of those logs, we're going to see some relief. That's probably around a $3 million or so number for the first quarter, and then additional relief, which could be significant, actually, as the year plays out.
spk01: Okay, thank you. And then could you also talk about your log cost benefit in wood products? Like just, you know, when you see Idaho falling saw logs and stuff, primarily in Idaho, are you seeing anything on the southern side as well?
spk05: No. You know, our southern prices, they're actually up a little bit in the fourth quarter. They may be down a little bit in the first quarter, but not much. One of the benefits of having a timber business in the south is log prices tend to be relatively stable. So we're not seeing any real decline in the south.
spk01: Okay. And then just last one for me. How much is left of Deltic's real estate development in the Chanel Valley, both in residential and commercial?
spk03: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, and I'll start with the high-level stats just to frame the context. So that's a 4,800-acre master plan community. You know, it's been, you know, since the late 1980s is when Deltic started that project. And of a little over 5,000 total residential lots, about 1,400 remain. And then we also have about 300 acres of commercial real estate that's available for sale as well.
spk01: Thank you. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks.
spk00: Thanks.
spk02: Our next question comes from George Stafos with Bank of America.
spk06: Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for the details. Good morning. With OLA, you mentioned that it was coming up the curve a little bit more slowly than perhaps you'd wanted. Was that, Jerry or Eric, sort of running to demand, running to the market, or was it true learning curve issues, you know, as you're coming up the curve with OLA? And why was the cut rate not where you wanted it to be?
spk05: Yeah, George, good question. No, it clearly was not related to the demand. Starting up a mill is not just an on-off switch. When we started OLA up back in late September, early October, our cut rate was around 13,000, 14,000 feet an hour. As we sit here today, last night on the night shift, we ran 31,000 board feet per hour. So we've over-doubled production volumes now since when we first turned the mill on. We're still not to where we want to be. We want to get to 40 an hour. That's our goal. That's our target. That's where we think we're going to be at the end of the quarter. You know, this is two steps forward, one step back when you start up a lumber mill like this. We had residuals handling issues at the very start. We had vibration issues that we had to deal with, and we had alignment issues. Right now we're grappling with optimization software control issues. But, you know, we're bird-dogging those issues, and like I said, two steps forward, one step back, and we're moving up the ramp-up curve, and we think we'll be there by the end of the quarter.
spk06: It's a lot harder probably than putting numbers in a spreadsheet, so we give you credit and appreciate it. You know, CapEx is guided a little bit higher than we were at, and I think the street, and obviously you have Waldo, but is there anything else in there that we should be at least tracking progress on or asking you about over the course of the year that you would point out?
spk03: Yeah, I'll start with high level, and Eric may want to add something from a wood product standpoint. But, you know, you nailed it. I mean, overall, $135 to $145 million spend, you know, includes $74 million of wall dough. You know, the rest of it, I would say, is kind of normal biz. You know, it's planting trees in our Timberlands business. I mean, it's a little up a little bit because we now have more acres and a higher harvest. You know, that would be part of it. You know, real estate, it's a little bit of timing, you know, and that's conscious, you know, as we, you know, we always stay a step ahead of demand. So we kind of slowed down development a little bit, you know, at the end of 2022. And right now we're planning to, you know, potentially pick that back up, pace back up a little bit. And then you think about wood products, there's a certain level of maintenance, but there's also discretionary projects there as well. And the discretionary, we try to, you know, always think about a return greater than 15% for those discretionary projects. Thanks, Jerry.
spk06: Last question for me, and this is probably more for us than for you folks, but aside from British Columbia, are there any other markets where you think the cost curve is such that capacity is going to be strained and we could see potential, at least we should be watching for, potential curtailments or shutdowns?
spk05: Yeah, George, I think the Pacific Northwest, the west side, is vulnerable here. Those mills are competing for logs with export market logs. The price of logs on the west side, mills have to make a profit if they're going to stay open. But I think the west side is vulnerable in large part because harvesting volume that's available to mills has been coming down. Standing timber inventories have been coming down over the past several years. We had a bunch of fires. There's been conservation measures that have been taken. So I think there's the potential for further reductions over on the west side. It'll be nothing like what's happened up in B.C., but that's probably the next most vulnerable region in North America.
spk06: Okay. Thanks. That's all I got. Turn it over. Thank you, guys.
spk02: Our final question comes from Mike Roxland with Truist Securities.
spk07: Thanks, Eric and Jerry. I appreciate you taking my questions. First one, anything from a cost perspective that affected wood products in the quarter? You didn't mention, obviously, the small rep at all. I'm just wondering if there's anything else, because the margins seem to be, on an EBITDA basis, relatively pretty weak. I'm just wondering if there's anything outside of price at all that affected that margin.
spk05: Well, you know, we're in a relatively inflationary environment, Mike, so I, you know, that's part of it. I can't think of any one thing in particular that jumped out at us in the fourth quarter. You know, certainly having OLA run at its run rate of 40 an hour would help leverage the cost structure, but I can't think of anything else that really hurt us in the fourth quarter in particular.
spk07: Okay, got it. Appreciate it, Eric. And one last question on repair and remodel. You made the comment that home-centered customer takeaways remain strong, which is holding up fairly well, which is great. But typically, if you look back historically, there's been a few quarter lag between a decline in housing, single-family starts, and a decline in repair and remodel. So any sense that you're going – I understand that you're seeing right now still a strong takeaway, but if you look out – couple weeks. Do you see that abating at all? Do you see takeaway from home centers and deals with professionals declining? And the reason I'm asking is not only do you see a decline, not only does R&R typically lag starts, but the consumer itself has weakened. You look at rising unemployment, you look at type of wage growth, and you also look at the fact that R&R has been relatively elevated the last couple of years, particularly given work from home. So I'm just trying to get a sense of whether what you're seeing right now with home center takeaway is something that you expect to persist and if there are signs of any cracks.
spk05: Yeah, I don't see any signs of any cracks. I do think you're right. I do think it will slow, but by slowing, I still think I would point to growth even out to the fourth quarter. you know, there's the other side of the coin here, which is, yeah, you're right, during COVID, people sit around the house and do home repair projects, but the other side of it is, you know, we were in a really high-priced lumber market environment over the past couple of years, and as those prices have come down, anybody that was deferring a home repair project, you know, now is the time for them to pull the trigger on, you know, because you've got low lumber prices. You know, there's a whole bunch of other issues that are out there that are favorable. You've still got these really high levels of of home equity. You've got, you know, there's not much inventory for sale that's out there. There's, you know, there's, so people are stuck in their homes. Um, and so if you're stuck in your home, yes, unemployment has ticked up, but it's still at three and a half percent. There's still a lot of cash floating out there. Um, so I, there's so many other more favorable factors at play here that, um, I don't see it slowing down. Maybe, maybe at the end of the, the rate of growth will slow, But I don't see it turning negative, put it that way.
spk07: Got it. Thank you very much. Good luck in the quarter.
spk02: Thanks. At this time, I am showing there are no more questions. I now turn the call back over to Jerry Richards.
spk03: All right. Thank you, Devin. And thank you, everybody, for your questions and your interest in potlatch deltic. That concludes our call.
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