Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for holding. Welcome to Suzano's conference call to discuss the results for the third quarter of 2022. 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 Schalka, and other executive officers. After the company's remarks are completed, there will be a question and answer session when further restrictions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this 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 Suzano's 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 circumstances that may or may not occur in the future.
You should understand the general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Suzano and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. I would like to turn the floor over to the company's CEO. Please, Mr. Walter Schalka, you may proceed.
Good morning. Welcome everyone to the year result meeting that we are presenting here. We have with us here large part of our C-level that would be able to answer your further questions in the end of the presentation here. I'm very pleased today to announce and to present to you the best-ever results of our company. We are very pleased with several developments that we had with you that I'm going to share right now. In the operational side, we have flat volumes on the paper and pulp, despite the fact that we have additional annual shutdowns and a retrofit in our Aracruz plant. This keep us with inventory levels below our optimal operational levels. Leo is going to share more information with you regarding this point.
The combination of good volumes in terms of sales and better prices lead us to a situation that we had the best our EBITDA ever in the company with 28.2 billion BRL. With an operational cash generation of 22.6 billion BRL. Despite the fact that we have short-term impact on our cash costs due to inflation on commodities and other things and other services that Aires is going to share with you additional information. Our financial situation, it's a very strong balance sheet. We have a potential liquidity of 6 billion BRL right now. Our net debt is at 10.9 billion BRL. With several initiatives that we had this year, we had a minor increase from 10.4 billion BRL-10.9 billion BRL.
Bacci is going to share with you additional information on that. Our leverage is at 2x net debt over EBITDA right now. we have been performance our CapEx once again, one additional year in line with our guidance. We are very pleased with that. We are a highly intensive capital company, and we need to perform on our CapEx. I'm very pleased as well to announce our best-ever results on safety performance as well, and a major improvement on our cultural development. Mainly, showing that we are preparing the company for our future. We are not only think on the short-term results, but we are preparing our future. In the end of the presentation, I'm going to share with you how we have been performing on all the strategic avenues that we announced to you.
Now I'm going to pass the floor to Fabio, that is going to share the information regarding our paper and packaging division.
Thanks, Walter. Good morning, everyone. Let's turn to the next page of the presentation. We're glad to announce that with solid results on the fourth quarter, we wrapped 2022 as the best year ever for the paper and packaging business unit. Demand for print and writing papers and carton board has been strong in the domestic market, led by seasonal customer demand in paper packaging and editorial segments. In the international markets, demand, although solid in the quarter, has shown some signs of cooling down, with much improved supply chain leading to end of inventory replenishing in all major markets we serve. On the domestic market, according to Ibá, print and write demand slipped 2.2% in the quarter when compared to fourth quarter 2021.
This decrease is due to strong comparison period last year and the reduction of print and writing papers sold into the container board segment, which has been minimum at the end of 2022. When you look at full figures for the year, print and write demand remain at the same levels of 2021. A positive indicator, giving strong reading in 2021. Robust performance of the publishing sector office and school paper segments sustained the demand. Supported by the rebuild of previous depleted inventories, a trend that was particularly strong in the quarter. For paperboard , Ibá public data on demand shows a strong 11% increase versus fourth quarter of 2021, with a continuous consumption of essential goods and strong seasonality at this time of the year with holiday shopping.
Consolidating 2022, there's a 3% increase in demand, sustaining the post-pandemic growth trend. On the international markets, as already mentioned, supply imbalances are fading, demand has returned to historical trend, albeit still sustained at the favorable price trends. Suzano's sales volumes in Q4 were 2% higher than the previous quarter, 10% below when compared to fourth quarter last year. The decrease in sales volume when compared to fourth quarter 2021 is explained by our decision to operate with lower inventory levels in order to serve market demand, which diluted sales volumes throughout the year. When you look for annual volume, 2022 sales were at the same level of 2021, domestic sales represent 70% of our total sales.
