Upm Kymmene Corp

Good morning and good afternoon. Thanks for joining us for the UPM Quarter 1, 2024 results webcast. I'm Massimo Reinaudo. I'm the CEO of UPM. Here with me is Tapio Korpainen, the CFO of UPM. Good morning to everyone. Let me share now the main facts and achievements of the first quarter. Well, quarter one has represented a positive start of the year under different dimensions. First, the recovering demand and continued successful margin management have resulted in improved earnings compared to previous quarters. The destocking that has characterized last year is now over for all our businesses. Second, our transformative investments, the new Paso de los Toros pulp mill in Uruguay and the Olkiloto Free Nuclear Power Plant in Finland have delivered good contributions to the quarter one earnings. And finally, the improvement has been wide-based and most of our businesses have improved their performance sequentially. Our sales totaled 2.64 billion euros, and our comparable EBIT generation has been robust at 333 million euros, or 12.6% of sales. As I said earlier, in quarter one, the destocking was over, and the inventories have been normalizing. Last year, many industries have experienced a heavy destocking and a drop of the demand that, in scale and duration, has not been experienced before. During earlier calls, we have used this graph that describes what happened to the demand of self-adhesive materials in Europe last year as an example. In this graph is now well visible that since mid of last year, the demand started to recover and the recovery accelerated significantly in quarter one. In this specific case, the demand in quarter one returned to the levels of 2019 or to pre-COVID levels. We are not yet to the peaks reached later on, but the situation has been clearly improving, supported by, as I said, the normalization of inventory levels and the underlying consumer demand that has returned to growth. Albeit this is about self-adhesive label material, we see similar dynamics in most of the industry segments where we operate. As a result, in quarter one, our delivery volumes increased in five out of the six business areas that we have with respect to the last quarter. In fact, they grew in raffle tuck, in specialty papers, in plywood, in fibers, and in communication papers. The performance of our energy business area has been robust, too, with the EBIT performance reaching the best quarter one ever. One important contribution to our performance came from our transformative projects, as said. And the new pulp mill in Paso de los Toros in Uruguay has been one of them. The production ramp-up progressed well and reached 83% of the capacity during the quarter. Earlier on, we indicated that we were expecting to reach a positive EBIT in the first part of 2024. In fact, we reached it during quarter one already. Looking ahead, the mill will undergo a scheduled maintenance shutdown in June, as already informed earlier on. After the shutdown, we expect to turn from the ramp-up phase to normal operations and reach capacity during the second semester. We will continue to optimize the mill and the Uruguay platform and drive cash costs farther down toward the targeted $280 per delivered ton. By this standpoint, an important milestone has been reached in early April as the railway between the mill and our port terminal in Montevideo started operations. In summary, the ramp-up of the mill is proceeding well, and with the completion of the ramp-up phase, we will have 60 percent of our overall pulp capacity in Uruguay in a highly competitive platform. But when we talk about transformative projects, let me remind that last year also the Olkiloto Free Nuclear Power Plant started to operate. As anticipated, the energy business had a strong start of the year, and the new power plant, in presence of a strong market, proved its importance for the electricity system and contributed well to our quarter one earnings. But now let me hand it over to Tapio for some analysis on our results.

