Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Norske Skog's Q1 2021 presentation. This time, we thought we would start with introducing the company in a slightly different way than what we have done before. You can see here that we are now much more than publication paper, even though we still have a full range of products to the market in this space, and we will continue to do that for a very long period of time to come. We are today talking a lot about renewable packaging. I will come back to a major milestone in the company's history in terms of renewable packaging and the Strato introduction. Sustainable energy is also a big part of our business now and will become bigger.
Finally, on the chemicals and material front, we will also talk a little bit towards the end of the presentation about exciting developments that have happened in the Q1 and will continue to happen in the next year. Today's presentation is divided into two. One is an update on the Bruck project. We have now a final investment decision by our board made yesterday to go ahead with this important project for us. Then I will obviously also report on the Q1 results after that. The major projects that we launched on the June 17th last year, today we are at the stage of a final investment decision.
Our board of directors yesterday approved the EUR 100 million investment into a conversion from newsprint into recyclable packaging, into containerboard, 210,000 tons of capacity, with the production start in the Q4 of 2022, which is a little bit ahead of what we indicated last year. Importantly, we have committed financing locally in Austria of EUR 70 million of the total investment projects. A very important milestone for Bruck and for Norske Skog. In this context, we're also introducing Strato. Strato is the family name, the brand for our new liner and fluting products. These will be lightweighted, they will be strong, they will be 100% recyclable based on recycled fiber from the market. A very important step into an exciting market. The containerboard market is growing. We think that the growth will accelerate going forward as we will replace more plastics with fiber-based packaging.
We still have the ambition to enter with 765,000 tons, although the final investment decision for the Golbey project will come a bit later in the Q2 . We're entering a market where the growth is in excess of 600,000 tons per annum. For us, this is an exciting new world. To put this into context, when these projects are completed, we will be one of the 10 largest recycled containerboard suppliers in Europe, an important step for the company, but also important for the market to have an independent producer who will produce containerboard for corrugated customers. Now to put it in context, in Bruck, the final investment decision is done for PM3. We can obviously in the future also do PM4, which is probably as suited as PM3 for these type of products when and if converted.
On the Golbey side, as mentioned, we still expect the final investment decision later in the Q2 . Also here, we have the possibility to further expand in the future if we find that to be the most profitable thing to do. All in all, a very important step towards entering the containerboard market in Europe. In addition to the Bruck news, we also now can announce that Norske Skog is entering the liner, interliner production. This is primarily an Asian market. The biggest is China, and we have now successfully completed production tests at Skogn during the Q1 2021. This is also a product which is 100% recyclable and repulpable and is complementary to our products in Europe on testliner and fluting to the Golbey and Bruck projects.
We will enhance this production during the H2 of this year. Over time, this could be a large-scale product for us, between 150,000 and 200,000 tons per annum. Importantly, there is no major capital expenditure associated with this. We will be quite competitive because of Skogn's size, because of the access to fiber energy, and obviously efficient logistics from Norway to Asia. Also an important milestone for the company without any capital expenditure. Moving on to the Q1 financial results. Very briefly, I should also draw your attention to another project in Austria, the Bruck waste-to-energy plant. We are now within 12 months of startup of this project. We estimate to bring another NOK 200 million of EBITDA from the H1 of 2022 onwards. Importantly, we will reduce our CO2 footprint with roughly 150,000 tons.
This is the large-scale CO2 emitter today where we are using gas in Bruck, which will be replaced. Also entering into the green energy field with a significant capacity. We have so far been on budget, on time, despite all the COVID challenges that exist in Europe and globally. Also importantly, the remainder of the project, NOK 38 million CapEx estimate, is purely to be funded by the local debt facilities, so no more equity from Norske Skog ASA. I would also draw your attention to the listing of the Circa Group at Euronext Growth in Oslo, which was done during the Q1 . This is a company who has an exciting biochemical growth journey ahead. It's been based on thorough research on pilot plants and semi-industrial pilot plants at our Boyer Mill in Australia. It enjoys very, very strong support from customers and from governments throughout the world.
