Hello everyone, welcome to UPM Q 4 and Full Year 2024 Results Webcast. My name is Massimo Reynaudo. I am the CEO of UPM. Here with me is Tapio Korpeinen, the CFO. We will soon illustrate the main facts and achievements of 2024 and share some views about what's ahead of us in 2025. Let's start with the performance about the full year 2024. We improved our performance from the previous year, and our comparable EBIT increased by 21%.
This was driven by a good contribution from our pulp mill in Paso de los Toros and by a moderate improvement in advanced material deliveries. As you may recall, the year started with a strong recovery of the demand from the low levels of 2023, but in the second half of the year, the recovery slowed down. In this environment, we implemented decisive measures to improve our performance.
For example, we reduced our fixed costs substantially, EUR 103 million in comparison with the year before. Also, during the second half of 2024, we made structural changes in several businesses to streamline and sharpen our competitiveness and we will drive further streamlining, fixed cost saving, and margin improvement actions in 2025 but back to performance, in Q 4, sales grew 4% year on year, and the comparable EBIT increased by 29% in comparison with the same period of the year before.
The EBIT was EUR 418 million. This performance included a fair value increase of our Finnish forest, totaling EUR 105 million. Excluding that, excluding the Finnish forest, our business performance was on a similar level as in Q 4, 2023. The operating cash flow generation has been strong at EUR 570 million. At this point, I'll hand over to Tapio for some analysis on the results.
Thank you, Massimo. So here you have on the left-hand side the Q4 EBIT development compared to the previous year Q4. And you can see that sales prices were flat on group level, while variable costs increased slightly, and this is mainly coming from fiber costs. Deliveries had a small negative impact on group level EBIT.
They grew for pulp, label materials, and plywood, but then decreased for communication paper and energy. The forest value gain, Massimo mentioned, is seen here in the other bar. On the right-hand side, you can see then the sequential development from the Q3 this year to the fourth. Sales price had a clear negative impact here, mainly coming from lower pulp prices. Variable cost decreased. The timing of the energy-related refunds booked to the Q4 in Communication Papers explains the majority of the variable cost decrease that you see here.
This will reverse into the Q1 now. Fixed costs increased from the Q3, mainly due to seasonal and timing reasons, which is, I would say, typical in this comparison between fourth and Q3. Looking at the business area performance in terms of quarterly EBIT, in UPM Fibres, our deliveries increased by 22% compared to the Q3 . Average pulp selling price decreased 11%, however, having a negative impact on EBIT in this sequential development.
In Uruguay, the railway between Paso de los Toros mill and our port terminal in Montevideo was fully operational by the end of the year, and therefore the new platform is in complete use from the Q1 onwards. In Raflatac, EBIT was slightly down sequentially from the Q3. Deliveries increased both year on year and sequentially.
The market activity was still catching up with the pre-COVID levels, particularly in Europe, however. In this slower recovery environment, Raflatac took measures to simplify and cut costs. The main impact of these measures is to come in 2025. In specialty papers, deliveries of label and packaging papers were stable, while fine paper in Asia had deliveries that recovered somewhat from the slow Q3 .
Fine paper prices were lower, while the positive cost impact from decreasing pulp prices was materializing with some delay. As a result, EBIT was slightly down from the Q3. In energy, average sales price increased by 18% from the Q3, and EBIT increased. Communication papers, as said, booked the usual energy-related refunds in the Q4. Deliveries decreased by 10% in the Q4 compared to the third.
During the second half of the year, we closed down 330,000 tons of newsprint and 280,000 tons of fine paper capacity. And then when it comes to our financial position, our balance sheet is in good shape. Net debt was EUR 2,869 million at the end of the year. Net debt to EBITDA ratio was 1.66 times. Cash funds and committed credit facilities stood at EUR 3.2 billion.
This slide shows our profit guidance and the main points of our outlook. We expect our comparable EBIT in the first half of 2025 to be in the range of EUR 400 to 625 million. We expect higher delivery volumes and lower fixed costs in the first half of 2025 compared to the first half of 2024. 2025 will be the first year of full production at the Paso de los Toros mill in Uruguay, which is expected to grow pulp deliveries.
