Holmen AB (publ) (STO:HOLM.B)
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Earnings Call: Q1 2022

Apr 27, 2022

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Morning, everybody. It's not afternoon this time. Welcome to the interim report presentation for the Holmen Group. In this room, it's me, Henrik, and it's Anders, and we will go through the presentation as we usually do, and we're happy to take any questions you might have after the presentation. To start off, just, I'm extremely happy, to be honest, that we have a business model to start with that also works very well in times with high inflation, lack of fiber and energy in the world, and also a terrible war around us. This has meant that we have a very nice result, and it's two things standing out. It's high volumes from our wood products division. It's also very good prices from our paper division. We'll come back to that when we go through the different business areas.

A good result in the Q1 also means that we have a very strong cash flow, and it has also reinforced our, from the beginning, already strong financial position and a very strong balance sheet. Let's go through the different business areas, starting with our forest division, and, as we usually do, try to put some flavor to the wood market where we currently are. I think wood is one of the few raw materials that have not changed really in a world where everything has become much more expensive, and especially everything related to energy. If you look at situation right now, or during the Q1 , you can see that, well, there is good competition for saw logs and prices have ticked up. If you look at pulpwood, not much has happened.

Where we are right now, things are a bit different. First of all, we see that, of course, the sawmills are running full. They are making a lot of money. Also the activity in the pulp industry has increased. At the same time, as we also see that supply is restricted, there is no pulpwood or wood chips coming from Russia, which has an effect on the market. At the same time also, as we have seen that the strike that we had in Finland, the UPM strike has come to an end. In the headline, you can see competition intensifying, and that's not only for saw logs, that's also for pulpwood going forward. That's about what happens now, Anders. During the Q1 , not so much happened.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

No, it was a very stable and ordinary quarter for the forest business. We did not have any sale of forests, land that we had last year relating to the U.K. primarily. We have not so far seen very much of price increases that have gone through for the forest division. It's a very ordinary quarter.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

It is, and it should be normally.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

A few words about our paperboard division and, not the least how we see the market. I think already last time we said that the market is quite strong. Customers are not, maybe not crying for board, but they are eager on getting as much as they can. When we talk about Europe, we still see strong demand, and we also see deliveries from European suppliers going up to European customers by a couple of percent. Also, in this market now, we actually, after 10 years, we finally see prices really going up. Prices are going up thanks to healthy demand, healthy market balance, but also from cost increases, especially for continental suppliers. There is also push from beneath.

If you would look at the white-lined chipboard producers, the ones that base their production on recycled fibers, but they also have to buy gas to run their factories, you'd see that the cost pressure is even higher, and that has materialized in price increases. Also in folding boxboard and solid bleached board, prices are moving up. In our case, our order books looks fine, and also we are increasing prices, but we used to say, Anders, that half of our production roughly is fixed in a bit longer contracts, and with the rest, we follow the market. We also had a period, Anders, with the turbine out of production for more than half a year, which has been quite a challenge for us. Can you maybe technically explain now how to see this?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah. It's back in operation since the mid-quarter. It was quite a complicated accident, so the insurance investigation took a long time, but now it's finalized, and the insurance will cover this event. Which means that we have recorded a insurance compensation in Q1, and we have also had some costs since the turbine was out of operation for a month and a half. Net-net, over this period, it cost us SEK 64 million, which we have treated as an item affecting comparability, both in second half of 2021 and the Q1 report that we released today.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Which means when we look at the result.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

This is as if the turbine was in operation.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Yes.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Q1, we had, we have realized price increases on average 6%, but it's a mix of long-term contracts that have not moved. The half of the portfolio where we can increase prices here now. Unfortunately, we see quite hefty cost inflation for especially chemicals, but also logistics costs are moving up, and they have taken a toll on the profit. If you look at the bars, you see that Q1 bar is lower than Q4, but actually it's the underlying profit is better in Q1 than Q4. Q4 contains some one-off positive revenues, and the annual Grönviks bonus that we received.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Correct. Thank you. Let's hope we can do even better in the future. Okay, moving on to paper. I normally say that if it's a nice place to be in producing consumer packaging board, paper is really, really difficult 'cause we have structural decline. If we look at that chart that we have ahead of us now, one can think, "What on earth happened?" Of course, it's again coming back to the lack of energy, and in this case also lack of and very expensive fiber in combination with energy. In continental Europe, that has meant that it has been quite expensive to produce graphic paper. It had also materialized in really big price increases in the beginning of the year.