Our average net price during the quarter was 2% higher than our average price in Q3 and 40% higher than the same quarter last year. By looking year-over-year, our average net price increased 36%. As a result of revenue management and operation stability, our EBITDA has reached BRL 810 million, a 47% increase on a year-over-year basis. On a quarter-over-quarter comparison, the EBITDA performance was mainly backed by G&A costs, as explained in our earnings release. If we look at the annual EBITDA of 2022, there's a sound 50% increase when compared to 2021. During the year of 2021, we have grown the sales of our innovation pipeline by almost 2x, delivered on our target set in our last Suzano Day event.
We have also surpassed the milestone of 43,000 customers directly served by Suzano, strengthening our Suzano Mais business model, achieving record numbers in sales throughout our e-commerce platform. Looking ahead, in terms of demand, we expect to see markets returning to their secular trends for print and write papers and continue to grow above historical trends for paperboard s. We expect more challenged market conditions in international markets, with a shrinking demand for print and write papers and more availability of supply. Domestic market seems more balanced and should be more resilient. It's worth mentioning that the structural competitiveness of Suzano Paper Package business provide a solid ground to navigate on the foreseen market dynamic. Cost inflation over the last two years has altered the marginal cost of paper producers. Moving forward, we should expect prices to remain higher than historical levels in most markets.
Now I'll turn over to Leo, who will be presenting our pulp business results.
Thank you, Fabio. Good morning, everyone. Let's please move to page five of our presentation so that we can address the results of our pulp business unit for 2022, which was also a record year for Suzano's pulp business unit, as well as sharing with you the results for Q4 2022. As you can note on the upper left graph, our 2022 sales volume was much aligned with our 2021 sales volumes. Our sales volumes during the fourth quarter was quite strong, also in line with the preceding quarter and with the fourth Q 2021, consequently keeping our inventories still below optimum operational levels. This sales performance was supported by a timely recovery of shipments and invoicing to Asian customers, for which we have now reestablished previous service level commitments. During this past quarter, demand for paper segments in Europe performed differently among themselves.
While tissue was quite strong and resilient, print and writing, as well as some specialty grades, mostly related to the labor markets, faced lower order intake as distributors have started to destock. We have noticed, however, improvements in the demand of decor paper by the end of Q4. In China, low paper producers' margins, a reestablishment of logistic lead times, and a negative sentiment due to the uncertainty on how the growing COVID infection rates could affect consumption going forward, despite a positive or positive messages from greater opening of the Chinese market reflected in order entry at below normalized levels. Due to this prevailing scenario, we have decided to adjust our prices in Asia for December order intake, which has stimulated our customers to reestablish purchases of pulp as hardwood inventories in China were quite balanced.
Now coming back to the slide, our average price for 2022 was 25% higher than 2021's average price in USD terms. During the Q4 2022, our prices for export markets further increased to $831 per ton. Our EBITDA for 2022 totaled BRL 25.1 billion, which is a new record for our pulp business unit, posting a 17% increase compared to 2021. The fourth Q 2022 EBITDA performance was mainly driven by higher prices and strong invoicing performance, as I have already addressed, which led us to a 61% EBITDA margin despite cost pressures. Now looking forward, I would like to highlight the following points.
In China, post-Chinese New Year, we have noticed quite an optimism from our customers, with improving confidence levels and a general expectation that consumer confidence and spending will accelerate in the short term. Order intake in January was higher than November, December 22 levels, and in February they have further improved, trending quite close to historic levels. In Europe, we expect that the distributors and customers destocking for printing, writing and specialty grades should be over soon, consequently recovering purchases of paper. In the European tissue segment, we continue to see quite stable and resilient markets with positive downstream demand. In North America, focusing on tissue as other paper grades are mostly integrated, most major producers are reporting to be running at healthy production rates. Looking now at the supply side of the equation, we still haven't noticed additional volumes from upcoming projects being marketed as we speak.
