Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this webcast in connection with Norskis Gorg's Q3 2021 Financial Reporting. I'd like to start Also this presentation with this short overview of our strategic direction. At the bottom of this chart. You can see our publication paper range, which has been in high demand during the Q3 as the market is tightening. The next level, which is also quite an exciting element is the sustainable energy, where the waste to energy plant at Bruk is progressing well in the quarter, and we are now in the main investment phase as we're approaching start up and commissioning of that in the Q2 of 2022.
On Renewable Packaging, also a lot of activity has taken place, most significantly, the financial commitments from banks to finance 3 quarters of the total of the Strato project into 760,000 tons of containerboard, where we are now just a year away from first paper on reb in Austria. And finally, at the top, Sibyna, Sibyko and Circa, which is the main brand names in our Biochemical and Materials family, have also made significant strides towards commercial production in the quarter. Briefly, the quarter has seen price improvements. As we announced from the 1st July, most grades, if not all, However, in Europe, at least, has seen significant price increases following capacity closures in the industry. However, we see strong increases in energy.
There should be no surprise to anyone that European energy market is under pressure. In other words, we see high prices and at the same time also other raw materials like recovered paper remain elevated. So yes, we have had an improvement in margins, but a lot of that has been absolutely necessary to compensate for higher raw material prices. The EBITDA ended at SEK111,000,000 in the quarter, which is a significant improvement from the SEK 17,000,000 in the 2nd quarter, but it's still at the too low and unsustainably low level following the COVID period. In New Zealand, our process to cease paper production at the Tasman site has now been completed.
Most The redundancies have been done and paid, and we can report a net positive cash impact in the quarter of NOK 70,000,000. And finally, as mentioned, we did just after the quarter, enter into the final debt financing documentation with significant banks from France, Norway and Austria and Germany. Where now better part of this financing costs have been taken care of. Looking a little bit at the markets and in particularly the European market, you can see in the EBITDA bridge To the right on this slide that while price improvements have been significant with almost $200,000,000 positive, increases in energy costs and elevated recycled paper costs have negatively contributed with SEK163,000,000. All in all, slight positive from other elements, meaning that We report, as stated, an EBITDA of SEK111,000,000.
If we look very, very briefly at the segment, the European segment is in practice running full at 96% capacity utilization. That is basically all tons that we are able to get out of the machines are now being produced. Price is up about on average 15%. However, as we will come back to shortly, energy and recovered paper remains a significant increase in our cost base. If we go to the Australasian segment, utilization is higher, up from 69% to 87% in the quarter as Tasman ceased production at the end of the second quarter.
So, BOEER is now the only domestic supplier and BOEER is also running as much as it can to supply domestic demand in Australia and New Zealand. The tightness of the market is to a large extent Due to the closure of capacity, we have reported before significant capacity closures that has been announced. Most of them has now been done Inside the small square box on the chart to the right hand side here, you can see the capacity that came out in the 3rd quarter. And you can also see that there has been further announcements of conversion projects that will come in the next 2 years. All in all, we believe that the market will remain in bounds also as demand is stabilizing and even for certain grades slightly increasing post COVID lockdown period.
So as mentioned, pricing has come up. You can see the significant price increases that we had already witnessed in Asia and Hong Kong here and in the U. S. And that followed in Europe from the Q2 and Q2 onwards with new sprints, Lightweight Coated and SC improvements. There is also further announcements from the 1st October on certain grades, particularly for lightweight coatings, so all in all, significant price increases.
Several industrial players, including Norskis Gorgs has also announced energy surcharges applicable from October November onwards to year end and also announced and intention to increase prices significantly for 2022. This is vital and absolutely needed. As we see, the Raw material costs have increased significantly. On the left hand side, we covered paper, wherein which was also quite a lot in focus in the 2nd quarter. And now the general energy crisis that has engulfed European Union, including the Nordics, where we see that prices has increased by between 4 8x for electricity and 5x for gas.
Norskaskog buys A significant amount of gas still in Bruk for its combined heat and power plants there for production of electricity, which will be gradually reduced and almost phased out with the start up of our boiler in April next year. The boiler is well underway. We have reported before that we are both on time and on budget, which we're happy to confirm at this stage. And to date, we have invested SEK 55,000,000 out of the total SEK 72,000,000 with the loan facility has been drawn to $38,000,000 as of date. So as mentioned, we are in the heavy investment phase now in the 3rd Q4 before commissioning and start up in the Q2 next year.
CO2 is one reason why the European Energy Markets are in the state of almost panic as they are now. And CO2 prices has improved significantly throughout 2021 reaching a high above €60 per ton recently. In Norskis Skog's case, we have reported before that the system from 2013 to 2020 is Design to Titan, which you can see on the left hand graph here. And the net surplus, sellable quotas that we have is represented by the black line. Now for the next stage of the European Emission Trading System.
You could see that the allocations we have, have been then charted from 2021 to 2025 at just above 400,000 tons. And as we've also mentioned before, Brook Today has to buy quotas, that will be a different situation following on the startup of the new boiler. Conversion to containerboard is obviously an exciting project for us. Again, here, we're also reporting progress, satisfactory progress, both in terms of timing and budgets. We have invested so far about SEK 20,000,000.