Thank you, Massimo. So looking at the drivers of the bottom line in the first quarter on the left hand side, you can see the Q1 EBIT bridge compared to the Q1 of 2023. Sales prices were significantly lower than last year with all businesses except energy realizing lower prices. Variable costs decreased too, but on group level this positive impact from variable costs was smaller than the impact from lower sales prices. On the positive side, delivery volumes were materially higher too. This was due, first of all, from additional volumes from the Paso de los Toros, and secondly, from the Okioto 3 production during the quarter, and then also, finally, from the recovering market demand in several businesses. Volumes grew in fibers, energy, raft attack, and specialty papers. Fixed costs were slightly lower and depreciation was higher due to the start of the Paso dos Toros pulp mill. On the right hand side, you can see the EBIT bridge compared to the fourth quarter of last year. On UPM level, we were able to increase prices while variable costs broadly were stable. The increase in variable costs that you can see here is due to the timing of the energy related refunds that we typically book in the fourth quarter. Fiber costs increased, whereas many other variable costs still decreased. Delivery volumes increased in all other business areas except for energy. Electricity deliveries were lower mainly due to the scheduled maintenance shutdown in Olkiloto 3, which started in early March. Fixed costs were lower than in the fourth quarter. UPM operations in Finland were impacted by the political strikes in March and early April. We were not party to this political dispute, but were affected by the resulting logistical blockade. Production in most of our paper and pulp mills was suspended, and all businesses experienced disruptions in logistics out of Finland. We succeeded well in mitigating the impact of the strikes by managing inventories and servicing customers from outside of Finland, and therefore the result impact was modest and is split between the first and the second quarter. Then going to the business area, starting from fibres. In fibres, profitability improved, market demand for pulp was good, and prices increased from the fourth quarter. The average pulp price increased by 13% from the fourth quarter, but still compared to last year was 23% lower. Our pulp deliveries grew from last year by 71 percent. Paso de los Toros contributed to the volumes and earnings. And as Massimo pointed out, energy achieved its best first quarter result so far. Cold winter weather in the first months of the year boosted electricity consumption seasonally, supporting market prices. We also succeeded well in hydropower optimization as also volatility of prices was high during the first quarter. Average electricity sales price increased by 24 percent from the fourth quarter or 12 percent from last year. In such strong markets, the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant unit proved its importance both for the Finnish electricity system and for contributing to our earnings. Then, rafletox markets continued to recover, with European label materials demand growing by 29% from last year or by 16% from the fourth quarter last year. North American demand was recovering as well, around the same level, 14% from the fourth quarter. Raflatak succeeded well in maintaining good unit margins, and hence the recovering deliveries led to recovery in profitability as well. In a similar manner, demand and deliveries in specialty grades in the specialty paper business area were recovering during the first quarter. Meanwhile, demand was solid for fine papers in Asia. Good profitability was maintained despite increasing variable costs. And communication papers continued to perform well. In the first quarter, overall demand for graphic papers in Europe was slightly higher than a year ago, but sales prices were clearly lower. The business continued its cost reduction actions. It benefited from the plattling mill closure that took place in the fourth quarter and completed the sales of the Steyr Mill paper mill. In UPM plywood, destocking in the markets ended, leading to some improvement in deliveries of spruce plywood. The business aligned production to market demand with temporary layoffs. In other operations, the European market for advanced renewable fuels was soft. Biofuels sales prices decreased, while input costs still remained elevated. The detailed commercial and basic engineering phase for the potential biorefinery in Rotterdam in the Netherlands continues. Biochemicals is progressing at full speed towards starting production in the Loina biorefinery and launching the biochemicals business by the end of this year. The first parts of the biorefinery have been commissioned and the commercial interest for the wood-based products remains high. Most of the refinery's operating team are already in place, and during the second quarter, further parts of the refinery start technical trial runs. Our financial position continues to be strong. First quarter operating cash flow was solid at 335 million euros, including a seasonal outflow of working capital. Our net debt decreased to 2.312 billion 312 million euros during the quarter, which is equal to 1.46 times EBITDA. The annual general meeting of UPM decided on an unchanged dividend of 1 euro 50 cents per share, totaling 800 million euros, and paid in two installments. The first installment was paid on 16th of April. And our capex guidance for the year is unchanged at 550 million euros. Also, our outlook for the year is unchanged. We expect our comparable EBIT to increase this year from last year, driven by higher deliveries, the ramp-up of Paso de los Toros pulp mill and lower fixed costs. In the first half of 2024, we expect our comparable EBIT to fall short of last year's second half due to the timing of the energy-related refunds in the fourth quarter last year and due to high maintenance activity in the second quarter of this year. We already discussed the impact of the energy refunds in the sequential EBIT bridge on slide five. During the first half of the year, the total maintenance impact is expected to be about 120 million euros, 110 million of which will take place in the second quarter. About 100 million of the maintenance impact will take place in the fibres business due to the three pulp mill maintenance shutdowns. But then in the second half of the year, we anticipate a good uninterrupted run that will support our results. It is also good to remember that the energy business area made its best Q1 results so far, driven by high energy demand and energy prices during the winter months. Winter is over, so it is likely that seasonally the energy business performance will moderate. So now I will hand it back over to Massimo for some comments on UPM growth.