We expect that these new capacities will reach markets gradually and possibly more significantly towards the second half of the year. When we add the full annual impact of decreasing birch hardwood availability in Europe, we foresee a healthier S&D scenario in the short term. Increasing viscose prices are stimulating flax dissolving pulp producers to swing back their productions towards this pulp grade. It is our view that unexpected downtimes will continue to put additional pressure on supply due to technical age of pulp producers, weather-related events, strikes, as well as increasing cost pressure and availability of wood in several regions of the world. Looking at 2023 as a whole, we see organic demand for hardwood pulp growing close to 1 million tons, which would be further increased by a restocking movement in Asia once prices get closer to marginal costs.
Also supported by fiber substitutions favoring hardwood grades as well as single-use plastic substitution. Despite our positive view on the short-term fundamentals, we sense that our consumers and customers' behaviors are anticipating the sentiment of future projects which have been influencing price curves. It is worth mentioning that inflation on production costs during these past two years, mainly driven by higher wood costs, have changed significantly the set points of decision-making of higher cost producers, which should anchor different price levels when compared to previous cycles. With that said, I would now like to invite Aires to address with you the cash cost performance that we had during the last quarter.
Thank you, Leo. Good morning, everyone, moving to the next slide. Looking first to the 2022 cash cost performance ex downtimes. As we were already seeing on previous quarter, a new and higher level was established, mostly due to the exogenous impact of commodity price on wood and input costs throughout the year. Pressure alone over BRL 100 over 2021 basis. The higher scheduled maintenance downtimes and labor costs also took a toll on fixed costs in the period. Nevertheless, the operational performance in 2022 was outstanding from the second quarter and on, with all mills reaching technical records and operational rates, stability, and chemical consumptions. Now, looking specifically for the fourth quarter over third quarter also ex downtimes.
Some commodities, mostly Brent, have provided some relief on the cash production costs, there was an increase of 6% due to the several factors. Being the most important relate to the some one-off events in these, in the industrial plants, impacting the specific conceptions of energy and chemicals. On wood costs, a greater third-party harvest operations, freight, tariffs and a higher average from forest to mill distance explains the hit. Addressing now the fixed cost increase, the pressure coming from labor costs and lower production volume entered through a higher downtimes in our Aracruz unit impacted fixed cost dilution.
Looking forward to the Q4 2023 cash production cost ex downtimes, we see a furnished performance over Q4 2022, with a potential and gradual reduction in the cash cost production throughout the year, especially if the commodities perform better than our expectations. In other words, different from the dynamic observed in 2022, we see a more stable cash production cost performance in 2023, considering the current operational plan. Moving to the next slide. The Cerrado project continues to evolve as planned in both the physical and the financial timelines. That you can have a more complete view of the physical progress of the project, we have made available a short video that shows the evolution of the project.
The link is in the presentation or in the IR website. Now I pass the floor to Marcelo Bacci to continue the presentation.
Thank you, Aires. Let's move to page eight, where we see that our net debt moved from $10.4 billion-$10.9 billion during the year of 2022, especially because of the dividend, the advanced dividend payment that we made in December regarding 2023. Despite the $3.2 billion that we made in CapEx and the $400 million in share buybacks.
That allowed us to reach the lowest leverage ratio that we had since the Fibria merger in 2019 at 2x. Our liquidity position continues to be extremely positive and comfortable with $6 billion, including $3.3 billion in cash. The level of maturities that we have for 2023 and 2024 is extremely low, and our debt is 95% at fixed rate with an average cost of 4.7% a year. That puts us in a very robust position in terms of financial stability. Moving to page nine, sorry. We show that we continue to advance in our FX hedging policy, taking advantage of the BRL volatility.