In our case, our model with the fossil-free electricity in Sweden, and also as you saw on the slide before when we looked at the wood market where pulp prices haven't changed so much yet, that has meant that we have had quite good cost competitiveness, and we've had a good cost control in general in our paper division. We've been running full, and we have increased prices in line with the market, which means that, Anders, it has also materialized in some money.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Definitely it has. As Henrik mentioned, costs have increased. Chemicals and logistics are more expensive for paper as well, but that effect has been dwarfed by the very high price increases that we have realized 30%+ in Q1. It's not that much more to say about the result. It's extremely good, given the market situation.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Absolutely. It makes sense to underline that it's really cost driven in for the most players in the market that makes the price come up the way it has now. Okay, let's switch to wood products, which is kind of a rollercoaster. We had a good last year. We have a very good beginning of this year, but the markets look a bit different, and there are also different parameters influencing the market as such. As you saw again in the beginning, we saw that, the cost for sawlogs for the sawmills in Sweden, well, the cost is up. Prices for sawlogs are higher, but not that much yet, which means that it's a good start. Then the underlying demand, both in Europe and in North America, has been good in the Q1 .

Prices in Europe bottomed out during the Q1 , while in the U.S. prices peaked and started to come down when customers have filled up their warehouses and with a lot of wood products in order to sell during the good building season. There are also other things affecting this market. If you take America first, well, there has been logistical challenges, especially for the Canadians. They have a lot of wood products at their sawmills, but they cannot get them out to the market to the same extent as we've been able to ship from here, which means that has had an effect on the market.

In Europe, we have the war again, and we have Russia being a rather big player, and it's restricting supply of wood products, which is also affecting the market. To some extent in Europe also, we have continental Europe, where spruce bark beetle problems have made them harvest a bit more, and they will probably also have to restrict volumes a bit going forward. We also had a lot of deliveries to the U.S. in the Q1 , more than we normally have, which has helped us to, I think we say, a very strong result in the Q1 , Anders.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Definitely. We see, as you mentioned, Henrik, costs are moving up a bit, but they're relatively modest compared to the pricing momentum that we do have. Selling prices in Europe on average were lower in Q1 than Q4, but the ending price in the Q1 was higher, of course, than the beginning of the quarter, so the trend there is positive. In the U.S., we were able to triple our sales volumes. Almost 15% of our deliveries went to U.S. in Q1 versus 5% in a normal quarter. We did that in order to capture extremely good pricing in the U.S., and that helped the result a fair bit in the first quarter Q1.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Can we do that again in the second?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

We have to go back to normal delivery pattern. This was more opportunistic to capture a very strong market environment.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

I know. Thank you. Then finally, a few words about renewable energy. Again, we're coming back to the energy situation in Europe. It was quite difficult before the war, and now it has become extremely obvious that the way it works with so many countries dependent on Russian gas is not a good situation, and it's also been reflected in the energy prices. When we look at this chart here, we also see that there is a big difference between south and northern part of Sweden, and remember that Holmen is a company. Unfortunately, when it comes to this, that we consume all our electricity in south of Sweden. We produce most of our electricity up in the north.

We also make use of hedges in order to come out better than what it looks like on this chart, and we have done that. We come back to that. Just a reminder where we are now. We are in Europe, which is, we have said it before, dependent on fossil fuels, but now we also have to add that, well, one-third of that is actually coming from Russia, which has become a great headache.

It's nice to be a company which can contribute to reduce the dependence at least a little bit as we have now in the Q1, we have started up the Blåbergsliden Wind Farm, and you have bought the shares that we didn't own before from Varsvik which means that we now fully own also Varsvik, which has actually contributed a bit to the result in the Q1 , which is nice to see. Anders, you also please mention what we have done with our hydropower, which has had an impact on our performance as well.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yes. As Henrik mentioned, the prices in northern part of Sweden, where we have 90% of our hydro production, was actually quite low in Q1, but we have been able to time our production towards at least a bit more the times where the prices temporarily has been higher, but we also have had good hedges, which meant that we have really nice captured prices for hydropower in Q1. On top of that, the additional wind power business have added SEK 30 million to our profit in Q1, and especially the acquisition of Varsvik was good timing, has been a lot of wind in that wind farm this quarter, and at the same time as prices has been all-time high.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Sounds good. Good. I said in the beginning, we're happy to see that of course we believe in our business model, but we also see that the model we have works fine also when times are a bit more difficult, like now when there is an energy crisis. It's not easy to get hold of raw material at all, and especially energy, especially fiber, and having the base in Sweden with our own forest, good control of the raw material, also having the fossil-free energy system in Sweden, and also having all our business areas contributing not only with profit, but also with climate benefits is a good feeling. I think it's also something that makes sense going forward.

