10/29/2021

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding, and welcome to Suzano's conference call to discuss the results for the third quarter of 2021. We would like to inform that all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the presentation that will be addressed by the CEO, Mr. Walter Schalke, and other executive officers. After the company's remarks are completed, There will be a question and answer session and further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during the call, please press star zero to reach the operator. Before proceeding, please be aware that any forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Zanus Management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. because they relate to future events and therefore depend on the circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. We understand that general economic conditions, industrial conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Susano and could cause results to differ in maturity from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I would like to turn the floor For the company's CEO, please, Mr. Schalka, you may proceed.

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

Good morning and good afternoon to everyone and welcome to the conference of third quarter results of Suzano. It's a great pleasure to be with you. I would like to start just telling you that we have here today several officers of the company and we have I would like to introduce to you our new Chief Sustainability Officer of Suzano, Ms. Cristina Gil, that is joining us at this moment and would participate on the event with us today. Today is a historical day for Suzano. We are announcing at the same time the best-ever record EBITDA, quarter EBITDA, in our history. with $6.3 billion of EBITDA. In addition to that, it's a very important day as well because we are announcing the new project Cerrado that yesterday was approved by our board of directors. On November 5th, we are going to announce the details of the Cerrado project We are just released with you, share with you today some information that will be a project of 2.55 million tons of bulk. There is going to be an investment of 14.7 billion reais in defense and the commissioning of this project will happen on the second half of 2024. All the additional information will be provided to you on a special event that you are invited to join us on November 5th, next week. We are very pleased to announce to you today the results of the third quarter. In addition to the Record de Vida, we had extremely good volumes on pulp and paper, Our inventory levels on the pulp side is below the normal levels. We are operating all of our logistics in a very good way despite the shipping problems that the world is facing. We have very good volumes. We have a very good price realization and the combination of good volumes of price and price realization In addition, and the consequence of that, we had a very good free cash flow on this quarter, and we delivered at a very fast pace. Our net debt came down from $11.4 billion to $10.7 billion on this quarter. and our net debt over EBITDA right now it's 2.7 times in dollar terms. Our liquidity, it's extremely good. We have right now $3.5 billion of cash in hand and additional standby line of $500 million. And in addition to that, we had the ESG. Last week, we announced that we are, and Cristina is going to share with you the information related with the anticipation of our carbon sequestration targets from 2030 to 2025. And this is related with our call to action to the world. We are going to be part of the COP26 next week. And it's very important that all of us, 8 billion people, work together on the direction of decarbonization of our world. This is a must. We cannot procrastinate anymore the situation. And we are going to advocate this position during the COP26. Now I'm going to hand over to Fabio who is going to talk about our paper division. Fabio, the floor is yours.

speaker
Fabio
Head of Paper and Packaging Business Unit

Thanks, Walter, and good morning, everyone. Let's look at the paper and package business unit results for the third quarter of 2021. During the quarter, market conditions have improved significantly in all major Latin economies with the advance of COVID-19 vaccination. Demand for print and write papers in Brazil, according to IBA, has grown 29% until August, when compared to the same period of last year, recovering to pre-pandemic levels. Demand for paper board has grown 21% in the same period, showing that the above historical growth trend for the sector is persistent. On the supply side, paper markets have been forced to adapt to the constraints in global supply chains, which has reduced paper products flows between regions and strength into regional trade. Demand for uncode wood-free papers in the mature markets has grown on a year-over-year basis when compared to 2020, yet still below 2019 levels. Now, focus on slide four. The paper and package business unit has delivered strong operational performance into the quarter. Our sales were 6% higher when compared to Q3 2019, demonstrating solid growth even when compared to pre-pandemic levels. Domestic sales represented 69% of our total sales in the quarter, totaling 209,000 tons, an 80% increase compared to the semi-quarter of 2020, reinforcing the improvement on marked fundamentals. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, our domestic sales improved 15% in volume, due to a better seasonality and the continuously strong demand for packaging papers. I would like also to highlight that our export volumes were 13% higher on a quarter-over-quarter basis, even with severe and persistent headwinds in international logistics. Our average net price during the quarter was 22% higher than our price in Q3 2020, and 5% higher quarter-over-quarter. During the period, Suzano has successfully completed the implementation round of previously announced price increases for all product lines and all markets we served. At the same time, we have also announced the following price increases. 14.6% for paperboard and 21% for cup stocks for the Brazilian market as of November 21st. $50 per ton for all Latin exports and 6% to 8% for all North American exports as of October 21st. As a result of strong volumes and prices, revenue management and operation stability, our EBITDA has reached a new record of 545 million in the quarter. A 31% increase quarter over quarter and a 53% increase year over year. Our EBITDA margin reached R$1,789 per ton, also marking a new time pipe. Looking ahead on the short term, we see a better seasonality during the Q4 and our challenge resides in successfully managing the exogenous pressure of inflation and continue to find alternatives to the international logistics bottlenecks. On the long term, we will keep working on our new go-to-market strategy with investments on technology and digitalization, as well as boosting our robust innovation pipeline to keep benefiting from market trends that were accelerated by the pandemic, as we can already be seen by demand recovery profile. Now, I'll turn over to Leo, who will be presenting our whole business results. The floor is yours, Leo.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

