Western Forest Products Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Western Forest Products second quarter 2025 results conference call. During this conference call, Western's representatives may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements can be identified by words like anticipate, plan, estimate, will, and other references for future periods. Although these forward-looking statements reflect management's reasonable beliefs, expectations, and assumptions, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. There are many factors that could cause actual outcomes to be different, including those factors described under risks and uncertainties in the company's annual MD&A, which can be accessed on CDAR and is sub-prevented by the company's quarterly MD&A. Forward-looking statements are based only on information currently available to Western and speak only as of the date on which they are made. Except as required by law, Western undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Accordingly, listeners should exercise caution in relying upon forward-looking statements. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Stephen Hofer, President and CEO of Western Forest Products. Mr. Hofer, please go ahead.

Thank you, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to Western Forest Products' 2025 Second Quarter Conference Call. Joining me on the call today is Glenn Montel, our Chief Financial Officer, and Bruce Alexander, our Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Manufacturing. We issued our 2025 Second Quarter results yesterday. I will provide you with some introductory comments and then ask Glenn to take you through our financial results. I will follow Glenn's review with our outlook section before we open the call to your questions. Despite challenging markets, we were successful in generating positive EBITDA in the second quarter of 2025. We continue to focus efforts on our operational efficiency and recovery while also managing working capital and our costs to ensure we maintain a strong balance sheet. In our Timberlands group, this included a continued focus on costs and inventory management despite ongoing permitting challenges in D.C. and a strike at the Lafossamook Limited Partnership. In our manufacturing group, we adjusted to evolving markets, proactively staging lumber products in the U.S. ahead of duty increases and focusing on working capital and cost management. In our sales and marketing group, we continue to focus on growing key strategic customers and advancing opportunities to grow our domestic and international customer base. At the same time, we are proactively adjusting our operating schedules to align production with market demand, as well as deferring and reducing our planned capital spending for 2025. This included deferring one of our new continuous kilns at our Value Added Division to mid-2026. site preparation work for the kilns has completed and construction is commencing on kiln one. These kiln investments will increase the production of value-added kiln-dried lumber products and help support the diversification of our global customer base. Unfortunately, during the quarter, our Columbia Vista sawmill sustained extensive damage in a fire, rendering the mill inoperable. We are Thankful there were no injuries and we are working with our insurer to determine available proceeds related to the damage and business interruption. We are in the process of evaluating all future options for the site, including the potential for rebuilding, but no decisions have been made. With significant increases in stock with lumber duties commencing in the third quarter and U.S. trade uncertainty, We expect more challenging market conditions in the second half of 2025. However, we are well positioned to navigate the near-term uncertainty with our strong balance sheet. I will now turn it over to Glenn to review our key financial metrics.

Thanks, Stephen. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $0.5 million as compared to $9.4 million in the same period last year. As compared to the prior year, results in the second quarter were negatively impacted by lower lumber shipments, increased softwood lumber duties, a weaker U.S. dollar to Canadian dollar exchange rate, and lower external log shipments and prices. This was partially offset by higher lumber prices in most markets and a higher specialty lumber salesman. We closed the second quarter with approximately 69 million board pieces of lumber inventory and 698,000 cubic meters of log inventory. We continue to be focused on managing working capital and improving our inventory turnover, with log and lumber turnover ratios improving 2% and 11% respectively compared to the same period last year. Turning to CapEx, given the near-term market outlook and in support of maintaining a strong balance sheet, we've reduced our planned 2025 capital expenditure spending to between $35 to $40 million. This is a reduction of approximately $25 million from a prior estimate of $60 to $65 million provided in May. From a balance sheet perspective, we ended the second quarter with a strong balance sheet, with a net debt to capitalization ratio of 5% and available liquidity of $190 million. Combined with successfully extending our $250 million credit facility to July 2028, we expect sufficient liquidity to navigate near-term market conditions. With respect to software lumber duties, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its final determination for anti-dumping duty rates related to the sixth administrative review. The rate applicable to Western increased to 20.6% effective July 2018. compared to the prior rate of 7.7%. The final determination of the countervailing duty rates for the Sixth Administrative Review are expected in the third quarter of 2025. Based on the final anti-dumping duty rate and preliminary countervailing duty rate, Western will record a non-cash export tax expense of approximately $44 million, plus accrued interest of $7 million, in the third quarter of 2025. These amounts will reduce the current long-term duty receivable of 58.9 million U.S. dollars on our balance sheet. Turning to third quarter seasonality, typical third quarters can be challenging operationally as hot, dry weather can restrict logging activity, reducing harvest volume, and impacting costs. While we have yet to experience any significant forest fires in our areas of operation, Hot and dry conditions may impact harvest levels through the summer. Even that includes winter marks.