We now have in operational hedges close to $6 billion in notional, with an average put of $558, and another $1.8 billion of hedges related to the Cerrado project with an average put of $578. If the real continues at the current level, we can expect to have significant positive adjustment in cash in 2023 and 2024. Moving to the following page, we demonstrate the significant cash returns that we had last year. We paid BRL 4.2 billion in dividends. We bought 40 million shares in our buyback programs with a total of close to $400 million. We have just announced that 93% of the shares that we bought will be canceled. That represents 37 million shares.
Finally, moving to page 11, we update our guidance in terms of 2027 operational disbursement. The number that was BRL 1,669 per ton in 2021 reached BRL 2,022 in 2022. We show here that we expect a significant reduction in the next five years, moving that number from 2022 to BRL 1,750 in 2027. That movement will be achieved with the contribution from more normalized commodity prices. The effect of the maturation of the competitiveness projects that we have in our portfolio, both on the industrial and the forestry side, and also the contribution of the Cerrado project that will come on stream with a lower than average total cost of production.
With that, I'll turn back to Walter for his final considerations.
Thank you, Marcelo. I think we are sharing with you one outstanding year in results of the company on the last year. I'm going to share on the last slide with you the several activities that we have on every single strategic avenue on the last year. On the first one, the be best in class in the total pulp cost vision, we have been working to increase and to buy extra land for us through the acquisitions of Parque and Caravelas. We have been going through the retrofit Aracruz, and this year we are going to have the retrofit of Jacareí. We have a new terminal in the, our port, Itaqui port, would allow us to be even more competitive on that specific area.
We have maintaining our relevance on the pulp global markets. We have been working to increase our land bank with several acquisitions, preparing the largest CapEx progress sustaining and expansion CapEx program on our forest division. We had last year more than 260,000 hectares of additional area that we plant. We have been going through the largest single line CapEx in the world right now. That is Cerrado project. As Aires mentioned to you, we are on time and on budget. We have been advancing in the supply chain. We have the potential acquisition of Kimberly-Clark that we are waiting as a precedent condition for the antitrust regulator, CADE, to approve that. We announced a new potential new project in Aracruz plant. We have been working on new markets to expand our addressable markets.
e commissioned, uh, end of... Sorry, beginning of this year. And we have started starting up, uh, MFC mills in Europe and in Limeira. Uh, that would be create, uh, a lot of value in the textile market for us on the near future. We have, uh, we have the new CVC, uh, the Suzano Ventures activity, and, uh, we have been working on innovation, uh, through different areas. On the plastic substitution, that is our main-- one of our main targets. But we have been working as well on sustainability, where we have been improving our ESG ratings on different, uh, entities. We have been launch the Biomas that would be a major plan of regenerating and preserving natural forest in different biomes in Brazil
We have been advancing on diversity and inclusion as well. We are very happy with the developments that we did and very excited for our near future. I'm going to turn to the Q&A session, where all of our C-levels are going to answer.
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you have a question, please press star one. Our first question comes from Caio Ribeiro with Bank of America.
Yes, good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question here is on the cash cost inflation in the industry. Right. Clearly, there's been a lot of changes in the cash cost curve in the past years, particularly the wood cost component, right, which is a major cost component. I mean, that appears to be experiencing pressure from, you know, a number of different factors. I just wanted to see if you could comment on some of the factors that you see impacting, you know, wood costs in the industry. You know, whether you see these as more structural or cyclical, right? Where you see the cost support in the industry today for hardwood, right?
Secondly, linked to this question, you know, given this wood cost inflation, which we see, you know, as in part related to the higher competition for forestry assets, particularly in LatAm, where there's a number of different pulp projects under development. You know, just curious to see, you know, whether you believe that there's still, you know, competitive forestry assets to continue to support expansions of 1.5-2 million tons or above, you know, projects? Or whether you believe that we could be nearing, you know, that point where that lower availability of forestry assets could start limiting expansions in the industry? Thank you.