So we're not in the most heavy of investments periods thus far, but it's important to note that we have already spent started to spend money on this project. Total investments. We confirm at €350,000,000 and a large share of this has been contracted with the main suppliers. As we also indicated before, Feuitt is the main supplier for Golbe and Belmir is the main supplier for Austria. 75 percent roughly of the investment is now backed by debt financing.
And again, a large part of that System Export Credit Agency backed by German, Alder Hermes. Again, Q4 2022, 1st production in Druk, a year later in Golbe, and then all is ramped up 760,000 tons of finished capacity. We have, in the past, also stated that we will become one of the leading players in this market. You can see here the position we will have, pro form a on the right hand side of 760,000 tons. This is market, which is evolving as we speak.
And there are also M and A activity in this sector as Merfitt Kappa has bought Burgos converted plant in Italy. And this is, again, a market where a lot of things is indeed happening, but we We'll establish ourselves as one of the leading players in this market with 2 future possibilities to convert in France and in Austria further. This graph is basically showing that we have the liquidity and the financing to do these projects. There is even a liquidity buffer, as you can see. And with cash on the balance sheet and expected cash flow, We are now in a position where we can say we're confident about the financing of these projects.
The market has evolved probably better than we thought when this was announced in June of last year. And these products, so called Strato Group of products, which will be the brand names. It will then fit very well with all main trend lines in this industry. They are light And they are strong and they're 100% recyclable. So these are the main trends in this market and this market is Growing faster than many other markets, a little bit better on the back of the e commerce boom following the COVID lockdowns.
Yet despite favorable market dynamics, this is still a commodity market where a cost leadership position is important and pro former. Our machines will be in the lower left hand corner of the cost curve. We have an advantage in terms of where these are located and our transportation costs will be relatively low. They are big and have scale advantage, and they will benefit from competitive and green steam supply from the boiler we are building in Austria and the boiler which will be built by external parties at Goh Bay site. The market has absorbed quite well the capacity improvements that came in this industry in 2020, in particular.
You can see the price and main raw material graph on the right hand side, and the difference is obviously the margin that their price improvements have now gone to prices of both €700 delivered and a very, very strong demand underpinning this. You should also note that corrugating capacity, Our customers future customers have increased even further. So in order for our customers to run their operations, we this capacity that is coming on stream, including ours, is also needed to balance the market. Circa is One of the 3 pillars of our biochemical strategy, the 26% ownership we have, We will keep and we will remain a long term partner to circa. However, given the independence of circa and the listed nature of the company.
They will do their own communication. And one of these communications recently was that the Resolute plant in France will be more expensive than previously thought. This is maybe not too surprising given general cost increases in steel and in terms of transportation and the general inflation in the markets. And we are quite confident that circa will find good solutions, both to find the best technical solution, but also to be in line with their current balancing and we do not see Norskis Gorg as a lender of last resort to circa and we also are confident that Circa does not need to tap the market in order to realize the first step in what we still believe will be very, very exciting road ahead. Sabina has, as we mentioned in the Q4 of last year, done its first commercial sales into epoxy for floors.
This quarter, we have also mentioned to the markets that Sabina has been proven into paints, which is an interesting segment. And also here, there's the first sort of repeat commercial sale. So we remain optimistic and quite bullish on Sabina's potential in these and other applications. In terms of the CO2 reporting, as mentioned, the quotas have now been set for the next period. So that is important for us.
In addition, also the CO2 Pricing is important for the compensation we receive in Norway and in France. But also in general, as both responsible citizens and as a heavy industry, which has had focus on environmental emissions for decades. We take this very seriously and we have put targets on our emission cuts and that present target is 55% down from 2020 to 2,030. And with the BRUK investments and other investments and improvements that we are doing, we are quite convinced that we will reach this target. In addition, we are committed to transparency and openness and our CSR reporting underscore stat.
If we look ahead a little bit, the publication paper market, our heritage business is operating with high operating rates. This should give impetus for price improvements, both further on in the second half, first mentioned with energy surcharges in Europe and other parts of the world and also into 2022. So we expect significant price increases from the 1st January in addition to the present pricing. This is absolutely needed as we see that The prices for energy in the Q4 in the Q1 and in general has increased significantly and have reached volatility and levels which we have not really seen in at least not in the recent past and probably never seen at all. Recycled fiber and other derivatives of energy also see high levels and increases.
And also finally, logistics put pressure on not only our own delivered cost, but also input costs into the factories. Despite this, we still will remain a reliable supplier of publication paper grades. And I think we I've also shown in the Q3 that we have delivered customers when maybe other suppliers have failed. The strategic shift is evident. I've talked about Sabina and Sibeco.
We will continue that journey with for Sabina, an international sales agreement. We aim to have that in place in the Q4. And the pilot plant in strudor of 300 tons. We will start up for Sibiko also in the Q4. Waste to Energy is then the Q2 next year and first containerboard, as mentioned, the Q4 of 2022.
So I will end this morning's short presentation with an invitation to Markets Day. This will be our 1st Capital Markets Day since the listing in 2019. On the 25th October. We will host this from 9 o'clock in the morning, where you will see not only me, but also all the members of Norskis Gorgs management presenting the company in more detail. So we hope to see as many of you as possible in person or online.
On that note, I will thank you all for your attention this morning. Thank you, and have a good day.