Yeah, thanks, Fabio, and good morning, everyone. I would invite you all to move to page 5 of our presentation. The results of our pool business were quite positive for the third quarter 2021, supported by strong sales volumes despite all logistic challenges and also supported by increasing prices. As you can note on the top graph, sales performance totaled almost 2.7 million tons in the quarter, marking a record third quarter since merger. I would like to emphasize that our inventories are well below optimum operational levels and our teams were able to successfully overcome supply chain constraints to guarantee high service level to our customers and consequently also maximizing our invoicing during the quarter. Poll consumption has exceeded our expectations across all paper grades in Europe and has rebounded in North America. In China, our order intake levels from our strategic customer base recovered back to normal and at steady rates despite a slower-than-expected paper and board demand recovery in the region. We would like to highlight, as published by Europol, that pulp stocks in the European ports closed the quarter 14% below the historic monthly average since 2018, placing a significant challenge to paper and paper board producers who are running in this region at high operating rates. In China, as per U.M. statistics, Pope stocks remain quite flattish also during the quarter. Our average prices for export markets, as you can see, has increased to $654 per ton, having major markets behaved in different directions, in turn, due to each specific region's fundamentals. Our prices in Europe and in America has increased compared to the second Q and are in line with our announced price levels, while in China prices have started to correct to adjust since July. Our average price was influenced by a strong sales volume in Asia during the quarter. Looking at our EBITDA performance, the all-time high of R$5.7 billion in the quarter, with a 63% EBITDA margin, was also favored by the FX, contributing to high price levels in BRL terms, even higher than our prices in local currency in the third quarter of 2018, when the pulp market was especially tight. Now, looking forward, we expect that fundamentals will continue to be tight in Europe, supported by stronger paper demand than hardwood poopstock replenishment. In North America, demand is healthy in all segments, including tissue, where we see the end of the channel destocking, as well as improving of the away-from-home segments. In China, we recognize a lower visibility as macroeconomic environment is becoming more challenged. Nevertheless, we would like to point out some factors that might contribute to a more positive pricing dynamics going forward. In the demand side, we see stable downstream paper consumption and consequently lower intermediary paper stocks after the recent production curtailments triggered by the energy crisis. At the same time, we see an intent to quickly improve operating rates as paper producers are getting prepared for a high seasonality quarter and the Double 11, the November 11 shopping gala, a few weeks from now. Price increases are also being announced and implemented across all paper and packaging grades, improving paper margins. In the supply side, logistics is expected to impose even higher risks for global market players and also for upcoming capacities. We also might see above average unexpected downtimes as increasing energy, chemical and logistic costs should impact producers operating rates not only in China, but also worldwide. With that said, I would like to invite Aires so that he can give us more information on our cash cost performance.

speaker
Aires
Head of Cost Management

Thank you, Leo. Good morning, everyone. We are in the slide number six. The 3421 cash cost performance, both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, was affected by the exogenous pressure of rising commodity prices, mainly in Brent, affecting inputs and wood costs, followed by energy impacting chlorine dioxide again on input costs, and steel impacting wires. The quarter-over-quarter performance resulted in a low-digit increase in line with our recent discussion in mid-August. As you can see, the impact of commodity price accounted for virtually all the cash cost pressure. Other factor that negatively contribute to the 30-quarter figure is related to the higher fixed cost in turn due to more intensive maintenance routine that took place during scheduled on times in the quarter. Looking now to year-over-year performance, Commodities price also took a toll on cash production costs, representing 74% of the total increase. Here, the fixed cost increase can be mainly explained by the record of COVID-19 pandemic impact, previous record directly in COGS. For the coming quarters, the company expects that the cash cost production X downtime should remain about flat over 3421. Now, I pass the floor to Marcelo Batcontinas for the presentation.