Deliveries are expected to continue to increase for labeling materials, specialty papers, and plywood, whereas in communication papers, deliveries are expected to decrease. Sales margins, on average, are expected to be lower than in the same period of last year. This is mainly due to the developments that took place during last year. Pulp prices are starting the year 2025 on a similar level as compared to last year, whereas electricity prices have started this year lower than last year.
It is good to keep in mind that there are currently significant uncertainties in geopolitics and in global trade relations. Biofuels and biochemicals had a significant negative impact to our 2025 bottom line. This we discussed in our Capital Markets Day, where we showed the EBIT numbers for the first half of the year. Here we share the corresponding numbers for the second half of the year.
Biofuels was impacted by a significant downturn in the advanced fuels markets, while variable costs decreased, but with a delay. Now, going into 2025, we expect the business to improve its performance. Markets have stabilized and variable costs are coming down. In biochemicals, we had all the teams, business processes, and systems in place ahead of the startup of production. The unit has started its sequential startup. Integrated commercial production is expected in the second half of 2025.
As we have indicated earlier, we expect the unit to reach full production and positive EBIT contribution in 2027. And this slide summarizes the valuation changes and impairments of our assets in Q4. As mentioned, the fair value of our Finnish forests increased by EUR 105 million, and this is primarily due to higher wood price estimates. So the total value of the Finnish forest in the balance sheet is about EUR 1.8 billion.
We made an impairment of EUR 113 million on goodwill, which was in our Finnish pulp operations, also due to increased wood cost. This goodwill originates actually from quite a long while ago from acquisitions in the paper business more than 20 years ago. And finally, we made an impairment of EUR 373 million on the Leuna biorefinery assets, resulting from the cost overruns and construction delays during the project.
As you remember, this biochemicals refinery is a first-of-its-kind project, and in those, there always are learning costs. But in this case, this was implemented during a series of external crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns in Germany, the war in Ukraine, and then the subsequent resource and supply chain challenges. The book value of the refinery now is in line with the estimated cost to construct a similar facility or refinery. Now I'll hand it back over to Massimo for some analysis of our actions and direction forwards.
Thank you, Tapio. 2025 started with a very volatile business environment. We entered this year and this environment with a broad portfolio of attractive businesses and valuable assets. To enhance the value of the company in the current uncertain operating environment, we are acting on three fronts. We are focusing on the continuous improvement of our overall performance.
We are accelerating the growth in targeted areas where we have strong competitive positions, and we are considering opportunities in our business portfolio. Let's start with communication paper. The business is committed to continued healthy cash generation. In 2024, the free cash flow to capital employed was 22%. Communication paper continues to optimize its product and service mix and to develop its commercial strategy to maintain a leading position in its industry. At the same time, it maintains a high degree of cost discipline.
In this area, last year, as Tapio mentioned earlier on, we closed down about 12% of our overall capacity, or 610,000 tons. The annualized fixed cost savings from these closures is in the area of EUR 45 million. When it comes to renewable fibers, 2025 will be the first year of full production at Paso de los Toros in Uruguay. This will add approximately 300,000 tons of pulp production compared with 2024. This will unlock further potential in our highly competitive Uruguayan platform.
The full ramp-up of the project leads also to a reduction in its production cost with respect to 2024. Besides that, we are planning for de-bottlenecking actions at both mills there to increase production further in the medium term. In Finland, on the other hand, the wood market continued to be structurally tight, keeping wood costs high and availability limited.
In order to cope better with this situation, in the second part of 2024, we established a new streamlined operating model in Finland to protect the profitability in our UPM Fibres platform. As a result, we have been able to operate our well-maintained pulp mills profitably despite a combination of high wood costs and low pulp prices of 2024. In advanced materials, we have strong market positions in attractive growth markets in labeled materials, specialty papers, and plywood.
