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Earnings Call: Q4 2017

Jan 29, 2018

Christopher Casselblad
Head of Investor Relations, BillerudKorsnäs

Good afternoon, everybody, and most welcome to this year-end report press and analyst conference. My name is Christopher Casselblad. I'm Head of Investor Relations. A few words about the agenda. We will start with 20, 25 minutes about the details. The presentation will be held by Susanne Lithander, our CFO. After that, we will open up for a Q&A session where also Petra Einarsson, our CEO, will join in. Before we leave the word to Susanne, I know that Petra would like to say a few words. If you're ready, the floor is yours.

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

I think I can talk in this. I just wanted to say that it's really great to be here, I will not talk that very much this presentation. I will leave the stage to you, Susanne. If you have any questions to me, I will, of course, be happy to answer. I think I listen to you also, Susanne- this first quarter.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Thanks. I guess I'm the lucky one this time. Okay. Year-end report 2017. In spite of some challenges over the quarter and also over the year, we actually are pretty happy that we can present a result for the year-end that is in line with our financial targets. We can actually tick off all the boxes in our financial targets. We had a growth of 3%. We also had an EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA of 17%. Our return on capital employed is also 13%, and our net debt to EBITDA is below our target. It's on 1.53 at this point in time. We're pretty happy about that. We have also proposed, or the board will propose, a 54% dividend, SEK 4.30, no changes from last year. All this we can present thanks to a very strong demand, of course.

You know that the market is very strong, we have been able to increase our pricing. We could have delivered more, we could have sold more if we had our production producing fully. Even so, we still have a record high production levels. We've never produced this much ever. This is actually what it looks like in our production. We have grown 230,000 tons since this company was formed. We have a year-on-year average growth of 2% within the production. We also have, in three of our mills, we have all-time high production levels. It's in Gävle, Frövi, and Skärblacka. We know that we still have some more to get out of our existing structure that we have invested in increases over the five-year period that we've been as a company. We still have some more to get out of these investments.

To be able to do that, we will continue to focus, and this is near and dear to our new CEO, to focus on operational excellence. The foundation in a company like ours when it comes to operational excellence is health and safety, to make sure that we have the safety system that it really needs in this type of business. We have also improving our quality systems. We're approaching our customers and our quality issues in a much more systematic and a structured way. That program is being implemented and has been under implementation for quite a while. Finally, we're also focusing a lot on stability in our production. We're not looking at our investments and our CapEx from a point of view where we can only do bottlenecking. We're looking at it from a stability point of view.

We have recruited, we've talked about this before, we have recruited a few or quite a few specialists and formed some specialist groups on a central level that will work across all of our mills, and especially in the areas of health and safety, but also in the pulp area, in the pulp processes. That's a bit about the total year and our production issues and what we're doing to avoid them in the future. If we look at the fourth quarter only, at a glance, we had a sales level of SEK 5.5 billion. That is 2% up compared to Q4 last year, driven by pricing improvements. Better local pricing is driving that. Our EBITDA is SEK 923 non-adjusted. Or that is adjusted? Yep. The margin is 17%.

As you can see here, we have the split between our business areas is basically the same as it has been for a while. Packaging Paper, 40%, Consumer Board Now 35% and Corrugated Solutions about 20%. The 8% in other is primarily, or it is, the wood trading that we do. We trade a lot of wood. We buy and sell to get our wood into our mills. The highlights that we have, we see during the quarter was a continued high demand over across all our business areas. We saw price increases in basically all areas. We had the negative effects from the production disruptions that cost us about SEK 120 million in the quarter. The higher EBITDA was driven by increased prices, as I said before, but also lower cost compared to last year.