Caio, good morning. This is Carlos. Thank you for your question. On the wood inflation, that can be explained mostly by the Brent, the diesel that has gone up over the last two years. The second component has to do with a higher logistics cost. A higher price for the major equipment, like trucks and other forest machines. Those are the two major components that can explain a higher wood cost.
Thank you, Caio, for your question. It's Walter answering about the second point that you raised. We have been working on tracking all the potential new areas that we have for forest in South America. Our vision is that we do not have availability of wood for a short-term project in the region.
I cannot tell you that it's not available for the future. We are seeing, for example, one of the Chilean companies announcing a new project in Mato Grosso do Sul for the year 2028. That would be possible to happen, we do not believe any other project or any project coming on stream between 25, 24, there is going to be our project, and 28. We believe that we are not going to see new projects coming on stream due to the lack of wood. It's very important, as I have been mentioning to you, that wood costs have been going up at a very high speed.
The new projects now will face higher CapEx since the inflation that we are seeing right now, higher interest rates, that we are seeing for funding, this project, and lower wood availability. That would become more difficult to see new projects coming on stream.
Perfect. Thanks a lot, gentlemen.
Our next question comes from Daniel Sasson with Itaú BBA.
Hi, everyone. Good morning. Congratulations on the results last year. My first question is related to the CapEx for the Cerrado project. I mean, given the updated figures that you provided for your total operating disbursement by 2027 and the, you know, increase that came mostly on the back of higher spending on forestry and in silviculture. Do you think that we can expect an increase in the total CapEx for the Cerrado project as well at some point in the future that those BRL 19 billion could be revised upwards? Is it a fair assumption?
My second question, I mean, given that you that you did post very strong results, that your average maturity schedule for your debt is very long, that your cost of debt is low and fixed, and that you are already at two times net debt-to-EBITDA. Do you think that you could take to the board of directors already any new projects after Cerrado? Or do you think that the, you know, correct timing for doing such an activity would be after the project is up and running? We should see something only by the second half of 2024 in terms of new capital allocation decisions. Those would be the first two questions from my side. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, Daniel. This is Marcelo speaking. In relation to the Cerrado CapEx, the number for 2023 is given, and it's incorporated in our 2023 guidance. We don't expect any major deviation from the initial number other than the normal monetary correction that we see in some countries. That's why we keep the guidance of on time and on budget. The effects that we're gonna see in the future in sustaining CapEx are incorporated in our total disbursement costs that we just announced. That has nothing to do with the initial CapEx of the project. It's more related to the sustaining CapEx that we're gonna have afterwards.
In terms of capital allocation and new projects, this is a challenging year for us in terms of capital allocation because we have a major CapEx program already announced of BRL 18.5 million . We have some uncertainties in relation to cash generation given the curve that we see in pulp prices right now. It is not the right timing to announce new projects, but a more severe correction in the market will probably bring opportunities for companies that have a robust financial situation like ourselves, and we're gonna be following that very closely and bringing new potential alternatives to the board when it's the case.
Thank you, Bacci. Very clear.
Our next question comes from Thiago Lofiego with Bradesco BBI.
Thank you, gentlemen. Congratulations on the all-time high results in 2022. Walter, I have a question which is similar to the one that Bacci just answered. Just looking five years out, right, as the Cerrado startup approaches and then, you know, looking beyond that five years out, what's your idea in terms of capital allocation when we think about the different business lines and potential strategies? For instance, increasing integration through, you know, packaging, paper packaging, M&A outside of Brazil or, I don't know, converting lines to dissolving wood pulp. What are the maybe the big, you know, potential ideas that we could see coming up after the Cerrado project?