Thank you Tapio. I would like now to open up a window over the future, the future beyond this year. In the past weeks, ever since I had the privilege to be given this role, I have been asked a number of times, what will you change in the future or what will UPM change? In reality, I don't think that change is the right word to characterize what we will do in the future. Well, of course, we are operating in a very volatile environment. There is uncertainty and complexity in the future. So we will need to continuously adapt or anticipate the changes wherever possible. So change is some way part of our current way of working. But looking into the future, the word that I think is more relevant for us is choice, is making the right choices or the best choices. Let me explain. Within the UPM portfolio, as portrayed here, we have plenty of opportunities to grow. And we have invested in recent years already to foster and exploit these opportunities. We have what we call the traditional core businesses, like Fibers, and you have heard about investment in Paso de los Toros, or Energy, and you have heard about Olkiloto Free. But also in our specialty packaging material businesses, We have invested in the AMC acquisition two years ago or in paper machine conversions such in Norland. So we have been investing in the core businesses to foster the growth of the future. But at the same time, we have also invested to get into new spaces. Here you see the so-called biorefining area. And you have heard the talking about LOINA, and you know that we are into the engineering phase for a potential investment into a new biofuel refinery in Rotterdam that would expand our biofuel capacity. In that space, there are many more opportunities that we can pursue, whether that is hydrogen production or carbon capture or use of biogenic carbon for the production of, if you will, as I said, there are many opportunities ahead. And we are at the crossroad of many industries, and we can choose where to put our resources to accelerate the growth of the future. But here on this other slide, I want to give you another dimension. Finland has been the cradle of our company that has grown across its evolution and over the decades to become what it is today, a multi-billion global company. And I've been willing to take this representation that tells under different metrics what UPM is today. This describes a company with sales and operations in five continents. We are about 16,600 people globally and we are present nowadays in 43 countries and we have 86 nationalities represented in our teams. This diversification has helped us to be resilient and perform in every market condition and beyond the geopolitical tensions in the past. And this will continue in the future. But now, if we look both at the opportunities offered by our product portfolio and by our global scale, we are well positioned to take profit of the different megatrends that are shaping the economy globally now and in the coming years. So this is why making the right choices or making the best choices is the key word here, so that we ensure we will continue to generate robust performance good return on investments and attractive dividends. This is our focus going forward. And in order to discuss more extensively about our future, I would like to take this opportunity to advertise our upcoming Capital Market Day in London on the 5th of September. I hope I can meet you there in person and you can meet with me, the UPM group executive team there. But in case you can make it to London, there will be an opportunity to follow the event online too. The registration to the event is now open on our website. But now, and to conclude. Quarter one was a positive start to 2024, underpinning our confidence for the full year. Our product markets are recovering, and our businesses are driving performance in an improving business environment. In quarter two, several assets will undergo planned maintenance shots, impacting our short-term performance. But in contrast, the second half of the year, we anticipate a good uninterrupted run that will support our results. UPM is in strong shape financially, with a portfolio of competitive businesses in growing markets supported by global megatrends. I look forward to opening the next chapter in the UPM growth while delivering consistent and strong performance. This concludes the prepared part of the presentation. Dear operator, we are ready for questions from the audience.

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Charlie Mule Sands from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Good morning, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got a few, but I'll try and limit myself. Just in terms of the maintenance that you've got coming up in Q2, particularly in Uruguay in June, how many weeks are the mills due to be down for? And is this going to affect the revenues in the second quarter, or could that spill over into the third quarter, given timing of revenue recognition in terms of shipments and receipts at customers' factories. And then secondly, can you give us any kind of update on your negotiations with the unions at the moment? And then lastly, you're guiding to CapEx for 550 million, of which 300 million is getting spent on Loina. How do you think about the sustainability of maintenance capex at an implied 250 million per annum? Is that sustainable over the midterm? It's clearly a much lower number than your depreciation charge. Thanks very much.