Last year, we had big cost for some events in Rockhammar, where we had problems with starting up that machine after a stop. Our adjusted EBIT margin ends up at 11%. The outlook looks pretty good from a market perspective, short and long term, if you look at demand. We'd go into our financial targets on a more detailed level. Our net sales grew with 2% quarter-on-quarter. Let me check here. Which corresponds to the 3% year-on-year growth. We did have lower volumes in the quarter compared to last year. We actually had 23,000 tons lower volumes compared to last year. You can see that the price increases are showing off here. On the EBITDA level, the adjusted EBITDA is an improvement with 6%. It's not really fair to look at the EBITDA.

The regular EBITDA shows an improvement of 33%. We had a huge provision last year for restructuring costs in Gruvön. It's more fair to compare the adjusted EBITDA, and that corresponds to 6% improvement. Volume-wise, we are actually negative, and that has a negative impact of 3%. Our cash flow, we're now starting to see that the payments for our investments are ticking in. We have a negative cash flow in the quarter of SEK 700 million. We do have a good working capital. Our working capital level is at 9% of sales. Our target is to be at 11%. We do have a fairly decent working capital. It is a bit doped by big invoices for the Gruvön project, but still on a good level. Our return on capital employed, adjusted, is 13%, spot on our target.

Our capital employed is up to a level of SEK 19.5 billion now and continues to grow with our investments. Our leverage target is to be below 2.5x EBITDA when it comes to net debt, and we are now up to 1.53. We have a total net debt of SEK 5.7 billion end of the year. If we go into the business areas, this slide you have all seen before, I would assume. It's just a presentation of the business areas such. Packaging Paper, which is our business area that supply kraft and sack paper. They are very much focusing on consumer goods, the medical market, the sugar, flour, sugar, consumer eatables, and building materials. Packaging Paper has a 4% increase quarter-on-quarter in their net sales. They had a net sales of SEK 2.1 billion. They see increased prices in local currencies.

They could have sold more had they not been affected by the disruptions primarily in Gruvön and a bit in Skärblacka as well. EBITDA is down 5% compared to last year. That's due to the lower production volumes and also some minor negative currency effects. The prices on both pulp and paper has continued to increase, as everybody's aware of, I assume. What we should mention here is that Packaging Paper shows a record high result. They have never been over SEK 1 billion before, so we are celebrating that they are over SEK 1 billion for the first time this year. Very strong. We also expect the kraft and sack paper market to continue to be solid, with potential price increases in local currency in the coming quarter. That's Packaging Paper.

Consumer Board business area, where we have our liquid packaging board and our carton board, where we clearly have a volume growth strategy. This is where we want to see the volume growth come. In our net sales, we have actually a decrease compared to last year, same quarter, due to production availability. The EBITDA is up 8%. That's also due to higher cost in the fourth quarter last year when we had trouble in Rockhammar. Overall, for the full year, they actually grew with 3%. They do reach the overall target that we have for the company to grow. They did grow 3% last year. The carton board is doing really well. They had record high sales in last year. We expect the situation also here for this business area to continue to be strong.

Last and least, our Corrugated Solutions business area, that supply fluting and liner, and also the Managed Packaging services that we have. Their development during the fourth quarter is that the sales increased with 2% thanks to improved pricing and also a substantial increase in Managed Packaging. Managed Packaging grew with 50% last year. They are now up to 17%, 18% of sales year-on-year. EBITDA is down 12% versus last year, and that is because of the production disruptions primarily in Gruvön. When Gruvön stops, PM6 stops, and PM6 is the machine producing fluting, and that's the lifeline of this business area. We also talk about cost related to expansion within Managed Packaging. That means that we have cost for establishing ourselves in new markets. We go into new markets where we don't have offices today in our own business.

We go into the new markets in Asia, like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Thailand, et cetera. We have nothing on the ground, and we need to put people and legal entities and legal setups to be able to operate there. That has cost us about SEK 25-ish million. We do have strong order books and increased prices in Europe. We see that. We expect the growth. The strong order books and increased pricing in Europe is primarily for the materials part, of course, the old part. When it comes to Managed Packaging, we expect that to continue to grow for 2018, not at the same pace. We expect it to grow with about 25%. That's the target for Managed Packaging to grow every year. We do expect same for this business area for the strong first quarter demand.