speaker
Marcelo Batcontinas
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Aires. Good morning, everyone. On page seven, we see that this quarter represented a significant step in terms of our deleveraging process. Our net debt went down by $700 million in this quarter alone and $1.5 billion in the last 12 months, which is an exceptional performance. That allows us to bring our leverage ratio Thank you very much. All of our debt maturities in the next four years, even if we don't generate any more cash. On page eight, we show our current FX cash flow hedge portfolio. In the last 12 months, we have been able to change dramatically the protection levels, taking advantage of the opportunities that were presented to us by the market. Our average put is now at 532. and calls at 6.13 with a special note to the long-term hedges that we have that have been benefited especially by a higher interest rate and a higher volatility scenario that we see today in the marketplace. Turning to page nine, we see that our CAPEX program has been evolving according to our plan with this burst 1.5 billion reais of CAPEX last quarter. and we keep the same guidance for the year with total investments for 2021 of 6.2 billion reais. With that, I call my new colleague Cristina to the floor. Welcome, Cristina.

speaker
Cristina Gil
Chief Sustainability Officer

Thank you, Marcelo. It's a great pleasure to be here at SUSANO. As Walter mentioned, we believe that tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our generation. And if we wish to leave a better world, We must embrace bold and coordinated measures now. COP26, the climate change conference, starts next week. It is indeed an opportunity for world leaders to gather and become true global pioneers. This must be achieved through mutual agreement on a concrete framework from which our nations can move forward together to combat the climate emergency. Among the measures that we expect is the implementation of a regulated carbon market included in the Paris Agreement. The former is fully aligned with the imperative to collectively preserve biodiversity through financing nature-based solutions. Aware of Susana's potential and convinced that addressing climate change must be a priority, we reinforce our commitment of capturing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than we emit. As we understand the urgency, therefore, Susano has advanced its long-term goal. We will remove 40 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere five years earlier. We will deliver this goal by 2025 instead of our original target year of 2030. The new goal will be supported by a combination of more efficient and expanded forest cover, as well as an increase in designated conservation areas from degraded land to be restored. Very importantly, Susano will maintain its focus on reducing carbon emissions across its own operations and supply chain. This is in fact fully aligned with our joining the science-based target initiative and the 1.5 degree business ambition. In parallel, the company remains committed and engaged in discussing new methodologies for reporting greenhouse gas emissions and removals such as the greenhouse gas protocol guidance and land use. Avoiding climate disaster, however, is not a task that we can tackle alone or that can be executed by one company or industry by itself. Hence, we are encouraging our peers in the business community to join us. This is a race where if we join forces, we will all win. Valter, back to you.

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Cristina. It's a great opportunity to be with you here and work together in the direction of regeneration. This is a critical issue that we need to work on our society for the near future. I'm very pleased with you that we are sharing extremely good results, operational results. We are showing records to you. In addition to that, we have been working to mitigate our cash cost inflation that we are seeing from the commodity business. But in the other hand, we are preparing the company for the future. We have a very robust balance sheet. We are very low cost of debt, very long-term debt. We are well prepared for the next decade. We are very pleased to see how robust is our engineering team to be prepared for this target and for the new project coming on stream. And more than that, the company will work. Thank you very much. Thank you. There is appendix area of our presentation. This is a mission, this is a critical of our generation and how we are going to address this issue in the years to come. Now we are going for the Q&A session. Since Cerrado Project, you are invited. We are going to deliver additional information only on November 5th next week.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Excuse me, now the floor is open for questions. If you have a question, please press star one. Ms. Isabella Vasconcelos from Bradesco BDI would like to make a question.