Or maybe dividends are gonna be the new norm, right, higher dividends. The second question to Leo. Leo, you mentioned, correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard you mention that restocking will happen as prices approach marginal costs. Do you think we could see that restocking move happening already this year, or maybe this is more of a 2024 story? How does your own project, Cerrado, play a role in this, you know, restocking, potential restocking move? There's a lot of, you know, there's a psychological factor there, I would say. Just, you know, just wanna hear your views on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Thiago, for your question. I think it's very clear our policy that we are helping reinvesting 90% of the cash flow generation of the company into our future. The company will complete the 100 anniversary next year. We have been investing on different scenarios of Brazil for the last many decades. I think it's very clear to us that we have the five different strategic avenues. Of course, I'm not going to comment any kind of future project without a discussion and approval of our board. We can face organic or inorganic opportunities in the future, depending on the scenario that we are going to face. I think you mentioned many of the alternatives that we have.
We have the integration into paper and packaging, into tissue with higher volumes, with new areas to be invested to address new addressable markets. We have been working on the textile market, on the biofuels. We will look for opportunities to increase our efficiency. We have several areas, and the base of everything is our competitiveness and our differentiation. We want always to have scale and differentiation, and we are going to pursue this basic precedent conditions for us in the future.
Thiago, this is Leo now. I'm answering your question about restocking and eventually how Cerrado can play a role in that. As I mentioned in my speech, we believe that the organic growth in terms of demand this year will be close to 1 million tons in terms of hardwood consumption, and that's very much aligned with most consultants to our business' view as well. We believe that once prices start falling closer and reaching closer to this higher cash cost of marginal producers, decisions will be made mainly from Asian producers in terms of either reducing their production rates or stopping their production levels and then buying pulp or also our customers restocking a bit based on their current inventory levels, which we consider quite balanced.
We try to make a calculation on how much that could impact the market. If we consider that in order to support China's paper production, on average 1.8 million tons market pulp is consumed in China, and of that 1.2 million tons are hardwood. Every 15 days, stock buildup would add an additional 600,000 tons demand for pulp over the 1 million tons of organic growth, which I have mentioned to you and also during my speech. We don't expect Cerrado to play a role in this decision-making for 2023, as it's very much specifically related to decision points or set points that will be made based on this higher cash cost of marginal cost producers, mainly in Asia.
Thank you, Leo. If I, if I may here, what's your view on the marginal cost in the market right now? You had been mentioning $600 per ton recently. Does that still hold? If you could repeat the rationale of the 600,000 tons, I would appreciate. Thank you.
Okay. First, starting with the last part, the rationale of the 600,000 tons. The China paper industry requires a furnish of 1.8 million-2 million tons a month of chemical pulp in order for them to be operating at capacity, at the current capacity levels. Of this 1.8 million-2 million tons, 1.2 million tons are hardwood. Every month, roughly and on average, 1.2 million tons are imported or consumed of hardwood market pulp in China. If we consider a 15-day stock buildup, that would mean an additional 600,000 tons of hardwood, considering this monthly consumption of 1.2 million.
Now, coming into our view on marginal cash cost, as we have been pointing since early last year, cost inflation for pulp producers have changed significantly the cost levels. We forecast that the cash cost for marginal cost producers is indeed around $600, varying from $580-$610, $615, depending on the base scenario that we use. This all obviously on a CIF China base. Our view is quite consistent with this number. We don't see a lot of variation because as we all know, wood is the main variable in the pulp cash cost, and we expect that availability for wood will still be limited mainly on this or for this Asian producers, and prices will maintain the high price points that they are being traded at today.
Very clear. Thank you, Leo. Thank you, Walter.
Our next question comes from Rafael Barcellos with Santander.
Good morning, thanks for taking my question. My first question is about pulp supply availability. Dissolving pulp prices have increased in recent months. My question is, do you believe that mills could move production back to dissolving pulp in the coming months? How much hardwood pulp could be removed from the market if this movement really materializes? My second question is about pulp affordability. I mean, how do you see pulp affordability in China now, particularly considering that, you know, pulp prices have fallen by more than $100 over the past few months, and consumer effects has also helped this equation. Is pulp affordability still a concern among market participants? Thank you.