In the current, somewhat lower economic environment, we are sharpening our competitiveness in all the three businesses through fixed cost reduction, streamlining product portfolios, and optimizing production. This helps us to support the performance and capture the recovery and growth in these markets. Raflatac's strategy is to grow both organically and through M&As. Today, we have announced the acquisition of Metamark in the UK.
Combined with the recent acquisitions of Grafityp and AMC, we are gaining a significant position in the highly attractive graphic solution market. In specialty papers, we aim to capture growth in faster-growing geographies and flexible packaging. With these measures, we aim for the businesses to accelerate growth and get back to double-digit EBIT margins.
Going into some more detail in the Raflatac area, the acquisition of Metamark is in line with the strategy discussed in our capital market day in September to target a leading global position in the graphics business to complement our strong position in the labeling space. Graphic is a market worth about EUR 4 billion today, fast-growing, 5% per annum, and it is a higher-value added adjacent market for Raflatac. The picture here in this slide illustrates what kind of products we are talking about. We entered this business with the AMC acquisition in 2022.
We expanded our position with the Grafityp acquisition in 2024, and now we are accelerating our growth with Metamark. Metamark has a strong market position in Europe and established presence in America and Asia, and a track record in terms of growth and profitability, and will enable attractive synergies once integrated into Raflatac.
Looking next at the decarbonization solutions, Tapio already briefly touched upon biofuels and energy. I will focus here on the biochemical business launch and the startup of Leuna, the Leuna biorefinery. First, the commercial interest for our biochemical products and side streams is strong, and it has been confirmed now with customer agreements. The commercial pipeline is robust and is multiple times the annual production capacity of the mill. This allows us to optimize the products and sales mix and supports our confidence about the attractiveness of this business.
Let me give you some more details about where we stand with the ramp-up of this business. This slide here shows you the main process parts of the Leuna biorefinery. The mill consists of different units, each basically containing new-to-the-world technologies. The mill, once fully operational, will supply products that will go into different market segments. We initiated the sequential startup in late 2024.
The wood handling section you see on the left is now fully operational, and we are making good progresses in the wood-to-sugar and lignin process, as well as in the lignin-to-renewable functional fillers process you see at the bottom of the slide. In the sugar-to-chemical section a bit above, during the quality assurance checks, we have identified some corrective works needed.
This is what commissioning serves for, and these are the type of issues that the startup sequence is designed to find out and avoid in normal operations. The corrective works have been arranged and are being executed. Meanwhile, the sequential startup of the other units continues. The integrated production with all the units functioning at the same time and jointly for the whole site is expected to take place in the second part of 2025.
The full production and positive EBIT contribution are expected in 2027, as previously indicated. Now, turning the page, shaping the business portfolio is an ongoing strategic process. This analysis is especially important during times of uncertainty and potential shifts in the global operating environment, such as the ones we are seeing now.
In Fibres, we have built a strong global market position and a very competitive platform in Uruguay, which we can leverage for growth further. In Raflatac and specialty papers, we aim to build on our strong global market positions and grow both organically and through acquisitions. In Raflatac, we have decided to enter the attractive adjacent market segment of graphics, and we are following up that decision with actions.
In Biofuels, we last summer decided to take two years to go thoroughly through the business case and test it prior to potential next growth steps. Meanwhile, we look forward to a successful launch of the biochemical business and taking the learnings for the next steps there too. On the other hand, we have also exited the Biocomposites business in 2024 and plan to exit Biomedicals now to streamline our product portfolio and focus our development work going forward.
We are confident in UPM ability to create value from our portfolio of businesses and from our recent investments. On this basis, the board of directors has today proposed an unchanged dividend of EUR 1.50 per share for 2024, which represents a dividend yield of about 5.6% at the end of 2024. To complement the dividend, the board has also decided to initiate our first share buyback program.
The maximum number of shares to be repurchased is six million, representing approximately 1.1% of the total number of shares. The maximum amount to be used for the program is EUR 160 million. And with this, we end the prepared part of our presentation. So, dear operator, we are ready for questions.