speaker
Isabella Vasconcelos
Analyst, Bradesco BBI

Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the results and thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions on my side. Please comment on your perception of how pulp inventories throughout the chain, and especially paper makers' hands in Europe and China, are right now. And the second question is still on pulp market dynamics. I would like to hear your view on how you're thinking about supplying the NAM dynamics in 2022. Of course, I know there are a lot of uncertainty still. But it would be great to hear your view. These are my questions. Thank you.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

Hi, Isabella. This is Leonardo. Thank you for your questions. When I first addressed the one in the European inventories, we see actually low hardwood stocks in European ports. As I mentioned in my presentation, they are ranging 14% below and historic averages. We sense that the demand in Europe is very strong. Our sources show when our customers present us with extremely high operating rates, At the same time, we see that the stocks are very, let's say, challenging to support this high operating rate. So we see that they are running below what was actually needed or what is actually needed to support European producers at the time. And this is mainly, obviously, to logistics constraints that we're seeing globally. It's very hard to divert vessels from route A to route B. Now in your question on the market for 2022, obviously this will all depend on the fundamentals at the time. But since we are a few months from there, let me try to give you my view of what should happen or what might happen in terms of demand and supply that will support the fundamentals. We are seeing obviously that some projects were delayed and with the logistics constraints that we have, obviously not only this delays in projects, but existing volumes from current producers and also upcoming producers will be arriving at markets at a much slower pace. So that we think will contribute for a lower than expected supply at 2022. In the demand side, we see several opportunities, additional to the organic growth of the market, which we all and you all follow. We see opportunities in terms of fiber substitution. Hardwood and softwood still have a significant gap in terms of pricing and regaining space and traction. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. and alternatives like paper packaging, for example. Additional to that, there are two other points that I would like to point out. First is the gap between dissolving pulp and paper-grade pulp. As you know, it's way above historic averages, and we think that that will stimulate and speed up conversions of flex capacity between paper-grade pulp and dissolving, so that will help also the fundamentals for our paper-grade market in 2022. And last but not least, the industrial inflation of course. This is obviously not exclusive to Brazil exclusively. We are seeing this across the globe. In China, we're seeing producers being hit by increasing energy costs, also labor, wood costs, logistics, and all this will put a lot of pressure on the producers. The marginal cost producers will be certainly having a higher marginal cost, and this will put pressures in terms of unexpected downtimes and certainly lower operating rates than we saw on past cycles.

speaker
Isabella Vasconcelos
Analyst, Bradesco BBI

That's very clear, thank you.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

You're welcome, remember.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from George Passos from Bank of America.

speaker
George Passos
Analyst, Bank of America

Good morning and good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on the results. I had two or three questions. I'll ask them together for time efficiency. First, Leo, thanks for the rundown on the pulp market. How do you gauge the impact that pricing is having in terms of the slower pace of supply from existing and new suppliers into the market, potentially at a higher price? If you saw that, we'd maybe be seeing more supply into the market. On the paper side, Fabio, Can you remind us what price increases you are into the market with newly? You went through that very quickly in your remarks. If you could review that. And why are you not worried that the continued escalation in paper pricing might at some point start to negatively affect demand? And then, Christina, could you review quickly how Susano is going to hit its goals Thank you very much and good luck in the quarter. Well, thanks, Jorge. Let me take your first question.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

This is a very interesting question. We actually don't think that there's a very strong correlation to that. Most of the projects that we have seen announced comes from either one side of producers who are betting on the increasing organic growth and all the other fundamentals that can even further accelerate growth in terms of hope demand, as I have mentioned in my previous answer to Isabella. and the other side we see a lot of action or interest in integrating capacity especially in other kind of fibers like for example dissolving into viscose and projects coming into that arena due to the opportunity of the increasing viscose market in the future as a substitute of cotton and polyester. So we don't see a lot of correlation for the time being at least from this next cycle. If markets or projects will be announced and increased according to the pricing dynamics in a specific moment of time. Now, pass to Fabio.

speaker
Fabio
Head of Paper and Packaging Business Unit

Thanks, Leo. And thanks, Jorge, for your question. Regarding the price announcements that I went through in my presentation, we have announced a price increase for paper board in the Brazilian market, close to 15%, 14.6% to be more precise. as of November this year. And we have also announced a $50 per ton in our product rates for Latin exports and a 6% to 8% increase in all our North American exports. And this is all valid as of October 21st. As of your question regarding the price impact on the demand of paper, We have seen paper prices in Brazil operating below the international markets in dollar terms. So the trend is that the paper prices in Brazil tend to recover. We see a gap there that we can come back to international price levels. And also we see lots of pressure from international markets, from logistics and also raw materials inflation, which is also pushing paper prices to a different price level. So we believe that in order to cut up with the adjustments for inflation logistics, paper prices will continue to move forward in the international markets and also in Brazilian market. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Leonardo Correia from Bank BTG Pactual.