Our investments, we are investing a lot of money in moving the Terva machine to Skärblacka. We are also investing a lot of money in the new board machine in Gruvön. Well, the progress is progressing. We are progressing in the investments. The first investment we have been doing when it comes to moving the Terva machine to Skärblacka, that machine is supposed to start up during the first quarter. We expect that to continue to start up during the first quarter. We don't expect it to be delayed. During the first quarter, sometime, that machine will be started. When it comes to the board machine in Gruvön, we have already announced that we have major cost increases. We still believe that the machine will be able to start in the first quarter of 2019.

We are progressing also on that investment, even at a higher cost. Now it comes to the outlook for the rest of the year. Our short-term outlook is that the demand and the order situation will continue to be strong with normal seasonal variations for the business areas. Just a reminder that we have already also announced that we will have impacts from the challenges of getting the wood out of the forests primarily in the Baltics, to get the hardwood out that we need to our mills. That will cost us about SEK 80 million-SEK 100 million on bottom line for the first quarter. If we look out for the full year, what we expect. We know that there are a lot of pulp capacity coming out on the market, and hence there is a higher demand of pulpwood.

We do see that there is more competition to get the wood. Our overall capacity, we said in the third quarter, we said that we would increase our capacity overall with 1%. Due to the fact that we don't get the hardwood into our mills in the first quarter, we are not running full steam in Gruvön today, and primarily that hits Corrugated Solutions. We will not be able to reach the 1%, we expect ourselves to be able to run at the same level as this year. We will, however, we think, be able to increase the volumes for Consumer Board. Consumer Board, we think, will grow in accordance with targets. But for Corrugated Solutions and Packaging Paper, there will be reduced volumes due to the impact from the Gruvön investment.

We have to stop the machinery early in 2018 and have a much longer stop than anticipated. The cost for next year for Gruvön will be about SEK 210. These are the same costs that we have talked about. They have not increased. They are the same that we have talked about before. It's about SEK 75 million extra because we have to have a longer maintenance stop. It's SEK 75 million for education and extra personnel that we're not allowed to activate. Also we have the increased pace of the depreciation of the old machines that we are shutting down when we turn on the new machine. Those are the same costs that we've had before. Just a reminder. Our net exposure to the pulp market is decreasing next year. It's going down to about 150,000 tons.

When it comes to pulp prices, we have no view at this point in time because we have said so many times that it will come down, it continues to go up. Eventually we think it may come down, but we don't know when. That is the presentation of the fourth quarter that we had planned. We have time now for question and answers. Petra, if you join me.

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

Any question?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Start, yes.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's Linus Larsson with SEB. Maybe I can just come back to your outlook for 2018, and if you could just talk briefly about your wood price expectations. You have guided for this logistics impact that you expect to see in the first quarter, the SEK 80 million-SEK 100 million. What do you expect in terms of wood prices?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yep. That is a difficult question to answer. We are in the midst of negotiations with our suppliers, we really cannot reveal what the numbers are. However, our prices that we pay for wood is open information. It's on our web. If you go in under our website and forestry, you have the latest updated price lists there. We follow the market, and we try to get the best deal we can. I don't have a good number to give you.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

What's your visibility? Does the SEK 80 million-SEK 100 million capture the list price changes that might take place as well? Or is it completely separate?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

The SEK 80-SEK 100 has nothing to do with the potential price increases on our price lists. The SEK 80-SEK 100, part of it is reduced speed of PM6, because they consume a lot of birch, and that's the type of wood we have problems getting hold of. That's part of it. Then you have an overall increase of cost because we have to buy a lot of eucalyptus, for instance, and we also buy pulp instead now. That increases the cost. That gives us the SEK 80-SEK 100. That has nothing to do with the price list increases on our price list.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

What's your guidance here? What should we expect? Is there an additional wood cost on top of the SEK 80-SEK 100 in the first quarter?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

In the first quarter, I would say no.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Great. Maybe linked to that, the question to Petra, I don't know on what level and to what detail you'd like to answer, but there's a lot happening on the wood supply, on the backward integration side with the solving of Bergvik. Could you say something about that? How long do you expect this process to take? Do you have any initial thoughts on backward integration and future ownership? I understand you don't want to go into too much detail, but any initial thoughts would be much appreciated.