Okay. Thanks, Charlie, for your questions. I'll pick the questions about the maintenance in quarter two and the update on the negotiations, and I'll leave the question about the capex to to tapio. But when it comes to the maintenance in quarter two, and your question is specific about Paso de los Toros and Uruguay, the duration is estimated in being two weeks, which is pretty much the standard in these cases. The other part of the question was basically about the revenue spillover beyond the quarter. And assuming that everything proceeds like the plan, and we have good reasons to believe that that will happen, that will not be a material fact. That's for the first question. For the second question, the negotiations with the unions, where do we stand? Well, first of all, we stand with the fact that following the previous negotiation around two years ago, We have now five CLAs active in Finland for the different businesses. And so this is one first data point. The other data point is that as a company, we are committed to provide our employees everywhere globally fair remuneration for their job and that applies definitely and for sure to Finland as well. So this is to say that we are open to negotiation and to talk about salary increases. This is what we consider normal. Just beside that, what we want to talk about and discuss about is further ways to let's say protect and maintain our competitiveness or the competitiveness of our assets in Finland while we talk about wages and salaries, because that is fundamental to, let's say, preserve the competitiveness of our business and the future of our operations here. And we believe that these two topics are the same topic of interest of our counterparts and so on. So on this base, our openness and our trust There will be will to get to an agreement from the unions. I trust this can evolve positively. There are talks ongoing as we speak with the different business areas. I said there are five CLAs, so there are different negotiation tables. So it's moving forward. I cannot anticipate the conclusions, but there is a dialogue ongoing. And then I leave the last question to Tapio.

Yes, on the capex. Well, what to expect on capex and maintenance capex. If you look at the history, this time we didn't have the slide here in the deck, but our pure maintenance capex actually has been at 200 million or even below. If you look at these recent years when we have had had the sort of big investments ongoing in Loina and in Paso Toros, then we have been actually even sort of keeping the maintenance capex below 200 million euros. So in that sense, oh, there it is. So in that sense, let's say the capital efficiency has been and will continue to be from that point of view, very strong in UPM and of course where it comes from is from the fact that we have quality assets and particularly in the more capital intensive parts of our business like in pulp for instance we have big well-maintained pulp mills so that enables us to keep this maintenance capex low. Maybe another point here like you said that's let's say as a total level or let's say the pure maintenance capex compared to the total level of depreciation where we're headed to somewhere now 600 million and above next year. Looking at the past, in addition to these, let's say, maintenance investments, as such, we have been in total spending somewhere around, let's say, 300 to 400 million in the past years, which has already then included, on top of maintenance, this sort of targeted investments in the existing assets and businesses to the scale of building a third paper machine in China. So let's say this sort of level of total capex, which still is below the depreciation, leaves room for also not only maintaining, but improving and building on the existing asset base as such. And then let's say any new transformative investments, like what we are preparing for in the biorefining area, then would come on top of that.

Great, thank you.

The next question comes from Patrick Mann from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for the presentation and the opportunity to ask a question. I've got two questions. The political strikes in Finland, I understand it has nothing to do with UPM, it's between the union and the government, but what is the current position there and are you confident that this doesn't flare up again or become an issue again later in the year? Could you just update us on that, please? And then the second question, I mean, you're obviously, CAPEX is rolling down and you've got big volume increases from these projects which are ramping up now. and you have these investment opportunities ahead of you, how do you evaluate and rank those opportunities and decide whether or not to make an investment? And maybe more importantly, how do you think about deploying the capital there versus higher shareholder returns? And how do you think about that capital allocation question? Thank you.

Okay, so let's do like we did before. I picked the first question about the political strike and I let Tabet to continue on the question about the CAPEX and the use in the future. When it comes to the political strike, as it was said and as you underlined, Patrick, we are not an active party in this process, in this discussion. It is that the parties are the government and the union. So by this standpoint, we cannot formulate predictions about the evolution of the situation there. But having said that, one point which was underlined earlier on by Tapio, which is relevant, whilst we hope that the situation will settle, we hope there won't be more strike and disruptions, but this is a hope, it's not a plan, it's not something we can build on. But whilst we are in that situation, we know what has happened already in the past weeks and months, and we have been able to cope with four weeks of strike, with a modest impact on our performance. And I think Tapio has indicated that we have been able to manage orders, customer orders, anticipate them, postpone them, redeploy them. We have reallocated productions from Finnish assets to other assets. We have leveraged our inventories. So we have found a number of ways to manage that situation and also Just to give another data point, even if it was mentioned earlier on, even in quarter one, even with the impact of the strike on the pulp mills in Finland, our deliveries of pulp have grown 71% compared to the same period last year. And to give you another data point, nowadays about 90% of our sales and revenues today are generated outside Finland. So Finland is a key and important platform for us, but our business has diversified so much during the time under many dimensions to be able to cope with the strikes we had, really, with a modest financial impact. But equally, the financial impact is not the only impact here that counts. I would like to remember that we had also a big number of our workers that have been affected in their incomes and salaries because of that strike. And also, this kind of activity is bringing reputational damage. Because in any way, you know, they impact your ability to serve customers the way they would like to. So for all these reasons, I really hope that in the interest of the Finnish competitiveness, that this situation will evolve and will normalize soon.