Before we take on the questions, just a little reminder that we would be extremely happy to have as many of you as possible with us on the eleventh of May where we have an Investor Day up in the north of Sweden, where we'll have a closer look at our operations up north, what we do, and discuss maybe our business model and also what to do going forward. Welcome the ones of you who have also already shown some interest, and maybe we have some space for some more ones. Who knows? Let's try at least. With that, we are happy to take on any questions you might have.

Operator

The first question from the phone comes from Lars Kjellberg from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Lars Kjellberg
Director, Credit Suisse

Thank you, and congratulations for an exceptional quarter. A couple of questions there. When you're looking at, you know, you called out, of course, your very solid cost base in Holmen Paper versus continental, and you clearly see maybe you can call it windfall profits in the paper division. What are you seeing in terms of your incremental cost pressures, and that may be also transferable into both the board business and wood products in terms of your wood prices? I mean, they tend to come with a lag. Nevertheless, they start to move up, and then ultimately the P&L impact comes at some stage.

In essence, what are you seeing then in incremental cost pressures from wood, and in the paper business, now with UPM back, or not yet, I suppose, but ramping up, would you envisage any shortening on the order books? Maybe then some thoughts about price elasticity in that business. Final question, which surprised me a bit, your capability to move a lot more wood products to U.S. in an opportunistic way, considering what we're hearing about freight rates and lack of availability of shipping capacity. How was that even doable? Thank you.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Start with P&L.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

We start with the cost inflation. What we see actually the most cost inflation is chemicals. We have seen them moving up in Q1, and we see quite a step change going into Q2. 20% increase in chemical costs, and two-thirds of the chemical costs are within paperboard, and one-third is in paper. We do also see some cost inflation on wood. It has not really started yet, but that they will go up somewhat in the Q2 . Most likely you will have cost inflation second half.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

The last question you asked about how could we even ship that volumes to the U.S. Well, we took a bet quite early on and secured deliveries to the U.S. Paid a bit more at that time, but it paid off. It was about pricing power, was it? I think when it comes to paper and pricing, it's very difficult to know what's going to happen. Structural decline is most probably still there. That's what we expect, nothing else. There has been a lot of closures in the market. Nobody knows exactly what will happen. With more closures, conversions, 'cause that has really contributed to the healthy market balance we have today. One difference now and some years ago when prices went up as well, not in the same way, is that now it's really cost-driven. There was the question, how can we secure or control our own costs, especially.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Maybe we could add something on when you look at the paper market. It's dominated by continental players with recycled fiber and fossil fuels in the base. They have a hard time covering the cost at the current price level. If prices go down, a lot of capacity will have to most likely close.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Yeah, I'm sure you follow the index for recycled fibers. OCC for board producers is around 200. Today, ONP, all newspapers and papers and magazines is around 230, which is much higher than what we're used to. That's, of course, important for the cost competitiveness over time. Then it's the electricity.

Lars Kjellberg
Director, Credit Suisse

Just a quick follow-up. Yeah, just a quick follow-up on the wood product side. You commented that you got a return to the normal 5% share to the U.S. What sort of profit impact or that sort of boost that we had to the opportunistic and the speculative, if any way, in a successful way did the U.S. impact have on your in Q1?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

I would-

Lars Kjellberg
Director, Credit Suisse

What do you think about that and carry through into Q2?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

I understand that, but it's nothing that we are able to comment. It added a meaningful part of the profit improvement was our bet on the U.S. in Q1.

Lars Kjellberg
Director, Credit Suisse

All right. Well done. Thank you.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

I think we had a question about possibility to keep electricity prices under control, whether it's possible or not.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

If we look short term, we have had the same electricity cost Q1 versus Q4. That's on an elevated level. We most likely will see electricity cost in paper coming down in Q2, but that will be countered by the increase of chemicals and logistic costs. We don't see that much of a change for the paper division going into Q2 from a cost perspective.

Operator

The next question comes from Robin Santavirta from Carnegie. Please go ahead.

Robin Santavirta
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

Yes, thank you very much. First, a question related to the wood products segment and particularly the sales in the U.S., but rather in Europe. What is the outlook for prices going into Q2 and the busy season? Any comments on that would be appreciated.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

I think we already said that, prices in Europe, they bottomed out during the Q1 . The orders we are taking right now, they are on a higher level than the average we had in the Q1 . Then it's, as you know, it can change.