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

I can't really reveal that much because we are in the middle of looking into that. You could say that we are sort of getting into due diligence process right now when a lot of things are not really clear. I think the first step is to really have a fact-based discussion, and also to look at different alternatives. We haven't reached any decisions yet when it comes to the future.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Is there a timeline that you could share with us?

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

Not really. It's so many different parts in this that are interlinked, I don't really know how long it will take. I think we could say that it will most probably be finalized during this year. That is no guarantees, but at least that is in my head right now.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Great. Thanks. Just one final question, if I may. Regarding the items affecting comparability on the EBIT line, there were SEK 66 million of those in this quarter and SEK 150 million on the full year. How should we think? They are largely project-related it seems.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

They're all project-based, the same cost that we've talked about before. We just specified what they are.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Right. Is that the same project costs that we're now talking about for 2018 basically?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah. It's the same.

It's the same. Thank you very much.

We will show them every quarter moving forward.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Great, thanks.

Mikael Jafs
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Thank you. Mikael Joffs, Kepler Cheuvreux. Just to continue on the wood costs, you have a sensitivity sort of number there in your annual report from last year, but it sort of says fiber plus wood. Could you give a little bit more color and flavor?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

I can give you color on that. Yeah, sure. We buy pulp. It's pulp and wood basically. You know how much pulp we have to buy. We have to buy 200,000-250,000 tons of pulp. That's the flavor I can give you.

Mikael Jafs
Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Okay. No, fair. Thank you. That's helpful.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Hi. I'm Oskar Lindström from Danske Bank. A couple of questions. The first one I'd like to ask is regarding the cost overrun for the Gruvön project, which is roughly SEK 1.3 billion. Could you explain a little bit more around how that came to be so much more expensive, and what is the sort of reason behind it? Somebody must have made a mistake somewhere.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah, you would think. Yeah. Some color around that horrible number. Well, when we have these types of projects, they're very complex. They're huge and very complex. What you do, you have a pre-project where you bring in the experts to really check the ground, because it's really in the ground and the civils where we have the overrun and where we have the problems. You expect the experts to find what the ground looks like, so that you are able to do the drawings and do the calculations on how deep you need to go with the piling. Obviously, the ground is much more complex or much more difficult than those experts had anticipated. We have huge difficulties when it comes to the groundwork and how deep down you need to drill to hit solid ground because you need to anchor the poles in the solid ground.

That is becoming much more cement, concrete, and more steel, et cetera, and it's adding up. I can certainly agree that, yeah, it's too much to just be a mistake.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Three sort of follow-up questions on that. The consultants who did the project work, are they the same ones carrying out the work afterwards?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No. The ones carrying out the works are the entrepreneurs, basically. In our case, we have NCC doing the civils and the groundwork and the buildings.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Second follow-up, will you be able to recover any of this cost increase from, I presume, the consultants who did the project work and the estimates?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

We haven't anticipated that, we will for sure do everything we can to share some responsibility here.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Finally, how has this sort of cost overrun impacted the profitability of the project?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

It still meets our targets of return, and it's still a very good project for us to do, still the right thing to do.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Your return requirement, you're referring to the ROCE?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

13%.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Even with a CapEx cost of SEK 7 billion, you still meet a 13% ROCE.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Including the higher depreciation and everything.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah.

Right. All right. Very interesting. I have a few other questions, but I'll pass on the mic.

Gustav Hansson
Analyst, Pareto

Yeah. Thank you. Gustav Hanson with Pareto. You've talked a little bit about your measures to ensure production stability going forward. I'm just thinking if you could elaborate a little bit on what the main focus will be for the specialist group during the year, and also if there's any reason to believe that your sort of base maintenance CapEx levels would come up in the coming years?