Thanks, Glenn. Turning to our market outlook. Markets in North America are expected to be volatile through the third quarter of 2025. Increasing softwood lumber duties, elevated interest rates, and general economic uncertainty are expected to impact return renovation spending and overall housing activity. North American lumber markets will be challenged for both commodity and specialty products, with demand and pricing expected to remain weak across most species and product categories. Demand remains strong for specialty products into all export markets, with anticipated price increases for western red cedar, hemlock, and Douglas fir in the third quarter of 2025. In Japan and China, while housing activity continues to trend downwards, low lumber inventories are resulting in stable pricing. Overall, we currently have a third quarter order file of approximately 95 million board feet. From an operational perspective, given current market conditions, combined with harvest permit approval delays and lack of accessible economic fiber in BC, We plan to reduce lumber production by approximately 25 million board feet in the third quarter. We will continue to align our operating schedules to market demand and available log supply. Should the strike at La Crosse and Moose Limited Partnership continue for a prolonged period of time, additional operating curtailments may be required at our Duke Point and Lady Smith sawmills in the second half of 2024. We continue to monitor the situation and hope bargaining between the USW and the clockmen can resume in order to bring the work stoppage to an end. Looking ahead, we will remain focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet while also executing on our key strategic priorities. With that, Patrick, we can open the call up to questions.

Thank you. We'll now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question, please press star 1. You may answer the question at any time by pressing star 2. Please press star 1 at this time if you have a question.

There will be a brief pause while the participants register for questions. Thank you for your patience. The first question is from Sean Stewart from TD Tower. Please go ahead. Thanks.

Good morning, everyone. A couple of questions. Steven, be interested in your perspective on the recent federal government support mechanisms that were introduced for the lumber industry and thoughts on timelines to access loan guarantees, grants, and Western's potential interest in using the program. Thanks, Sean. So... The newly announced federal government support I think is welcome news for the entire forest industry across Canada. The loan guarantees and training dollars are intended to help companies and people navigate the near-term challenges. And the market development funding will help to build our more diverse trading relationships for lumber across all of our key export markets. Obviously, the specific details of the program, various programs have not been released yet. We will certainly dive into the details when those are presented to us, and where it makes sense, we'll absolutely access those programs. So, overall, I think this is a very favorable announcement. It's something that we've been asking for for the last 12 to 15 months, And I think most importantly, we now have our Prime Minister speaking about Sockwood Lumber. And we would view that as a very significant event compared to the previous administration. So overall, we're pleased with what was announced this week. Thanks for that. And then with respect to the Columbia Vista insurance claims, I guess for the equipment and business interruptions, Ryan, can you give us some perspective on how that process plays out in terms of timing? And I don't know if you can put a dollar magnitude around anything, but brought a perspective on how you expect that will evolve over the next little while.

Yeah, thanks, Sean. Yeah, if you're looking through the process with our insurer and the adjuster, that process takes time, but we're obviously trying to accelerate that process as much as we can. We understand the impact it has on people. From an insurance perspective, I say, Sean, that we have adequate coverage both from an asset perspective and a business interruption perspective. So, we feel quite comfortable that, you know, whatever determination after the investigation is completed that we have sufficient coverage for those assets in any business interruption that may occur.

