Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget SCA (publ) (STO:SCA.B)
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Sep 24, 2026, 5:29 PM CET
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Investor Update

Aug 26, 2020

Björn Lyngfelt
VP of Communications, SCA

Good morning, and welcome to this press conference. My name is Björn Lyngfelt. I'm Vice President of Communications for SCA. We have today announced that SCA intends to invest in pulp production and initiates consultation to discontinue publication paper. Our President and Chief Executive Officer, Ulf Larsson, Chief Financial Officer, Toby Lawton , and President of Pulp, Kristina Enander, will present the reasoning behind this. Ulf, please.

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Thank you for that, Björn. Good morning also from my side, most welcome to our press conference that is webcasted. As Björn mentioned earlier here, we are holding this press conference as we earlier today announced that we, one, intend to invest SEK 1.45 billion in our industrial site at Ortviken in order to be able to produce 300,000 tons of chemical thermomechanical pulp. pulp with an expected start-up during the first part of 2023. Secondly, we have also announced that we intend to enter into negotiations with the union representatives on closing all three remaining publication paper machines at Ortviken. Our clear strategy for profitable growth contains two components. On one hand, we want to invest and work actively to increase the growth in our existing forest land. This we do by applying intensive forest management, use of fast-growing tree species such as contorta pine and so on.

On the other hand, our ambition is also to increase our forest holdings. This we do by, among other things, our acquisition program in the Baltics with a target to own at least 100,000 hectares of forest land within this area in five years. The second component in our growth strategy is our ambition to increase the value of each tree. This we achieve through strategic investments in pulp, kraftliner, renewable energy, at the same time as we gradually reduce and now finally take away our exposure to publication paper. This staircase I have shown you many times, which describes our decided and planned strategic investments and projects respectively.

We have now, by coming to the decision to invest in increased pulp capacity and also at the same time phase out from the printing paper business, taken an important step toward a long-term improved product and industrial structure and the improved profitability that brings. The reason for making this decision to leave printing paper as a product area are as follows. First, we have for a long period of time recognized that printing paper constitutes a structurally declining market. During a number of years, we have seen consumption decrease by approximately 5% annually, and now in connection to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, we've seen a sharply declining demand, and the momentary demand drop is rather 30%-40% for printing paper. I personally believe that post-corona, we will see a new normal established in this area on a substantially lower level.

Secondly, SCA's profitability within the printing paper segment has been weak for a long period, and with the lower production levels that have been forced upon us in combination with reduced prices during the second half of 2020, we can state that we now have a negative cash flow within this business area. Thirdly, it's very attractive for us to invest in increased pulp capacity as the market has a good long-term growth, and that is what we are aiming for. It's also a strategic growth area for SCA, and to close the CTMP production at Östrand means that we later on can expand the capacity of chemical pulp at Östrand further.

To convert one of the printing machines at Ortviken into production of CTMP pulp gives us an additional capacity of 200,000 tons at an exceptionally low investment cost per ton, and at the same time, we will achieve the absolute leading position in terms of cost. This is a really profitable project to do for us. During the last 10 years, SCA has decreased its annual publication paper capacity with just over 1 million tons, and Ortviken is our today last remaining site for production of printing paper. We will enter into negotiations with the union representatives on the closure of all three paper machines at Ortviken to be effected within six months. Just for your information, today's production capacity at Ortviken is 775,000 tons, of which 500,000 tons of lightweight coated paper and 275,000 tons of uncoated printing paper.

By this, I now hand over to Kristina Enander, who is President of Business Area Pulp at SCA, and Kristina will give you all a more detailed description of the coming CTMP investment.

Kristina Enander
President of Pulp, SCA

Thank you. CTMP market, the pulp is primarily used for improving the quality in different products to a lower production cost for the customer. In general, CTMP provides a high level of absorption capacity, bulk, and stiffness to paper products, making it well-suited for product segments such as tissue and packaging, but also in specialty and printing paper. As you can see here in the slide, the quality demands differ a lot between product segments. That means that different types of CTMP qualities are produced to fit each customer segment. In SCA, we have a long history of working very closely with our customers to bring quality improvements, and today we also have a broad product portfolio, which is a prerequisite for a profitable CTMP business. In addition, we have developed birch CTMP, which is unique for SCA.

This product has particularly interesting properties for board customers, which is a growing CTMP market. By using birch in the pulp production, we not only create a unique product for the customers, we also make use of the increased birch growth in our forest in a valuable way. CTMP is produced today at the Östrand pulp mill with a production capacity of almost 100,000 tons a year. To compare with the NBSK production capacity of 900,000 tons a year. With this investment, the production will be moved to Ortviken mill, and the production capacity will be increased to 300,000 tons a year. The CTMP market is 4.5 million tons and growing. A strength in our market plan is that it's both focused on the structurally growing end-use segments of packaging and hygiene.