This will enable us all as a society to replace petrochemical solvents with biochemical solvents, both for health reasons and for environmental reasons. This is a very, very important project. We continue to be the largest shareholder. We hold about 26% of Circa, and we remain committed to the company and will support its further growth as it will embark on an industrial story in France. The quarterly figure itself, we report an EBITDA of NOK 112 million this quarter without really any adjustments, and still with strong balance sheet. The net debt position is about NOK 400 million, after we have done both an equity issuance and a new bond refinancing in the Q1 . Also importantly, a reasonably good cash position at the end of the first quarter, with more than NOK 1.6 billion in the bank.
Looking at the paper markets at this juncture, we see that the Q2 is likely to remain difficult. For us, there is upward cost pressure, particularly on recycled fiber in Europe and globally. We do see that prices have moved up in Asia, in North America for our products, and we expect that to also happen in Europe from the middle of this year. This is also supported by capacity being taken out and further announcements now of our competitors to remove significant capacity during the Q3 of 2021. Despite this, the Q1 was weak. We reported then, as I said, just over NOK 100 million EBITDA. This is a 5% EBITDA margin and is clearly not sustainable for a very long period of time.
If you look at the difference to the Q4 , we can see that there's both price pressure, as expected, downwards, which is the main negative factor. Also we had higher variable costs. This was particularly influenced by, let's call it the winter effect, with high spot prices in particularly the Nordic markets. Against this, our own initiatives on the cost side mitigated about NOK 60 million, and then various other items, the two most significant ones being that we now do book the CO2 quota allowances as they come, as we have done with the compensation schemes in the past, and we also received in Austria some direct COVID support. All in all, NOK 112 million in the Q1 .
Very briefly on the segments themselves, you can see that Europe, we see an improved utilization rates to 88% from last year's very, very low levels of 70%-80% after COVID hit us. Europe is still not satisfactory in terms of EBITDA, with a 6.2% margin. Down Under, as expected, another weak quarter with almost no or even a slight negative EBITDA. This is also due to the fact that we take downtime in New Zealand with very high energy prices presently. Australasia is, as most of you probably recognize, under strategic review. We will revert during the Q2 of what happens, particularly with the New Zealand operations. COVID took a big bite out of the market in 2020 with almost 20% decline. You could almost see from the mid of March last year that this was a big COVID effect.
The market also in February and January of this year had similar falls, but is now more stabilizing as we see March and April numbers coming in at sort of a post-COVID level almost. Balanced by publication paper capacity closures, now more than 3 million tons since the middle of last year. The last two announcements then to the right-hand side of the graph, bringing this more than 3 million tons, which should balance the market once again. I mentioned the booking of the CO2 in our books. This is becoming an important part for us. It's partly the CO2 compensation schemes in Norway and partly the quotas that we receive. While the system is meant by design to tighten, we will partly get more quotas from next year from the Bruck Energy plant, as mentioned, and the pricing is also improving per unit.
The guidance for 2021 is a similar level of income as in 2020, both for CO2 compensation and for CO2 quotas. Importantly still, to keep competitiveness in the existing operations, our Saugbrugs mill has just now commissioned something we call Next Terminator, which is another energy efficiency project has enabled even further energy efficiencies at the site, which probably is the world's most energy efficient SC producer. It also reconfirms Saugbrugs as a neutral CO2 factory. It has also been supported very well by the Norwegian government and the Enova fund, together with Innova, with NOK 66 million, about a third of the investment, where we expect a three-year payback. The project has gone according to plan mostly, with some slight delays because of COVID restrictions on people traveling into Norway from Sweden and Finland. The Bruck waste-to-energy boiler is quite an impressive story so far.
As you know, we are replacing our old gas-fired power plant in Austria with a large-scale 50-MW unit, which will take recycled materials and waste and will burn it, and we will have steam and energy for the grid and for our own operations. We've indicated a NOK 200 million EBITDA contribution from this, which clearly is important for us, also the ability to reduce CO2 with 150,000 tons, which is significant for Austria, it's significant for the region, it's significant for Norske Skog. I think it's also important that we are able to deliver these projects on time and on budget, which should bode well also for the big containerboard projects.