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

Sorry, we didn't answer the third question. Gina, the floor is yours.

speaker
Cristina Gil
Chief Sustainability Officer

Thank you, Valter. George, thank you for the question. And it is a complex answer. We are expanding our eucalyptus plantations to the Cerrado project. So we're going from 140,000, from 150,000 hectares to 290,000, more or less. Also, we have a We are a 500,000 hectare biodiversity target and we now included in the calculations we refined our methodology and we're including carbon removal from nature or natural cover of our preservation areas and also we are reducing emissions in our own operations so that will be also included. We're thinking of around 5,000, you know, 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year removal, more or less. There will be variations by year. And also we had a 15 million reduction in 2020. So we're pretty confident we will achieve the goal. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Leonardo Correa from Bank BTG Pact Loan.

speaker
Leonardo Correia
Analyst, BTG Pactual

Hello, everyone. Good morning. Can you hear me?

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

Yes, we are hearing you. Go ahead, Leo.

speaker
Leonardo Correia
Analyst, BTG Pactual

Okay. Thank you, guys. Yeah, so my first question is still on the market outlook, guys. I'm going to keep my two questions on the market outlook. So first, today we received always, right, on Fridays, we received the weekly numbers coming from Lindsey. An interesting trend that's emerging is that the reselling price is now, for the first time in many weeks and months, above the PIX price in China, right? So, Leo, I just wanted to hear you on what you... I think that would be interesting to hear. And the second question on my side, still, and sorry guys to insist on the market outlook, but I think this has been important. And of course, it's been a very confusing year for all of us. I think we made a mistake on the Chinese demand outlook, right? I think the big mistake we made in the year was to probably overestimate the demand outlook in China. And some months ago the narrative was that the Chinese paper mills were destocking, right? That generated that first leg down in prices. And now the narrative has shifted towards a narrative of the Chinese paper mills not wanting to restock Given the fact that there is supply coming and also given the fact that there is weak demand in the short term on a series of rationing effects and all that, right? Leo, also to hear from you, I mean, what exactly are you seeing on the ground in China? Why is demand so weak? Why are things so different in China than what we're seeing in Europe and in North America? I mean, are you seeing any signs of stabilization, any signs of Thank you guys. I'm sorry for concentrating both questions on the market outlook.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

Okay. Well, thank you for both questions. Regarding reselling prices, we agree that that is usually one of the trends and one of the best proxies to show the direction that the market is going. So when resale, as it is now, is trending over the fixed levels for China prices, certainly that shows a good trend for price stability or even price increases in the short term. We believe that the main reason for that, and that might explain a little bit as well my view on the second question, is that there was a The stocking throughout paper grades and paper board grades in China in the last three or four weeks due to the restriction on production in several mills. So that stock was consumed. And now in the fourth quarter of the year where we have a good seasonality and also the double 11 or the November 11 shopping gala, which is huge for tissue, as you know. There is a push from producers to recover the stocks as quick as possible to be ready for this season, especially producers in the northern part of China, which were waiting for this opportunity to recover their operating rates. So we see that this push, obviously, they are quickly assessing all available bulk stocks in China and the ones available are from resale. That's why prices are We are very positive that the situation has changed during the last three, four weeks after the restrictions to production that generated an effect that I think that we were also not expecting, but we see as more positive than negative. Demand, to answer your questions, everything I think is kind of correlated. We expected a higher demand coming end of August, early September, as usually is seen in China, which didn't happen in our view due to still a little bit of COVID outbreaks and then the restrictions to some further education and then obviously the impact in printing and writing that that generates and then later the The energy-related production curtailments. But then one important fact is that we are seeing, even after the curtailments, no impact at the downstream demand. And I think this is the most important KPI. We are not seeing that the demand for tissue packaging or even printing writing as we are approaching the publicity of the Winter Olympics have been impacted during these past weeks. So as we're coming into the fourth quarter again, we see this push and this intent or this need from paper producers, packaging producers, tissue producers to recover operating rates to be able to be prepared for this higher seasonality season. So it's very important, I think, to focus on downstream demand because by the end of the day, that's what's going to drive the whole chain in the market.