Yeah, so if I sort of go then to the question on the opportunities and maybe to sort of bridge on Massimo's answer there in a sense that, let's say, whether we will see, let's say, an outcome that is more or less sort of controlled or calm out of this situation in Finland is perhaps not so much an issue of having to be concerned of financial performance of UPM as we are a global company and I said the impact is not material so far here but then it can be an issue also for us in terms of where do we choose the opportunities to invest for as a global company so that's why for instance we have 60 percent of the capacity for pulp in Uruguay now where we have good control and ability to impact our wood costs and let's say a long-term competitive platform where we know that we have a competitive advantage for four years to come. And that's of course one of the key criteria Where do we find an entry barrier? Where do we find a competitive advantage that will last for years to come? And where do we have a business where the market opportunity is positive and sort of clear for for many years to come for an investment to pay back so that's why we have been let's say now focusing on the fibers business and in Uruguay that's why we are then looking to sort of scale up the specialty papers and label materials businesses, which are global businesses where we have global presence. And then let's say building up the biorefining platform as a whole. In terms of capital allocation, I think one of the strengths in a sense that we have been able to show also now during the time where our CAPEX has been, high with the Loina and Uruguay PALP projects is that we can invest in quite significant scale but at the same time also maintain a good distribution to the shareholders in the form of dividends. So that is I think also one kind of objective or strategy vis-à-vis our shareholders that we aim to maintain going forward, to have a good balance there in a sense that we want to invest and grow earnings. And that means that then our capacity to share the returns to the shareholders will grow as well. Thank you. Thanks for the answers.

The next question comes from Andrew Jones from UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi, Jones. I've got a couple of questions. Firstly, on the biofuel side, can you just tell us how much the loss was in the biofuels business in the first quarter? I'm just wondering, as a paper analyst, we probably spend less of our time looking at these markets than and our Nest Day colleagues, but can you give us an idea from your perspective as to what's changed to the market in recent times? And, you know, if those macro changes are doing anything to sort of put you off that potential investment in Rotterdam? I mean, is the market still as attractive as you thought a couple of years ago when you were starting work on it? And then just secondly, just to follow up on Charlie's question on the maintenance downtime, I think you said two weeks at each of those mills? That sounds like it's probably about 140,000, 150,000 tons. Can you just confirm that's the right ballpark on the volume loss? And is there any way you could give a euro or dollar number associated with that maintenance hit? And maybe also some guidance around the energy or electricity sales losses in the second quarter, the maintenance there.

Okay, there are quite few and different points here. I'll start to picking. Let's see if I pick them all, but I may use Tapio's help to answer a few. But let's start first with the investment in Rotterdam. Well, we are working definitely to the case, the investment case, and to the engineering of the project But let's put it a bit on a broader perspective. An investment of that type is a sizable investment that will pay its returns over a couple of decades or longer. So in that time, the biofuel market will probably reach its maturity, biofuel market, is a relatively new and young market which has been supported so far also by the regulation and mandates and so on. So when we think to a longer time horizon of a couple of decades and more, we need to imagine, you know, how to compete, succeed and be profitable into a mature market. So this is why beside the engineering work and phase of the work that is being done, we are working to ensure the availability of supply of feedstock at competitive cost over a long period of time because there is a probability that feedstock will become a short resource in the future, as well as on the other side of the stream, developing a few different commercial scenarios. So this is just to try and say that we are having holistic approach to this case, which is taking time. We understand that, but we want to be sure we put all the time that is needed to have, I would say, the majority of the variable under good control there. So it's not formulating here an indication about how much time It will still take, we take the time which is needed, but we will communicate, you know, properly in the due time, rest assured we are working on the case. But then there was another point, part of the question around the short term dynamics in the biofuel market for, I leave that maybe to Tapio, but when you assess an investment case like this one, as said, you look over a, long-term horizon and you don't get influenced by short-term variations.