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

To start with the operational excellence issue, I think to really stabilize the production is, of course, really the target here, and I think we have already put in place quite a few specialists in the program, as Susanne said. I think it's to focus not only on production, but also to focus on health and safety as well as quality at the same time to put the business system in place for all production sites. Here, I think we have really matured within quality, but maybe we have a little bit more to take on when they come to safety and also to have a mandatory setup for all production sites when they come to production targets.

I don't think that if you look at the disturbances that we have had during the last two years, it's not so that you can sort of clearly see a generic issue, sort of that this is the thing that we need to fix. It's different kind of disturbances in the productions. It needs to be stabilized, but it's not so simple so that you can say that this is the generic root cause of everything.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

The CapEx levels, I'll take those. We'll have for 2018, we don't change our estimate. It will still be SEK 4.7 billion. For 2019, it goes up to SEK 1.8 billion, then it falls back down to a more normal level of SEK 1.4 billion-ish.

Gustav Hansson
Analyst, Pareto

All right. Thank you.

Christopher Casselblad
Head of Investor Relations, BillerudKorsnäs

Anyone else?

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

I'm back here. A couple of more questions. The price increases that you've mentioned are happening. Are you finding that it's difficult to push through these price increases with your customers as you've had these production problems, and I presume are kind of maybe failing to meet some deliveries to them?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yes, especially on the corrugated side, because they are the ones that are hurt the most. There we've had some problems. We've still managed to get a lot of it through.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

All right. My interpretation of that is that you'll have some, perhaps not achieve, follow the market, so to say, in the price increases, or at least perhaps with more of a delay than one could expect otherwise. Right. We talked about the Bergvik Skog transaction. It's too early for you to say how you will act there or what decision you will make. Could you give us a little bit more information about how important Bergvik Skog is for your sourcing of wood?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Well, it stands for 10% of our supply. We source 10.5 million cubic meters per year, and we get a bit over 1 million from Bergvik Skog. They are important to us, and if you have control of such a volume, you are much stronger when it comes to negotiating trades and bartering that we do in Sweden with all the different forest owners.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Right. Another question, you mentioned here during the presentation that working capital at the moment in relation to sales was perhaps a little bit lower than it would normally have been due to the Gruvön investment and some receivables you had there. Adjusting for that, what would be the sort of normalized level, and should that sort of come off during the course of this year, or is it next year?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No, that will stay on for next year as well. I would say that is probably more in the 10-ish area, we're still in good shape.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

All right. Thank you very much.

Gustav Hansson
Analyst, Pareto

Question on pricing. For Consumer Board, when will you renegotiate most of those contracts? Am I right thinking that it's end of this year? I think you mentioned before.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah. We have one contract that is being renewed this year and one next year.

Christopher Casselblad
Head of Investor Relations, BillerudKorsnäs

Anyone? Maybe we have a question or two from the online viewers.

Okay. Do you have any questions from the online viewers? The telephone conference.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 01. Our first question comes from the line of Justin Jordan from Jefferies. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Thank you. I just want to delve a little bit deeper into, I guess both Packaging Paper, firstly, you've given a very positive pricing and volume outlook. We see what seemed to indicate that some 5% sack kraft increases have been achieved. Is that something that Billerud has achieved also? Can you just give us some idea of pricing power, as it were, in Q1 2018 within Packaging Paper, firstly?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

It's difficult to hear.

Christopher Casselblad
Head of Investor Relations, BillerudKorsnäs

Could you please repeat the question?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

It's difficult to hear. Could you please repeat the question?

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Oh, sure. Okay. Sorry. Just within pricing, within Packaging Paper, RISI would indicate that a 5% increase has been achieved in Sappi in calendar 2018. Is that something that Billerud has achieved?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah, it's in that area.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay, thank you. In Corrugated Solutions, again, there would seem to be price increases happening across the industry in calendar 2018, the early weeks of it, of course. Can you comment on pricing within that division also?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

For the fourth quarter?