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 Ephrem Ravi from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Two questions. Firstly, on Leuna more broadly. Compared to the previous quarters, your investment estimate is about EUR 100 million higher, and it looks like the startup has been pushed back by about six to 12 months. However, it is still expected to reach the full production and positive EBIT by 2027, which was sort of the earlier guidance.
Can you give some color as to how the three-year ramp-up earlier now looks more like a two-year ramp-up? And also, does the experience in Leuna hold any lessons for your investment decision in Rotterdam? That would be the first question. And secondly, on the Metamark acquisition, can you give us a sense of the EUR 1.5 billion of sales in Raflatac approximately?
What proportion would be the graphic businesses right now? And on Metamark, you say it will be accretive to EBITDA, GBP 65 million of sales. So if you assume a couple of percentage points above Raflatac, the absolute EBITDA is in the order of about GBP 8 to 10 million, which would kind of give you an EBITDA of close to GBP 20 for this acquisition. Is that the right way of thinking about it? Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Ephrem, for your question. Let's do this. I'll pick the first question about Leuna, and then I'll let Tapio to cover the part about Metamark. But when it comes to Leuna, I would say we are absolutely within the frame of what we have communicated back in September. This ramp-up we're talking about is nothing exceptional. It is actually rather common for a biorefinery.
I mean, we are not here in the camp of pulp mills or paper mills where the startup is pretty straightforward and progressive. Here is a sequential for the different parts. We were aware that utilizing a bit like you can visualize in the representation, the slide we put, when you have a mill where you are putting together different parts, we call them different hearts in this mill, you have to get them to ramp up individually and then to sequence them.
We are aware that that is a process that takes time. So when we earlier on guided, let's say, reaching full capacity in 2027 and EBIT positive in 2027, we were assuming or, let's say, building room in our assumptions for all these elements. So by that standpoint, it doesn't change what we have announced or even these technical elements we have mentioned today don't change anything.
On the other hand, what I would like to take the opportunity of your question to underline is also what I said before, the robustness of our commercial pipeline over there. As said, the scale of the pipeline is multiple times the capacity of the mill. Now, like in every commercial pipeline, you have, let's say, stages that are in a prospecting or customers that are in a prospecting stage, others that are in a testing stage.
Then you have contracts in negotiation, and then you have contracts negotiated already. We have all these elements in the pipeline, so we have firm contracts already. And the scale of the pipeline gives enough confidence that we can get from not just the volume and production standpoint, but also from a price and margin standpoint what we had in the original business case. So our confidence by that standpoint is absolutely maintained.
Yes, then if I take your questions around the Metamark acquisition, maybe not, let's say, numbers to give on the graphic segment or kind of business as a whole for Raflatac, but as Massimo earlier described, this is the third acquisition that we have made.
So in that sense, we are scaling the business up, and therefore it's already, I would say, a meaningful part of the business. And the objective, obviously, is to sort of accelerate growth in this segment or these end-use segments of the self-adhesive materials. And that kind of brings me to your next question in a sense that you're quite far off in your sort of calculation there because, well, we have said that this is EBIT accretive.
The current trading of the Raflatac business as a whole is not a benchmark in a sense to use here in that, first of all, again, the graphics business as such is quite high value added, as is shown by the pictures that Massimo also showed, so therefore, margins are quite attractive, and let's say the kind of recent factors affecting the kind of mainstream business of Raflatac performance recently, they are kind of a topic of their own, so separate from this acquisition or the graphics business as such, so therefore, again, you're quite far off on your sort of assumptions there.
Final point there is that, of course, what we are doing with these acquisitions is delivering on the synergies that they allow us in building up the graphic business. Obviously, accelerating our growth there, kind of synergies to our commercial platform in terms of delivering the growth faster than what we could on our own.
Plus, obviously, we take also the cost synergies and efficiencies, where a good example is what we have discussed for the fall. We have, after the acquisition of Grafityp, where we got a very strong hub for production in Belgium, taken steps to move production from our Kaltenkirchen production site to other locations of UPM Raflatac. So we are also therefore taking the synergies to make us more competitive to sort of deliver on that growth in the graphic segment.