And, Sean, maybe I'll just add one more comment in there about Columbia Vista. Obviously, that mill was a key supplier into the Japanese market and We're very fortunate that we have other straw mill facilities that can take on that order file, so we do not expect any disruption into the Japanese market for our key kiln-dry Douglas Herb products that Columbia Vista historically made. So that's good news for our key long-term strategic customers in Japan that moving forward, there'll be no supply disruptions there. Understood. Okay, that's all I have for now.

Thanks very much. Thanks, John. Thank you. The next question is from Ben Isaacson from Scotiabank.

Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Just two questions for me. The first one is on your press release, you did a list of lumber prices, and a lot of those were actually all but one of those lumber prices increased sequentially quarter over quarter. Your lumber price went down, and so can you try and delete that? Was that a mixed issue? Thank you.

Yeah, that is Glenn. Yeah, we have many cues of products. The listing we provide in our MD&As is a sample of some of the key products. and to your comment there you look at it individually and you know a lot of them are going up i think the one that maybe uh also has waiting is commodity went down uh quarter over quarter which is about 50 percent of our mix so it's really a mixed uh driver there then if you're looking trying to compare the list of prices relative to the average selling price of our overall mix okay thank you and then back to the columbia vista um if you can supply uh

got lumber from another mill. What is the rationale for rebuilding it? Unless the cost differential is, you know, quite meaningful. Thank you.

Yeah, that's a very good question, Ben, and certainly something that we think about as we contemplate the future of Sunbeer Vista. You know, if we think about what a revised operating platform would look like there, it would probably have a little bit more automation in the mill. It would have some greater product flexibility in order to supply some of the key timber markets in North America. And ultimately, a footprint that would be more automated, lower cost, and greater product flexibility. So it was a very a very compact mill site that had a very specific product line associated with the equipment. So we'd be looking for a little bit more flexibility and probably a higher percentage of the product targeted towards the timber markets in North America.

Great. Thank you. Thanks.

I'll talk to you later.

Thanks, Ben. Thank you. The next question is from Matthew McKenna from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for the detail so far and for taking my questions. First for me, I think there had been in D.C. some discussion about reducing permanent timelines. It sounds like you're continuing to see some delays, but do you have a sense that things are getting any better regarding timelines over the past couple months?

Thanks. Thanks, Matt. That's a bit of a loaded question. I think overall and inside some of our key limited partnerships, the permitting process has improved. And that's really some of the background motivation for us to move into these key strategic partnerships on some of the TFLs. But I would characterize the permitting issue in British Columbia to still be problematic. And I don't think our situation on the coast is much different than what we see up in the BC interior. We do have active conversations and dialogue going on directly with the Minister of Forest and his key Deputy Minister and Associate Deputy Ministers, and really just trying to drive to a different outcome around the permitting challenge and the timeframes associated with having permits approved. So, inside the limited partnerships, that's going pretty well. Outside the limited partnerships, challenges continue to exist.

Thanks very much for that, Keller. And lastly, looking a little further out, pretty optimistic about what discussions around an energy corridor in Canada could mean for your industrial lumber business and maybe match that product in particular. Thanks.

Yeah, we like any discussion around additional pipelines being proposed all across Canada. We produce a fair amount of material both in 2-inch mat stock as well as in 6-inch and 12-inch, the larger crane mat type product lines. Today we have a very solid order file in all those product categories. We have seen some price appreciation occur as well. And, yeah, we would take any of those announcements as very favorable to our industrial product lines that we primarily manufacture at the Salt Air facility as well as at the Duke Point facility.

Thanks very much. I'll turn it back. Take that. Thank you, Your Honor, for the questions. At this time, I would like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Hofer.

Well, thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. We appreciate your continued interest in our company, and we look forward to our next call in November.

Thank you, and have a great weekend. Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation. This conference is no longer being recorded.