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay. Fourth quarter 2017 to start with.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

I don't remember what it was now. It is about a 5%-6% increase in corrugated overall.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Fantastic. Okay, thank you. I appreciate you have not given much detail on the Bergvik Skog transaction, but just when you talk about being able to get 1 million cubic of wood via the Bergvik Skog currently, post the proposed transaction, presumably that will substantially increase. Can you give us some idea of your, shall we say, target wood coverage following the proposed transaction?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Compared the Bergvik Skog transaction or? I didn't understand the question. It's really difficult.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Sorry, Susanne. What I'm saying is, you alluded to the fact that at the moment you get about 1,000,000 cubic meters-

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

from Bergvik Skog.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yes.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Of your total 10.5.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yep.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Post the proposed transaction, I'm presuming that will substantially increase.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

That's obviously one of the.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No, no. No. No, you cannot. 1 million cubic meters is about what you can take out per year from Bergvik Skog.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

You cannot increase that over some period of time, maybe short term, but then you have to cut down.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Right

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

again. On an average, it will be around 1 million per year.

Justin Jordan
Analyst, Jefferies

Right. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Martin Melbye from ABG. Please go ahead, your line is open. Martin? Your line is open. Martin Melbye from ABG, if you would like to ask a question, your line is open. If your line is on mute, can you please unmute? As there is no response, we will go on to the next question from the line of Kevin Hellegard Nielsen from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, Kevin. Your line is open.

Kevin Hellegård Nielsen
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Hi. Most of my question have been answered, but I just had two left. On the production issues you mentioned, it was around SEK 120 million cost for the quarter. Can you give a rough split between the different business areas?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No.

Kevin Hellegård Nielsen
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Okay. On your CapEx, you said that you are keeping your CapEx budget unchanged despite the increase of the Gruvön project. Which other projects are you scaling back on? Are there any particular or is it just CapEx in general?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No, it's a tougher prioritization, basically.

Kevin Hellegård Nielsen
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Okay. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Robin Santavirta from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Thank you. In terms of wood raw material costs, where are you seeing the pressure upside? Is it mainly in Sweden, or is it in Norway, or in the Baltics? I'm not talking about the winter-related problems or shortage of pulpwood, but mainly related to increased demand.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

I think it's Norway, yes. Sweden, yes. Baltics, yes. We see it on all markets, basically.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

The same upward pressure in all markets?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yes

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

approximately.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yep.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

How much do you buy from Norway?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

At this point in time, it's not that much.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

below 10%?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yep.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. In terms of, you mentioned in Managed Packaging, you also have this expansion related costs. Are they then reported as one-offs or are they

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

reported as ongoing costs?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No. The only thing that we have reported as items affecting comparability are the costs that we have for Gruvön and Skärblacka that are extra and that we're not allowed to activate. All other extra costs, so to say, we include in the running business. We take it as we have those types of costs every now and then, so we need to be able to swallow that.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, thanks. Just a specification on the SEK 60 million added depreciation. I guess that's the Skärblacka machine-

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

ramp up related to that.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

No. That is the old machines in Gruvön that we run on a shorter time period than was previously anticipated, because we close them down when we turn on KM7 or the board machine, then you have to speed up the depreciation period. Instead of writing them off on five to 10 years that was left, we have to do it in the two years that we run them now. We continue to depreciate them during this year, and when this year is done, there will be no book value left on those machines.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, I understand. What about Skärblacka then? Does that ramp up or that project increase depreciation of

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yes. It increases depreciation with the investment amount, basically when we start up the machine. We write it off on 20 years, and it's a SEK 1.3 billion investment.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, I understand. Finally, I don't know if it's mentioned somewhere, but how much of the Gruvön project has been invested already? How much is left of that SEK 7 billion?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

That's a good question.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

How much of the Skärblacka

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

The only thing we have invested in so far is really the groundworks and the civils. The machine is coming during this year, so it's only the groundwork, and I don't really have the number with me. There's a lot of investments coming. Up to the SEK 4.7, it's about over SEK three and a half that comes from this year. It's a lot of cost coming in this year. The big chunk is coming now in 2018.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay. Finally, related to this change in reporting of expansion-related costs, how will you do this now then in Q1 2019 when you start the machine? That will be a heavy period of costs, and how will you then report those costs? Are they still non-recurring, or are they then ongoing?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

You mean the startup cost?