speaker
Leonardo Correia
Analyst, BTG Pactual

Okay, thank you very much, Léo.

speaker
Daniel Ito
Analyst

Our next question comes from from Ito DBA Hi everyone, good morning so my first question comes maybe to Cristina or Valter if you could share your expectations for the main outcomes of the COP26 what do you think will be the main or the most interesting topics and if Do you have any developments that you could share with us in regards to your assessments of eventually tapping voluntary carbon markets? That would be great. And my second question, maybe to Leo, I think it's fair to assume that your own inventories Thank you very much. Thank you, Daniel, for your question and thank you for raising this so important question that is related with COP26.

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

I think as a precedent conditions we need to address in the COP26 what would be the NDC standardization because the NDC on different countries are related not including some specific areas or sectors of the emissions and it's not sometimes it's not absolute numbers we need to set one standard for NDC In addition to that, we need to have more bold targets and more short-term targets. We need to anticipate the targets of every single country. And this is the commitment that we expect from different countries on the agreement on Glasgow. And more important than that, that we create a global regulated carbon market. If you have this, we have a cap and trade system where we can reduce the allowance for emission for every single country and every single company in the world. We will have a force or a dimension of new investments on decarbonization of the world market. We need to do it right now. That if you have short term and more bold targets, and if you have more investment on the decarbonization through a global carbon market, I think would be very positive. Last but not least, we need to fulfill the agreement, the Paris Agreement, where developed countries will invest at least $100 billion for developing countries. We believe that should be a more A higher number than the 100 billion and we expect that they reach an agreement on that during the COP26. And now I'm going to pass to Leo.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

Okay, thanks, Walter. Hi, Daniel. Thanks for your question. Obviously, I will I have to refrain from answering it because obviously our inventory policy looking forward or going forward is very much related to our commercial strategy and we cannot give guidance in that way if we operate at higher or lower levels. Let me try to answer it in a different way. I think first of all it's important to say and I think it's clear by now After two consecutive quarters that Susana and we are all following very actively the market particularities, the fundamentals and supporting our customers. and we are capturing all opportunities possible and therefore selling at very high rates and according to our plan. This is number one. Second, I would like to reconfirm that our stock levels are really at very low levels across our global supply chains and we have from one side our customers in several regions having and the other side the more difficult supply chain and logistics scenario so When we add those two factors together, we are the situation that we are today. But I'm very happy to say that the work that our team has been doing together, and this is industrial supply chain, logistics and sales, is enabling us to be able to service all customers with very high service level agreements, which we had before and which are maintained, and also to be able to deliver very high Sales volumes for the quarter as you saw in my previous presentation.

speaker
Daniel Ito
Analyst

Thank you, Leo. Thank you, Voltaire.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

Thanks, Daniel.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Jonathan Brand, HSEC. Hi, good morning.

speaker
Jonathan Brand
Analyst, HSEC

Thanks for taking my questions. First, I wanted to ask you about Europe and European demand. Obviously, the prices in Europe are very high relative to China. I guess I'm wondering if you could share any insight you have into that, how long you think something like that might last, and if it's possible for you to put more into Europe to get some of the incremental pricing there. And if there's any concern as we head into winter in Europe, Thank you very much. A year or two, my understanding is the freight situation is unlikely to get much better, at least over the next year or so. If you could share what we should be expecting on freight rates going forward, should we expect some pressure there, or are you very well situated? Lastly, and Walter, forgive me, I know you didn't want to talk about the Cerrado project, but I'm just wondering what was behind the timing change. Originally you were expecting one queue and the statement last night. You're saying it's delayed to the second half. Is that just more supply logistics issues and not being able to get equipment in? Or is this sort of your decision given the pulp market fundamentals? If you could share anything there, that would be great. But if you want to wait until November 5th, obviously I understand. Thanks.