Robin Santavirta
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

Yeah. Is the pricing in line with what we saw last year during the summer?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Difficult for us to comment. It's, we'll see.

Robin Santavirta
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

All right, I understand. Related to the paper segment, I know some producers have used energy surcharges during the past half year, and I guess during Q4, you operated with contract prices. How about now in Q1? Any such surcharges in your P&L? And if so, what is the outlook on those going forward?

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

First of all, during Q4 , yes, you're right. We honored most of the contracts we had, or we tried to honor them as well as we could. We have just followed the market prices in Q1 when it comes to the pricing we have done.

Robin Santavirta
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

If I try it this way, do you have any price agreements that are shorter than one quarter in place?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

No. You can expect the same type of surcharges in Q2 as we have had in Q1. There is no change to that.

Robin Santavirta
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

All right, I understand. Finally, related to renewable energy, I understand you have ramped up production in Blåbergsliden. How has that process gone? Is it now fully operative as of Q1?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah. It was commissioned during Q1 in full, and it's up and running now.

Robin Santavirta
Equity Analyst, Carnegie

All right. Thank you very much.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

Morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just like to follow up on the wood products division. Can you give any more color around the amount of Russian supply that is being reduced into the European markets, and how that's impacting negotiations with customers? That's the first question. Then the second one's also related to, you know, removed Russian supply, but on the raw material, the saw logs and the pulpwood into Europe.

How is that impacting the kind of demand for forestry assets? I mean, you alluded to it in your statement and your comments earlier, but where could pulpwood and saw log prices go from here due to the restricted supply? Is this just kind of a timing situation where it will be manageable and just drive a bit of inflation in pricing, or should we be expecting a real step up in pulpwood and saw log pricing? Thank you.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

The first question on Russia and you have to include Belarus and the effects from the war, and it's maybe 7%-8% of European consumption that is attributable to those kind of volumes. It has a meaningful impact on some markets. Of course, those volumes will be rerouted to other markets.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

China.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Asia.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

North Africa.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

That's not easy to follow. The Russians have had some exports, especially or they have exported pulpwood and wood chips to Finland. That's roughly 10% of the Finnish demand coming from there. It's not coming now. At the same time as we have the UPM pulp mills starting up again. Some kind of effect that will for sure have.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

It's hard to see where those additional volumes to fill that gap should come. There's no obvious place to source pulpwood.

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

I suppose, then just following up from that, you know, with that kind of backdrop of, I suppose, higher, slightly higher pulpwood and saw log prices, what segments of the business do you see this as truly supporting for Holmen? I mean, does this just give you conviction in kind of your forest ownership and supporting kind of the forest being more of an inflation hedge from a value perspective longer term? I mean, how do you think about this dynamic impacting your business? Thank you.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Definitely we are very happy to own such substantial forest holdings, but we're also very happy to run this very nice wood products operations that actually is a main contributor to wood supply to our board and paper mills. They are the engine in getting wood out of the forest. We have a very strong position on the wood products market that is a combination of our forest ownership, our sawmills, that is very supportive of making sure that our mills will get the pulpwood and not have to take standstills due to lack of pulpwood. What will happen to pricing? We are not sure. Of course, we can't hedge that, and we wish from a pricing perspective short of pulpwood.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Remember, the sawmills also contribute to the pulp mills with wood chips.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

But-

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

Thank you.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Remember also, so far, sure, saw log prices have increased a bit, but really determining whether we earn money or not and how much in the sawmill business is really the wood products prices.

Operator

The next question comes from Martin Melbye from ABG. Please go ahead.

Martin Melbye
Analyst, ABG

Thank you. My questions have been answered now, but I could do a different spin. Say, what is the difference now between the cash cost of the marginal producer, say in Germany and the paper price? Is it break even or is it making a margin now after prices have gone up like 100%?

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

We have to include state subsidies and things. It's not so easy.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

We don't believe that there is that much cash earned at continental mills.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Listening to the market and customers.

Martin Melbye
Analyst, ABG

You have another question.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

What suppliers say and the development when it comes to pushing up prices due to high cost, it cannot be that easy.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

You also have a problem of sourcing the raw material. Getting recycled fiber to produce new papers is very difficult.