Yes, maybe if I continue briefly from there, like we said in the beginning of the year and have stated in the outlook as well, the biofuel prices are now at a lower level starting this year compared to what we have seen, let's say, during last year and early part of last year. We don't disclose the result of the biofuels business as such, so it's reported as part of the other operations that you can see in our release. But one can say that, let's say, the sort of impact on profitability of the kind of short-term market conditions has been one of the main reasons why, let's say, then we have a kind of level change in what we report as the comparable EBIT in the other operations. And again, let's say reasons being the same that are affecting our peers in the market. There's been, let's say, softness, sort of oversupply or more supply vis-a-vis demand. towards the end of the last year and this year for several reasons, including important imports to Europe, some of which may not be sustainable, lesser demand in market areas, and also, let's say, impacting the advanced biofuels pricing in particular, which is important for us. But then maybe going to your... I think you had a... question around this maintenance shutdowns and volumes and so on so again we don't we don't sort of disclose the volume impact as such but this let's say 100 million impact on the pulp business from the three maintenance shutdowns in the second quarter that includes obviously the fixed cost of maintenance but then also kind of the margin impact of the lost volumes or volumes not produced during the maintenance shutdowns.

And just on the electricity side with the Okkuloto shutdowns, are there any numbers you can put around that?

You mean in the Okkuloto 3 and the sort of Well, let's say I said of the 120 million total maintenance sort of impact, 20 million then is the effect of this OCO3 shutdown. Again, basically as a kind of a net result of the cost and the lost volume.

Okay, thanks a lot.

The next question comes from Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I've got three on my side. The first one is, I mean, UPM's strategically diversified its fiber base away with a lot of production now in Uruguay. But if we think about the Nordic or the Finnish wood costs, how do you think that market develops? over the near and longer term, do we need effectively capacity closures to balance the supply demand of the fiber market is the first question. The second one is related to the global pulp markets. I mean, we've seen disruptions from from Meta Group with their issues at Kemi. We've seen the Finland port strikes, and it's buoyed the global pulp prices. I'm just wondering, how do you see the developments from here? And if you could give a little bit of color, I would imagine that softwood pulp would have been the tighter market, but we've seen bigger price increases from a lower base in hardwoods. I'm just wondering if there's any divergence between the hardwood and softwood that you're seeing. Finally, the third question is around the biochemicals plant. In the past, you always talked about good cost competitiveness against the oil price, and you'd price up. I'm just wondering, how have the wood costs developed for that biochemicals plant? Thank you.

Okay, so let me start. The first question was about the Nordic wood cost development. Well, as it's probably known to everybody in this call, the wood balance or the wood situation in the Nordic in general, Finland part of it, has changed in a significant way since two years when the Russian wood has been subject to a ban and could not be imported anymore. But that happened in parallel with an increase of capacity in Finland that increased demand, so that added up to the imbalance. So the imbalance today is quite sizable. I believe it is in the scale of potentially up to 10 million cubic meters per annum, so it is sizable. This has led to this significant cost of wood that we have seen in the last couple of years. Now, when it comes to the future, well, we don't make predictions about cost development, but surely the tightness will be there. And it is difficult to imagine that there will be sufficient, let's say, wood available to support the need in Finland in the long run. So, well, I want to resist the temptation to speculate, but surely there is and there will be wood tightness in the future. And what this will determine, we'll see. But it's a structural issue for the market. It's not a temporary issue. Then the second question was about the global pulp market. There's definitely been an increase in the demand recently. And that has happened also in parallel to when it comes to software, as you indicated, some reduction on the offer side because of, yeah, reduction on the offer side. So at this point in time, there is some tightness. How this will develop in the future will also depend by the evolution of the economic situation. because a certain part of the current tightness is driven by the demand. The demand in Europe last year has been pretty weak whereas at the beginning of this year we have seen a good level of demand. added up to the demand in Asia and in China specifically. So how this will develop, it's hard to predict, but this will be influencing the trends in the second part of the year in a significant way. The last question is about the biochemical plan and the impact of wood cost on the competitiveness of the asset. Well, that mill insists on a different wood basket from the Nordic platform. therefore it is not subject to the same dynamics when it comes to cost increases there have been anyway cost increases since the case was originally formulated but it is true as well that the that has happened as part of a inflationary cycle so there has been a an increase also of prices of of chemicals and we trust that we can get premium on our prices that will offset the inflation on input cost. So there are some elements there, but they are not going to be impacting in any significant way on the attractiveness of the business case.