Thank you. And just going back to the Leuna, does Leuna give you more confidence or less confidence on your investment decision in Rotterdam?
Yes. I would say, of course, there are learnings you can take from everything, including from these. But I would look at the two cases separately because they insist on different markets with different dynamics. So in the case of Leuna, we are basically building a new market, which is a market of biochemicals, value-added biochemicals into a chemical market.
In the case of a potential investment in Rotterdam, or in the case more general, I would say, of biofuels, there is an established market already, which has gone through its highs and lows during the different years, depending on the known elements also commented before.
So when assessing Rotterdam, we are going to be assessing our ability to develop a solution that is going to be at the bottom of the cost curve in this space and elements like CapEx efficiency. And should we be meeting these criteria, we will be moving ahead. This is what we are working for eagerly. But those are the prerequisites for a decision in that area. From a technology standpoint, there are not too many, let's say, crossovers to learn about.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. I'd like to focus on the outlook. The lower end of the EUR 400 to 625 million EBIT range, it seems quite conservative considering the last time UPM did kind of sub EUR 400 million was back in 2014. So firstly, I'd just like to understand, what are some of the negative assumptions that need to happen to hit the low end of the first half range?
Are you assuming kind of a deterioration in pulp macro environments, etc.? And then secondly, if we don't see that deterioration in the macro, is it reasonable to assume that if things hold together, the second half should be stronger than the first half, and you should actually deliver some 2025 EBIT growth if the macro holds together? Thank you.
Yes, I'll take your question, Cole, on that. So of course, what we want to kind of provide with this range and then the additional commentary, including the sensitivities in the guidance and outlook, is a framework to kind of calibrate those kinds of issues like you described there. So obviously, the biggest variables, sort of single variables, are the ones where we are giving the sort of sensitivities.
What happens to pulp and electricity prices to the point that they are more volatile, perhaps than in the market, than some of the other sort of moving parts in our business. Of course, starting from the low end that you asked, as stated, we are in a quite uncertain world.
I would say that, of course, the main driver there, kind of like how you referred to, is a sort of turn for the worse in the macro environment, which then obviously would have an impact on the pulp and electricity market, but also, let's say, this recovery in our end-use markets, which has taken place during last year, even if perhaps not as fast as some hope. But if you look at the year-on-year figures last year, we did have recovery in the end markets and expect that to continue into this year.
But again, let's say where the macro kind of disrupted by events unknown at this point of view, obviously would have an impact on that as well, so those kind of obviously changes or negative factors would be the ones that could take to the low end, which, like you said, may be in a sense cautious from that point of view, then again you can sort of follow electricity and pulp price during the first six months.
They are publicly quite widely available, and we are still, even if we have seen some announcements of pulp price increases by the different players in the business, we are still in the sort of low territory of the pulp price cycle.
So in that sense, with kind of positive macro, we would expect in a sense that to sort of drive us kind of within that range, then kind of upwards and that continuing into the second half of the year, everything else being equal, then obviously would be sort of continuing that trend in terms of profit development.
Thank you, Tapio. And then maybe on the buyback, I interpret the first EUR 160 million buyback as reassuring that you're willing to return excess capital to shareholders now that you're past peak CapEx. If we do see the macro recovering through 2025, would the UPM management and board consider further capital returns and futures? I mean, obviously caveating that you'd need to see an improvement in the earnings profile, but effectively, is this EUR 160 million kind of the first wager you're putting on the table for buybacks or capital returns?
Let's say so that in the Capital Markets Day, we had, I would say, a thorough discussion or lively discussion around the capital allocation and dividend policy and also specifically about possible share buybacks and how we have, in a sense, set the framework there is that we have our regular dividend where we aim to have a consistent positive trajectory over time in our dividend per share, and then from time to time, share buybacks are a complementary tool to that, in a sense, to share some of the returns and cash flow from the investments and improvements in the business that we make, and now this is the decision that board has made.