Martin Melbye
Analyst, ABG

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Oskar Lindström from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes. Good morning, guys. Three sets of questions from my side. I mean.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Okay

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

... first off, on wood products, you talked about price increases Q2 versus Q1. Could you say anything about the magnitude of those price increases in Europe for your business? I'm wondering also, do you see a possibility for European producers to increase production to compensate for the loss of previous Russian imports? Can harvesting levels in the rest of Europe increase further or are we looking at a possible timber squeeze? Also on that wood products, you know, is there any possibility for you to increase capacity in your operations? And then

A question also on recovered fiber, which you mentioned several times as the lack of recovered fiber in continental Europe is one of the reasons for higher paper prices. Could you maybe just explain a little bit again the reasons why we're seeing this shortage of recovered fiber in continental Europe now? What has changed and how long-term do you think that is? Those were my questions.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Shall we start with the last one? As I remember that one. If you take the recovered fiber market, Oscar, remember it's like two markets, but they are linked together. It's the paper that's suitable for de-inking, old newspapers and magazines. When, first of all, demand or consumption is going down, and especially with closures of capacity up in the Nordic countries where we have the virgin fresh fibers and closing capacity as such means that it's more and more difficult to find the fibers suitable for de-inking.

Another thing which is important to understand as well is that when you produce testliner and fluting, if the mix from the household waste is containing not too much of graphic papers, you can take it all and use it for producing testliner and fluting. Step by step, it will become more and more difficult to get hold of fibers that you can de-ink. That's part of the market dynamics. On the other hand, the price for ONP, OMG is also linked to the price for OCC. I have never seen that prices go totally different ways, but there will always be a surcharge for ONP, OMG 'cause you have to sort out the whiter qualities suitable for graphic paper production.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Now you answered the bonus question. Should I try and make a go at the three questions?

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

Thank you so much.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Oscar? No, we did not comment on the magnitude of the price increase. You have to look at the price indexes published by Skogsindustrierna on that to get the guidance on how things develop. You had the question on can people start to ramp up-

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Supply

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

supply. The price signal that we have had for the last 12-18 months have meant that people have ramped up production as much as they can. The question is not about having the machines, it's having availability of raw material. It might be so even that you have to decrease production in continental Europe because you have this problem with infestation. We have a hard time seeing that you have a supply shock coming or having that ahead of us. Our ability to grow is short term.

We do it day by day, but we do have ability to remove bottlenecks and we are making investment at the Iggesund Sawmill, as we have announced, et cetera, to increase production. We'll talk more about that at Investor Day, our ability to increase production at our sawmills. We will do that at a reasonable pace so that we actually have control over the raw material supply.

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

Thank you. Just to follow up. You mentioned that figure, I think it was 8% of European supply coming from Russia and Belarus and the region. Were you referring to sawn timber or to timber?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Sawn timber.

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

Sawn timber.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah.

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

Are there also significant timber imports?

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

No. Not that we are aware of.

Not to the Western countries. That's already forbidden.

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

Also to the Baltics.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

The Russians themselves have stopped that.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

There could be some volumes into the Baltics, as you mentioned, but it should not be that much.

Oskar Lindström
Senior Analyst, Danske Bank

No. All right. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Linus Larsson from SEB. Please go ahead.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Thank you very much, a good day to everyone, and congratulations on spectacular earnings growth in the quarter. I'd like to come back for a minute to renewable energy, which was very strong, and you mentioned wind, I think added SEK 30 million. Could you break down the EBIT? Did I understand that right? SEK 30 million was the wind total contribution. Maybe if you could say how much was from, should we call it hydro-related, trading, and other sources? If you could help us understand that, SEK 168 million, please.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah. SEK 30 million was the EBIT contribution from the wind. It's predominantly from Varsvik because Blåbergsliden was starting up and the price impact from our hedging was SEK 40 million in the Q1 . That contributed to the result compared to selling on the average price in the northern part of Sweden.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Great. I think you said 30% was hedged. In the Q1 , what's Q2 looking like in terms of hedging levels and average realized pricing?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

We have very modest hedging so far in the Q2 . The transactions we did for Q1 were quite good. Difficult to repeat them.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Definitely.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Okay. It's rather that the Q2 we'll see more of a ramp up from Blåbergsliden, that's the delta that we should be looking out for then?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah. Depending on how the

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Market price

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

the market prices pan out in the northern part of Sweden.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Right. With Blåbergsliden, how much of a ramp up contribution volume increase should we expect in the second compared to the Q1 ?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

It's some increase, but it's difficult to comment exactly how much.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Okay. Great. Maybe just on the paperboard side, one final question. Prices on a realized basis were up 6% Q1 on Q4, and I think you've said previously that the price increases have been unusually easy to push through. What's happening in the Q2 ? Are we in for a similar sequential price increase?