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Right.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah, we'll come back to that. We'll have to come back on that.

Robin Santavirta
Analyst, Carnegie

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our final questions from the telephone line will be from Mikael Dhärpel from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thank you. A few questions on my part, starting off on the cost side of things. You mentioned the costs in Gruvön in 2018. I think you mentioned a figure of SEK 210. What is included in that figure? Because I recall a figure of SEK 150 previously.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yes.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

For-

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

It's the same SEK 150.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

SEK 75 for extended maintenance, SEK 75 for extra personnel and educational cost, and then you have the SEK 60 that is the speeded up depreciation.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Understood. This speeded up depreciation, will that also be booked as a one-off?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

We will book it exactly the same way we have done it in this quarter.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Good. In terms of the extra cost that you will have in the first quarter due to the warm weather, the SEK 80 million-SEK 100 million costs there, will that also be booked as a one-off? The second question related to that, is that isolated to the first quarter only?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah. We certainly hope that it will be isolated to the first quarter. We are doing everything we can to put contingencies in place so that we will make sure we get hardwood. We will not book it as a one-off. We think we can explain this by the weather, but you can probably have more contingencies in place to avoid these type of events every fifth and 10th year when it happens. We will not book it as a one-off.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Overall, if you think about the cost inflation, I know you don't want to go. If you think about this year and the cost inflation overall that you expect, do you see that the price increases that you are getting on your products will more than compensate for the cost inflation? Will it be fully matching or lagging a bit?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

That's the $1 million question, right? I think it will about even out.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. On Skärblacka, are there any startup costs that we should be aware of when you start up that machine? Was it now in Q1 or in Q2?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

In Q1.

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

In the end of Q1.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah.

March.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

That means that the depreciation will start to run only at the end of Q1 as well, I assume.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah. Well, I guess it will start from the day you turn it on, because that's calculated on a monthly basis.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Sure. Are there any costs related to that startup that you would like to share if you have any estimates on that?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Not any more than we have guided before. No, not really.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

What have you guided before on that one?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Nothing.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Exactly. Okay. Just a final question on the CapEx. You said that you're going to keep the SEK 4.7 billion as an estimate for this year. Just to be clear on this, does this include the cost overrun?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah. The SEK 4.7 includes the cost overrun. You will see a spillover into 2019, that's why the estimate now is being increased to SEK 1.8 for next year or for 2019. We will do our utmost to prioritize all other investments to make sure we don't get over that.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Does that mean that you kind of postpone the other investments, you're going to see higher investments than again in 2020, 2021, maybe?

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Well, the plan right now is to come down to a normal depreciation level in 2020. The normal depreciation level we have said before is about SEK 1.4 billion, SEK 1.5 billion per year.

Mikael Doepel
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.

Susanne Lithander
CFO, BillerudKorsnäs

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, should you have any final questions, please press 01 on your telephone keypad now. As there are no further questions from the telephone lines, I will hand back the conference to our speakers.

Christopher Casselblad
Head of Investor Relations, BillerudKorsnäs

Thank you, operator. Are there any final questions from the room? Okay, it is time to say thank you. Would you like to say a few final words, Petra, maybe?

Petra Einarsson
President and CEO, BillerudKorsnäs

Yeah. Thank you for listening. I think we do have a lot of things to really dig into when it comes to the production disturbances and also to really deliver on the investment. I think that we have the activities in place to do so, but you can never promise, of course. It seems like we have quite many activities in place, I would say.