First, kind of share buyback, taking that tool into use, EUR 160 million is meaningful in a sense that if you look at what we are paying out as a dividend, EUR 800 million, that's a 20% complement to that, so to speak. But as said, when it comes to kind of possible further decisions, like again, we discussed in the CMD, we expect a kind of period where CapEx is lower and therefore cash flows turning strongly to the positive. And surely then the board will decide and consider that on possible next steps.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Johannes Grunselius from DNB. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi gentlemen, it's Johannes here. I would like to zoom in a bit on Uruguay. You had very strong pulp shipments for the group. Was this due to you reached perhaps even above nameplate capacity in Uruguay, or was it more due to inventory depletion? And you talked also about in the medium term doing the de-bottlenecking investments or the de-bottlenecking actions to take up volumes further in Paso de los Toros. Could you elaborate on that, please? Timeframe, etc.
Yes, Johannes, when it comes to the capacity, just recalling the main milestones, we have reached nominal capacity in quarter two 2024, and we have been producing basically at capacity ever since. So shipments may be moving a bit left or right one month or the other, depending on a boat leaving at the end of a month or at the beginning of the other one. But if we take a longer period than a month or a quarter, there is no big needle moving part over there.
Now this leads to the second question about the de-bottlenecking. Once reached capacity is where you start, well, the de-bottlenecking may mean two different things or passes through two different steps. Also, like we have indicated on the Capital Markets Day, there is a first phase where reached capacity, you push farther to see what you can achieve with the substantial tuning of the process.
This is the phase that is following and will be ongoing right now. For a more substantial increase in the output, that's when you need to see the limits you have reached and where you need to invest to the bottleneck. That is the phase that will go with some CapEx investment. I would say that down this process, we have reached the nominal capacity.
Now we are entering the phase where we push beyond that capacity, and that will tell us what we need to do and when to enter the third phase. But just to create expectations, these are kind of optimizations and developments that will span over a more than one year period. It's not something that will happen, let's say, quickly in big steps in a couple of months. So it's going to be a progressive process.
Okay, got you. Just two more questions on Uruguay, short ones, but you typically guide for all-in cash cost of EUR 280. Is that still relevant? And also I can see in the schedule for maintenance stoppages that you plan for a stop in Paso de los Toros in Q2. If you can indicate what kind of profit impact that could have, please.
Okay, well, the target when it comes to cash cost remains. Yes, that's what we are working toward too with continuous optimization from where we start onward. But also this optimization is not a linear process in the sense that going toward that target cost happens in steps that are bigger at the beginning and taking away the last $2 to the target will take longer because it's going to be the result of finer tuning later on.
But just to give you a metric about the steps we are making in that area, if we compare 2025 with 2024, all the rest is staying equal, we assume we are going to be having a cash cost reduction year on year in the area of EUR 25 to 30 per ton. So meaningful.
And this has been achieved through these different elements, ramping up capacity, ramping up the railway, ramping up capacity has also meant to increase the electricity production that we sell in the network. And there are now, well, there have been and there will be further optimizations in the logistics, in the use of plantations and so on and so forth. So hopefully I'm giving you some valuable elements. Sorry, I've answered your question. Okay.
The next question comes from Andrew Jones from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, just a couple of follow-ups to questions you've had before. I mean, firstly, just on that guidance range, I didn't hear anything explicit about pulp prices. I mean, it's very pulp price that gives you the 400 versus the higher end of a range. And then just on the other division, I mean, if you strip out the forest gain, it's minus EUR 43 million.
I'm wondering how much of a negative drag was the biorefinery in that number? And was that a sort of bigger hit in the quarter, excluding the obvious big one-off impairment versus how much of it was weakening in the biofuels business? Can you just break out what was going on in that line item? Thanks.
Well, maybe I'll cover those. So first of all, in the guidance range, so again, we have kind of given you a sort of a framework for pulp price with the sensitivities that we have given in the outlook section, then in terms of how it is incorporated in our range, obviously we are starting from the level of pulp price in the beginning of the year.
We have our own forecast of pulp, which we don't disclose. You have yours. So in that sense, then obviously you need to sort of look at the sensitivities and kind of go from there. And obviously during the quarter, it will be public information, or during the two quarters, it will be public information how the pulp price then develops from here.