Rafael, this is Leo again here to answer both of your questions. First, on the dissolving flex capacity. What we have been seeing is that viscous prices are trending up since the beginning of the year. That is indeed stimulating some dissolving flex producers to move away from paper-grade pulp and turn their assets into dissolving grades. Based on our estimates, there are around of 2 million tons globally of flex capacity of paper-grade hardwood that can be converted into dissolving wood pulp production.
We don't see obviously all of that being converted at once, but we see already movements in that direction taking place as well as we heard from our customers a test from a major producer in one of their large paper lines towards this grade as well, more than 30-day production trial, which indicates more movements in this sense. Regarding pulp affordability, as I mentioned, we don't see in the short term fundamentals for such movements that have been taking place. Therefore, we believe that most of this is already anticipation of future demand of future supply that will come into place. In our view, this is more towards the second half of the year.
Obviously, falling prices are simulating again consumption of hardwood by Chinese or Asian paper producers. As I have mentioned, January's order intake, at least for Suzano, were already higher than November, December levels. February were higher than January levels, very close to already historic levels, and we expect that during the next weeks, the order intake will be already reaching normalized levels.
Okay. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Marcio Farid with Goldman Sachs.
Thank you. Morning, everyone. Couple of questions on my side, please. The first one on the paper side. Fabio, if you can comment, how you're seeing this, and especially in Europe as well, which is kind of the benchmark for graphic papers. Obviously, very good couple of years. It feels like we are seeing some sort of normalization now in terms of prices and volumes. Can we please have some visibility on that? Then maybe to Aires or Anibal. Carlos, you briefly mentioned about the wood inflation cost in Brazil and the reasons behind it. Can we talk a little bit about, you know, supply-demand conditions for land and the different regions?
I mean, an overall view of how you're seeing the wood market perform in Brazil and how it has changed, especially in the past two to three years in line of, you know, growing competition for land and for forest, pretty much, mostly in the southeast of Brazil, but pretty much everywhere really. Thanks for that. Maybe Leo, it looks you like you mentioned 1 million ton demand growth potential for this year and then potential restocking if prices go to marginal cost of around $580-$600. Question is, considering that it's, you know, you mentioned that the incremental volumes from especially UPM and Arauco are not that reaching the market.
You know, when they do, then there's a chance that we might see those prices going down to marginal costs. My question is: What do you think would prevent prices from going there in this cycle? What are the pockets of strength on the market you're seeing today or expect to see in the next few months? Thank you.
Marcio, good morning, this is Carlos. Thank you for your question. We do recognize a growing competition for land and wood in some specific regions, and that has meant higher wood prices. That is really happening in some specific regions. As we speak, we still have some ongoing discussions and negotiations related to forest assets, related to wood. For the benefit of our shareholders, we cannot, at least as we speak, we cannot share much information about that. Once we conclude our program, we can come back to this point.
Carlos, thank you.
Marcio, it's Fabio here. Thanks for your question on the paper side. We see different behaviors in markets, in different markets. As you know, China is coming out of Chinese New Year, so activity there is improving. We see a higher consumption and operating rates from the most of the paper mills. Leo was talking about linked with our higher consumption of pulp in the past weeks that we have seen. You're right, in Europe and in North America, we have seen a little bit of cooling down. This is in reflect of higher stock levels in the chain.
As you know, during the past few years, we have had some supply chain constraints that we're easing over the end of the last year. With that, stocks are a little bit higher throughout the chains in Europe and U.S. Although we have seen stocks higher than the you know, optimum levels, which will take a few weeks to normalize, few weeks or month to normalize, we don't see prices moving downwards. Prices are quite stable in Europe and in North America at a very quite a good level, as you may see from you know, the consultant companies in the market.
This is due to higher cash costs, you know, in these regions as well with inflation that has happened in the past few years. We have seen prices being resilient in these major markets, although stocks are at higher levels with destocking waiting to happen in the next month or so.