I have to also credit Austrian authorities, which have been very cooperative in terms of the COVID environment to allow people traveling into the country from other countries in order to support our development industrially. I mentioned briefly the Circa stock exchange listing in Oslo, which happened in the Q1 . Again, a very exciting development. There has been grants from EU on the Horizon 2020 program in order to move this forward. Now we are at the step of realizing the ReSolute project, which is a 1,000-ton production plant, which will be the first in the world. So far, most people outside of Norske Skog and Circa has only been able to do this in kilograms. Now we're talking about thousands of tons.
The market can probably take much more than this. Hopefully, this is the growth story of the future, that we can also replicate this several times over. Merck is a chemical distribution giant in the world, is very positive to Circa. Would think that they can do more than even what they have today committed for when the production is up and running the 1,000 tons. Listed on the Euronext Growth in Oslo. We hold 26% and will continue to support Circa at its very exciting journey ahead. Closer to home is CEBINA. CEBINA has been developed at the Saugbrugs mill by our very competent product development teams there. Will indeed improve the sustainability for all products which today is using solvents based on petrochemicals.
This can be done in paints, it can be done in epoxy, it can be done in different coatings, it could probably be done in drilling fluids for the oil over time. We had the first commercial sale of this in the Q4 of last year. 2021's big development will be international distribution before we can upscale the present 500-ton pilot plant that we have in Halden. Again, something to look out for during 2021. The next product in the family of development at the Saugbrugs mill is something we call CEBICO, which is a composite of wood fiber and recycled plastics. This will certainly reduce use of plastics, but it will also enhance the product applications and even reduce the pollution from plastics directly.
This is a very efficient and durable product and can be used probably in all sorts of applications where today plastic is used for long life, so piping and other industrial usages. We also tested out on more consumer-based products, and this has also a very important future, we think, in the new world where plastics will need to be replaced with fibers. Concretely, we are putting up an extruder in Halden in order to test this further, and this could be also done in conjunction with other industrial partners over time. ESG reporting is important for everyone, important for Norske Skog. It's not new to Norske Skog. We have reported for many years, for decades, according to the GRI standards, and we have again updated this and I think taken a significant step forward.
The annual report for 2020, which is just out now in connection with our annual general meeting last week, is a significant improvement. We have gone through a very detailed analysis last year, setting new targets, you can see the CO2 target here, by a further reduction of 55% from an already reduced level in 2020. There are a number of other initiatives and targets that we commit to inside of the sustainability reporting. Something that we will continue to work on, follow up, and further improve, obviously, but we have taken significant steps already. To conclude this presentation, we will talk a little bit about the outlook for the short term and for the medium term.
If you look at the market today, operating rates in the industry is improving, particularly from March onwards, but we also see that going into the H2 of the year, that we will have improved operating rates that will normally lead to price improvements, and that will probably also happen this time around. In the very short run, in front of the Q2 , there is the increase in recovered fiber and other input factors that we had to contend with. The Q2 is still going to be a weak quarter. This is unsustainable. Everyone knows it. Price improvements will come. We think that in the H2 , we will see between 15% and 20% price improvements coming into our books gradually from the July 1st. I'm now talking about Europe. Internationally, that has already happened.
On the strategy development front, we expect the final investment decision for the Golbey project, as mentioned, during still the Q2 of 2021, with the start-up of production in early parts of 2023. The Australian operation, in particular the New Zealand operations, we will also try to conclude during the Q2 . That has faced some COVID delays as the travel restrictions into New Zealand, and obviously globally, has hampered progress a little bit, as we would have hoped to have more news on that today. CEBINA, we think that an international distribution agreement is the next steps. That will happen this year and is probably the go-ahead for an expansion also on our production capacity in Halden. Finally, I would like to remind all our customers that we will remain, for a very long time, a reliable supplier of all publication paper grades.
Despite the Interliner going, despite the Bruck and Golbey conversions, our product range will remain the same, and we will still be a competitive and reliable supplier of all publication paper grades. On that note, I would like to thank you for your attention and wish you a very good day. Thank you.