Sure. I mean, we can work out the sensitivities, but I'm wondering what you were plugging in to get to the 400 versus the 600, because if the 400 is based upon spot, it's very different than it being based on the assumption of prices go up by 50 or something. Can you give us some more steer for that so we can set expectations?
We don't provide forecasts for prices.
No, you don't. I'm not asking for a forecast on prices, but I'm saying if you've given a forecast range on EBIT, can you tell us what you've assumed for pulp to give you that range?
No. Then the question on, because we don't give forecasts on prices. So then the question is, your second question was about the others. And again, for perhaps that purpose, we showed you an update in terms of how during the second half, then biofuels and biochemicals have impacted that sort of other sort of segment in our reporting. So I think you can sort of see from there not big kind of change in the biofuels, slightly better for the second half than the first half from the EBIT number point of view. And let's say not a big deviation between the two quarters.
Okay. Just finally on the maintenance, in the past, you've quantified the maintenance in the first half in terms of like a dollar number or euro number. Could you give us an idea for what you're factoring in for the first half? How does that look half on half if you're comparing to the second half as well for next year? How much has it weighed to the first half?
Let's say, yes, for the first half, there we have the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant maintenance. Then we have the Paso de los Toros's pulp mill shutdown, which was mentioned already earlier. There perhaps just a reminder that still now, given that we have recently started up the mill, this shutdown is only 12 months after the first last year shutdown. From here on, then normally we have 18-month cycles.
In any case, therefore we have the Paso in the first half of this year. And then we have Kymi pulp mill as well. Those both in the Q2 . And one can say in round figures, all this maintenance activity in the first half, the two pulp mills and the nuclear part is about EUR 100 million, which is part fixed cost from the maintenance and part lost margin, obviously due to the fact that during the maintenance, we don't have the volume produced from the mills.
And in the second half of the year, we will have shutdowns in Kaukas and Fray Bentos, but early to give guidance on those because again, it's dependent on where we are in terms of pulp margins and pulp prices at that point in time. So come back to that later in the year.
Okay, that's good. Thank you.
The next question comes from Lars Kjellberg from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Thank you. A couple of follow-ups from me as well. If you're looking at the cost improvements you talked to this year in per ton in Uruguay, at the same time, of course, you've seen quite a material increase in the cost and your Finnish activities on the fiber side. Could you give some sort of color how those two combined would position your fiber business?
And then, I mean, your performance there relative to number one in the business, Avery Dennison, have been sharply deteriorating. You were kind of at parity in 2021 and 2022 and had the margins, and you were 7 percentage points below them in 2024 with a sequential deterioration through the year.
So the question is, can you provide some color of what is happening to your business that is not happening to number one producer? And given where your margins are today, do you have the right to grow in this business?
Okay. I'll take this question about Raflatac first, and then I will let the other one for Tapio next. Well, I mean, we can go back to the evolution of the business in Raflatac in the past, or we can benchmark to the number one in the market or to others. But that should be opening up a discussion around also the differences in terms of product portfolio, geographical exposure, and a few other factors.
I would prefer to focus on what is being done now because clearly the level of performance of 2024 is not in line with our aspirations and expectations for that business. Irrespective of market dynamics, we have been talking in the past multiple times about stocking, destocking, recovery or not. We leave that element apart because that is not something that we control.
But when it comes to elements that we control, the business has taken decisive actions in 2024 to improve both things, profitability and competitiveness. When I talk about decisive actions, I mean a number of different actions affecting organization. An organizational simplification was announced in August last year, which included also streamlining and fixed cost reductions.
Another element is operational effectiveness, and the organization announced in November the closure of the mill in Kaltenkirchen and the transfer of productions in Belgium or elsewhere where there are more competitive cost conditions. The business also announced very recently further streamlining of the assets and a number of actions in terms of streamlining product portfolio and so on and so forth.
By the way, it's working also on sourcing efficiency and so on and so forth. Now, as frequently happens when you implement these initiatives, you don't get the payback immediately. In some cases, when you do transfer activities from one side to the other, you must even ramp up the destination place and the cost that go with it before you ramp down the cost in the sourcing place.