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

It's never easy. It took us 10 years to manage. Remember also that we have an order book which is quite long, meaning that even though we increase prices and we discuss price increases with customers, it takes some time before they actually come through into the books and we get paid.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Do you think it's the delta, if I say that the price realization was 6% Q1 and Q4, is it more or less Q2 on Q1?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

The price increase we announced in September, that's the one that actually gave the contribution by 6% Q1 over Q4. We have a price increase announced for May, and there is always delays in pushing through the price increases in Q2.

Linus Larsson
Analyst, SEB

Right. No, that's helpful. Thank you very much.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Thank you, Linus.

Operator

The next question comes from Christian Kopfer from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.

Christian Kopfer
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Thanks, operator. Sorry I missed most of the presentation. Unfortunately, I had to call in to other places. Sorry if you have already mentioned this, but on the paper side, obviously, exceptional development on the profit generation. Just to understand how much of the production has been renegotiated on the paper side on the new price levels?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

At the-

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Most of it.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Yeah, almost all.

Christian Kopfer
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right. Okay. When is the next, call it, price negotiation? Is it quarterly or half yearly?

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Yeah, it's ongoing, I would say. The market is quite turbulent, as you have understood, especially from maybe continental producers and discussions about cost and how that should be implemented in price. Slightly different for us, but still we are following the market as well as we can. If things change, this market has come to a situation where it can change rather quick, both up and down, as you have seen before. Remember, again, Christian, this is really cost-based, what we have seen now in the market, and also a healthy balance.

Christian Kopfer
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yeah, understand that. You also talked a little bit on the renewable energy side. You previously have worked a lot with hedging the net exposure on the group level. Are you expecting that to be reestablished again in the short period? Or how does it look there?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Not in the short period. Right now we treat the paper division's hedging separately from the energy division, given that there is such big discrepancy between the prices in the northern and southern part of Sweden. If they go back together again, then we will look upon it as internal hedging again. Until further notice, we'll treat them as two separate positions.

Christian Kopfer
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Right. Right. Finally for me, on the also on the renewable energy side, if you can say something about new projects. How does the project pipeline look for you?

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Well, the pipeline looks interesting, but we are as always waiting for environmental permits and are totally dependent on that. We have, I will come back to that when we have it.

Christian Kopfer
Equity Research Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Henri Parkkinen from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Henri Parkkinen
Analyst, Nordea

Yes. Hi. Good morning. Well, continuing from Christian really on the pipeline, I was thinking that with this cash flow, I mean, it's time to start thinking how you use it, and I would imagine that permitting would be picking up or the speed should be picking up in this sort of environment, but are you seeing? Any of that. The question is about like, in, the cash flow and cash allocation between projects and something else.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

I'll take the first one. Unfortunately, it's not in our hands when we have the environmental permits. Would have been, we would have been doing things at a quicker or faster pace. Absolutely. We are awaiting environmental permit for a wind farm next door to the Blåbergsliden, but we don't have it, so not yet. What should we do with the money in general?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

Right now we're paying down debt, the very modest debt that we have, and we are in no hurry to correct that situation. We're enjoying the situation right now.

Henri Parkkinen
Analyst, Nordea

Yeah. No wonder. The other question, if I may, just on the paper about delivery volumes, and I mean, it's flat quarter-on-quarter, maybe a bit sort of low. I mean, how do you see the volume development sort of for the year? There's gonna be less maintenance, isn't it? So just kind of reiterate the volume outlook.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

We have one big maintenance shut at Iggesund Mill in the Q4 . Except for that, I tend to agree a bit, yes, we would have liked volumes to be a little bit higher, and I think they could be as well.

Henri Parkkinen
Analyst, Nordea

How much would you say that? Right. When things are kind of running.

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

In this kind of market, Henri, the deliveries are determined by how much we produce. It's not that they're. We have a very long order book, so it's more how well production is going that will determine the delivery levels.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

We have nothing in stock. It's all delivered.

Henri Parkkinen
Analyst, Nordea

No, no. Yeah, exactly. Was it the turbine that was taking some, if one thinks of the total delivery volume, is that the reason why?

Anders Jernhall
CFO, Holmen

No, it has not have any impact. It's more these kind of normal disturbances that you can have from time to time in a board mill. It's a complicated product.

Henri Parkkinen
Analyst, Nordea

Yeah. Understood. Many thanks.

Henrik Sjölund
President and CEO, Holmen

Thank you.

Operator

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