Thanks very much and then add on the wood cost specifically that again structurally it's a different situation because we are using beech which is and the broadlead forests in generally in Germany underutilized a lot of the beech wood actually is burnt which is not really a kind of an acceptable way to use wood anymore in central europe so in that sense we believe that sort of there's quite good supply also longer term of hardwood for for us in loina thank you the next question comes from ram commerce from barclays please go ahead

Yeah, hi. Congratulations on a strong set of numbers. This capital employed of energy just draw my attention. Could you, and it has, if I see it closely, it has fallen about a third since peak in end of 2022. So could you help me to understand why there is a sharp fall in capital employed for energy segmenting particularly? And on the pulp side, As exposure to Asia and China has increased after the ramp-up of milk in Uruguay, I'm just curious to know about how you foresee demand growth in China. And can you also touch upon how to read on Northern Belize softwood craft pulp prices dropping sequentially in China versus increase in Europe? Thank you.

Well, if I start with the question of the capital employed on energy, it's a good question or a good point to understand. So, in our balance sheet, the way we consolidate the ownership in the sort of special purpose companies that exist here in Finland, in the nuclear and hydropower production, in our case, that produce electricity at full cost for their owners. So the way that we then account for the value of these ownerships in our balance sheet is on a fair value basis, meaning that we kind of calculate market-based value for these assets or for these equity ownerships in these companies. It's basically kind of a DCF valuation that is then obviously impacted by, on one hand, The discount rate that we use in our calculation, on the other hand, the sort of energy price forecast, which is in the short term very much driven by the forward curves or the sort of future contract prices. And during the year now, we have had particularly, let's say, if you take as a comparison the year 2022, when prices were quite high, but still for a number of quarters in the beginning of last year, end of 2022, forward prices have been coming down, interest rates have been going up and therefore obviously discount rates likewise. So these two things combined have been then affecting this sort of fair value model.

The other question was about pulp demand in China. What we have observed during quarter one is that the demand in China was, let's say, driven by end-user segments, and there were different dynamics there. I wouldn't know how to qualify it. It was regular. It was not strong, not weak. But if the question was to try and speculate what the dynamic will be, that's very difficult to do. The Chinese markets move very quickly, sometimes on the base of speculative logic. So on this base, I refrain from formulating views on the future.

Okay. Okay. And just on the paper side of the things, even the utilization have improved quarter on quarter, but it is still around 70 at the moment for communication paper. Where do you see the utilization going from here and do you expect more consolidation exit of expensive plants or mills or machines going forward?

Okay, yeah. When it comes to the demand of graphic paper, last year demand dropped dramatically in Europe as well as in the US. Just to give it a scale, it was in the 25% area, which added up to some sort of 9% drop the year before. So you consolidate the two numbers, it means that demand has reduced, or the market has reduced, one third in a couple of years, which is much more than seen in the previous years. So last year already there have been significant consolidations or reductions or exits. We have contributed, we have reduced our capacity last year about 1 million tons. It is fair to say that the market remains still strongly oversupplied. As Tapia has indicated before, let's say volumes have displayed some stabilization or even some growth on some grades at the beginning of this year. But that is not changing dramatically the picture. So it will be probably inevitable for the industry to go through further consolidations in the future if the profitability will need to be maintained. Okay.

And on the labeling side of it, do you see restocking happening anytime soon? Because we know that the large part of destocking has stopped, but... Looking at the curve that you have showed in the presentation for raffle attack, would it be safe to assume that restocking would happen soon?

Yes, I think it's a good question. I think restocking is also happening right now. There are two components into the rebound we see. One is surely an element, I would call it, of normalization of inventories across the value chain. after the heavy destocking of last year. And then there is a good underlining demand driven by consumer and user consumer demand that comes on top. But the speed of the decline last year and the speed of the recovery this year are something that cannot be explained only with the structural change of the demand. So there is definitely in both trends an element of inventory, well, the stocking last year and the rebuild in this year, which we believe it's already happening.

Thank you very much.

Okay, I think there's also gets us to the end of the time we have planned for this call. Thank everybody for the participation. I look forward to see you in September, if not before, in our next quarterly call in July. Thank you. Have a nice day.