So this is why the impacts of these actions have not been visible in 2024, or even fixed cost may have penalized the performance in 2024. But this will start to be visible and material in 2025. Just to give a frame to that, the impact of these actions already triggered in 2024 or targeted for 2025 is in the scale of tens of millions.
The said part of it will be fixed cost savings, sorry, will be going to performance improvement. A part of it will be reinvested in competitiveness so that we capture whatever will happen to the market. We believe that beyond cycles or inventory cycles, there will be growth in the market. The business is setting ourself for, let's say, getting back and rather soon toward it is the ambition, which is double-digit EBIT.
Yeah, I appreciate that. Can you give any sort of color on in terms of your margin improvement that you expect? Because actually, you had some self-created headwinds, I suppose, in 2024. Where can you see margins landing? All other things being equal in 2025? Will that be already then double-digit margin?
Sorry, the line is quite disturbed and breaking at this end.
I understood the question about margin improvement, but what business are you referring to?
No, Raflatac. That's the one I'm talking about.
Well, of course, there's a lot of volatility in the market, but our ambition is to get to double-digit EBIT in 2025. But of course, it will depend on a number of external factors that we don't control.
Understood. Thank you.
Lars, you had a question? On the Pulp Fibres, yes. So if I'll try to sort of take that one, so, well, first of all, like Massimo already went through, we have quite a lot of operating leverage in Uruguay. Obviously, again, let's say at full run, we have 300,000 tons additional volume there, plus then the cost improvement coming from the platform, which Massimo covered as well. The Finnish operations, they make their, let's say, profit contribution as well on EBIT and cash flow level.
So even if we have challenge in the Finnish wood market that all players have to deal with here in Finland, our pulp mills have been profitable. So in that sense, they sort of contribute to the bottom line of the fibers business as a whole. And therefore, as a combination, then obviously we are aiming to improve the profit of the business area as a whole.
Okay, good. We are getting toward the end of the time available, but let's still pick a quick question.
The next question comes from Robin Santavirta from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. First of all, in terms of Leuna and biorefinery, could you give some kind of comment with regards to the profitability outlook for this year? So will losses decline compared to last year? And also, will you start full depreciation as of Q1 for the plant?
If I cover that, so basically this year still on the EBIT line, we will have additional cost. First of all, now in commissioning and ramp-up of production, we start to have some obviously additional cash outflow. And then to kind of the second point of your question, I would expect that we'll start then the depreciation coming during the year, not from the beginning of the year, but let's say towards the second half of the year when this commercial integrated production is up and running.
Okay, but perhaps we should expect some larger EBITDA losses now when you ramp up operation. Do I understand that correctly?
Yes, in the beginning, OpEx obviously is now sort of then going up.
All right, thanks. Second question I have is related to overall demand and order intake you see at the moment, and particularly when it comes to Europe. Some of your peers have indicated that there's some early signs of improvement in demand. What do you see the same, or is it still sort of as challenging as it was in H2?
Well, I would say that we may confirm the view of some early signs of recovery. Specifically, we need to consider that we are coming from a quarter four that was extremely low. So definitely on some base, there are some better signs coming going ahead.
Yeah. Good. Thanks. And final quick one to Tapio on the just go ahead, Massimo.
No, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. It's just that we need to wrap up because we are beyond time. So really quickly, please.
Yeah, the energy rebates in Q4. Can you give a number, Tapio, on those ones, the EBIT impact?
Well, let's say not the number as such. Let's say, of course, again, similar as previous years, perhaps. Again, obviously, the scale of business is coming down. So in that sense, the scale of the benefit in a sense over time is coming down as well sequentially. If you look at communication papers' result between Q3 and Q4, then let's say these energy-related items in the Q4 was larger actually than that sort of sequential change in EBIT.
Thank you very much. Very good.
Thank you, Robin. Thank you all for your questions and for the participation to the call today. With this, I close the call and wish you all a nice day. Thank you.