speaker
Leonardo
Head of Pulp Business Unit

Okay, Jonathan, this is Leo here. Let me start with the first one regarding European demand. Our view is that the European demand for all kinds of paper grades and also packaging grades are very strong. And the reason is not only related to continental Europe, but also to the markets around continental Europe, mainly Northern Africa and the Middle East. These markets were serviced by Asian producers in the past, and also from producers from Latin America and North America. But due to the logistics constraints, the lack of containers and the cost of containers, these markets today are being mostly sold or sold or attended by European producers who then are running at very high operating rates. We were recently at a forum together with all our customers in Europe and they report all their books. Thank you very much. and the supply of hardwood pulp into Europe. So this creates this kind of unbalance that is then making the fundamentals strong and supporting prices and change in Europe since some months ago already. And it's also very hard to precise, just to end my response to your question, on when that's going to change because that's related to these logistic challenges that we have today. We believe that at a moment of time when logistics ease off and we have more supply coming into Europe, eventually this market can start correcting if fundamentals don't change at the time.

speaker
Carlos
Director of Logistics

Good morning, John. This is Carlos speaking. Thanks for your question. Just to remind everybody for break bulk, use it to We have a sort of agreed or defined rates. There are just only by the bunker. It is hard to predict what's going to happen with the freight rates in the coming year. But I can tell you that we have new vessels being built to transport both, mostly there in Asia. So we foresee additional vessel capacity coming online in the coming years. But again, hard to predict what is going to be the freight rate trends.

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

Jonathan, thank you very much for your question related with the SEHADO project. After we approve With certain precedent conditions, the project on the last quarter, we approached several suppliers and we are going to announce next week the winners. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Our next question comes from Marcio Sarigi from Goldman Sachs.

speaker
Marcio Sarigi
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. The first one on cost inflation, which is something that we've been seeing across segments and for different companies as well. Just wanted to hear from you and understand if you have reached the turning point in terms of cost inflation. Are we at a peak? Are we seeing any potential carries into the next quarters? Carlos, maybe if you can add here in terms of how you're seeing cost inflation on the forestry and plantation side as well, and what are the expectations going forward? And then my second question maybe to Bachi. Bachi, how should we think about how to finance? Again, sorry, I understand that there's going to be more details provided next week, but just if you can give us some color in terms of How your capital allocation going into the next capex cycle is going to be looking like. That will be great as well. Thank you.

speaker
Aires
Head of Cost Management

Hi, Marcel. Good morning. Thank you for your question. It's not easy to predict the commodity price for our coming quarters, but we are not carrying any delay implementation in terms of costs. That's the reason that we believe that the coming quarters will be flat with the third quarter 2021. And in the medium term, we continue to work in our initiatives to reduce the structural cash costs, such as energy efficiency, a lower Average distance between forest and mill and the reduction of third-party wood. And additionally, the Cerrado project will contribute with this drive of having to be of being best in class in terms of cash costs. I think that we are on track and probably we are in the peak of the common enterprise and We believe that the coming quarters in this level or if you have a better scenario in the commodities will decrease something.

speaker
Carlos
Director of Logistics

Thanks, Eduardo. Hey, Marcel. Good morning. Thank you for your question. On the forestry side, we are facing a high impact coming from mainly fertilizers and service. So that is the reality that we have right now. And the way that we look at that is that we need to improve our efficiency. We need to go after other ways of operating in order to mitigate, to minimize this situation. We look at that as an opportunity to find ways or different ways to operate in the forest site. So it is a reality and that we are trying to maximize our efficiency in order

speaker
Marcelo Batcontinas
Chief Financial Officer

Marcio, in regards to your question about the Cerrado financing, we will not go into details right now, but the general idea is to finance the project with internally generated cash and with the cash position we have today. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

If there are no more questions, I would like to turn the floor of the company's CEO for the final consideration. Please, Mr. Walter Schalker, you may proceed.

speaker
Walter Schalka
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be with us here during this third quarter call. And we are very pleased with the moment that the company is living. We are preparing the company for the future. We have been working on several different avenues of value creation to our shareholders. We are discussing about our relevance on the pulp market, our structural costs. We have been working on our integration, vertical integration, and our consumer goods are performing very well on this area. We have been working on the bioeconomy and different avenues of integration Thank you very much and let's keep in touch.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The final third quarter results conference call is finished. Have a nice day.

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