Fabio
To close the answers to your question addressing the positive view, right? What could possibly prevent prices from falling down to marginal cost? I think we can split the answer into first looking at demand. Obviously, we observe a lot more optimism in China. We also observe a lot of economic stimulus plans now on province levels, which can generate further demand, and also linked to paper products and packaging products. Better than expected European consumption post this destocking movement that's going on, and that can last some more weeks ahead of us. This could bring a positive surprise in terms of demand. I would say that the most impactful will be actually how China performs once all this optimism and stimulus plans come into play.
On the supply side, what can prevent prices from going there? First are new delays and time to market of projects which are not, which have not been unusual as we have seen on the last months and quarters, right? It's very unclear for us really, and actually when we're gonna see a good quality pulp being offered to markets, and then how that's going to be ramped up. As I mentioned, up to now, we have seen absolutely no offers from these new players or capacity coming on board. Second, which is very important, and I always like to highlight that, is the impact that unplanned downtimes have been taking in our sector, right? We have seen since 2020 numbers that are almost threefold what they were on the historic basis.
We expect that this will continue to happen. This will continue to be ongoing on our markets, due mainly to the fact that pulp lines, especially in the northern hemisphere, are getting older and older. You have the new pulp capacities in the southern hemisphere now at a much bigger size, meaning that any unplanned downtimes in the same amount of days will result in a much higher absolute production volume loss. The unforecasted or exogenous factors such as weather-related, war-related, lack of wood strikes, which will also, in our view, continue to be accounting for unexpected losses in the market. We just saw recently a study of one of the main consultants to our business, and by mid-February.
The current unexpected downtimes was already up to 350,000 tons. It seems to be the same run rate, high run rates that we have seen on the previous three years.
Marcio, if I may, let me just reinforce some remarks previous made by Walter. We have progressed quite well in establishing our land bank needed to reach our forestry basis later in the coming years. That was a great achievement for 2022. Also important to remind you all that we're gonna have in Cerrado an average radius between the forest and the mill below 65 kilometers. That is great. A great number. As Walter said initially, 2022 was a record year in terms of forest plantation. We expect 2022, 2023 to be another year, a record year as we are moving fast with our plantation program.
Thanks everybody. Great details. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Jens Spiess with Morgan Stanley.
Thank you for taking my questions, and I really appreciate all the details you have been giving. I just wanted to ask, when do you expect the Kimberly-Clark deal to close? I guess you don't foresee any issues from CADE giving how fragmented the market is in Brazil. Elaborating on that, do you plan to grow more inorganically in the market, in the tissue market? Do you have any target in mind as of how much integration you would like to have? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jens, for your question. It's Walter answering here. We, we do not have any kind of forecast when CADE is going to approve these operations. We expected full approval with no remedies, but it's we have to wait for that. Of course, as we have this as a precedent conditions, we are going to march through the closing of this transaction. Regarding our future, we announced a potential program, new project in Aracruz. Of course, we are not going to comment on inorganic growth. That could be a possibility as well.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you. May just one quick follow-up on the total operational disbursement. Just to clarify, I think you gave a lot of details there on slide 11. Just wanted to make sure, you're not considering any inflation beyond 2023, correct?
That's correct. That's the number is in 2023 currency.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much.
Since there are no more questions, I would like to turn the floor over to the company's CEO for final considerations. Please, Mr. Walter Schalka, you may proceed.
I'd like to everyone to thank everyone to be part of this session. I think, Suzano is very committed with our future. I would just like to reinforce to you our three pillars of our culture that we have been working. There is people, they're inspiring, transforming. That it's, creating and sharing value with all stakeholders. It's only good for us if it's good for the world. I think we have been performing well on the last many years. We are humble enough to understand that we need to keep improving our operations to keep, touching, consumers, all the other stakeholders, for our future. Thank you very much for joining us. I hope you have a very nice week.
Thank you. Suzano's fourth quarter results conference call is finished. Have a nice day.