At the same time, we expect a significant part of the growth to come from existing customers of SCA, customers that buy CTMP and northern bleached softwood kraft today. Expanding our CTMP business will thus create an increased customer value by offering our customers valuable product properties at lower costs. We will continue to sell the majority of the CTMP to European customers, but we also have the intention to sell pulp to the growing board segments in Asia and the U.S.

The investment amounts to SEK 1.45 billion . That corresponds to an investment of less than SEK 5,000 per ton, which is very competitive. The reason for the low figure is the fact that the existing equipment for TMP production in Ortviken is very well suited for CTMP production. This equipment was installed in 2009, and it's thus one of the most modern and energy-efficient CTMP equipments in the world.

The bleaching line is state of the art, which means that the bleaching cost for the pulp will be very low, and all in all, the cost per ton will be decreased by approximately 15% versus today's level. That will position us in the top quartile regarding cost position.

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Thank you, Kristina. Now I will give a summary of the expected financial effects from these two different steps. Firstly, here you can see the financial effects from the exit of publication paper. You can see on the top left, we expect this to have an impact on net sales of the group of some SEK 4 billion, which is the net sales we have in publication paper annually today. Also on the left, this decision affects some 800 people with regards to the exit from publication paper. On the right-hand side here, you can see the one-off closure costs, which have a cash flow effect of up to SEK 0.9 billion. We expect this decision also to require a write-down of around SEK 1.1 billion. The write-down is broken down into fixed assets of around SEK 750 million and working capital around SEK 350 million.

We expect to take reserve for these items in the third quarter results. In addition, there's no figure on this slide for EBIT or EBITDA, but that's because we do not expect this decision to have a material impact on operating profit or EBITDA when you compare to the recent history on a group level. Going forward, however, if we did not take this decision, we would expect that we would have had a negative impact on profit and cash flow going forward. Okay. Then the next slide here shows the financial impacts from the CTMP investment. As Kristina said, here we have an investment cost of SEK 1.45 billion for this investment, which would be reported as strategic CapEx.

The CTMP capacity we have today, 100,000 tons, as Kristina said, and we will increase to 300,000 tons of CTMP capacity, and that will be the move then from the 100,000 tons today in Östrand, which will be stopped, and then the 300,000 tons capacity will be in the Ortviken mill. The EBITDA effect, you can see here, we expect a SEK 300 million positive EBITDA effect from this investment. That's as a result both of the volume growth in the pulp, but also of the absolute leading cost position, which we will achieve from this investment in this product. You can see on the right-hand side here, we expect the start-up to be at the start of 2023, when the CTMP production will also stop in the Östrand line.

We also do expect some costs for maintaining the Ortviken site during 2021 and 2022 up until the start-up of around SEK 20 million per quarter. The Ortviken site, maintaining the Ortviken site. Finally, this creates an opportunity for further expansion on NBSK in Östrand, once the CTMP line is stopped in Östrand. Yeah, with that, I can hand back to Ulf.

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Thank you, Toby. If we summarize what's happening now, you can state that the investment in increased pulp in parallel with the winding up of the remaining printing paper capacity is a natural step in SCA's strategy, and also a natural step in the evolution of SCA's product portfolio. The ambition from our side is to create long-term and profitable growth, and we do so by positioning ourselves within clear growth area, and this is a clear step in that direction. If we start to the left-hand side, within our business segment forest, we will step by step increase the harvesting in our own forest land by 25% during the coming five years. We have already communicated that. This is a result of a long-term and determined work to improve the status when it comes to growth potential and also fiber quality.

The cash flow from our own forest land will, with this increase step by step, by SEK 300 million-400 million per year, when we are finally utilizing the full harvesting potential, 2025. Within business segment wood, we have during the last 10 years halved the number of sawmills, and at the same time, we have increased the production volume. During this period, the productivity has also more than doubled. With today's decision, we will leave product area printing paper entirely, while we increase the production of CTMP pulp. In addition, as Toby mentioned, we are preparing a sum for continued expansion within the chemical pulp area. Last but not least, the ongoing investment at Obbola will result in a substantially increased capacity of kraftliner, and we look forward to the startup of the new mill in the beginning of 2023.

Taken together, these steps all reposition SCA with clear profitable growth in attractive market segments. In addition, the board have also said that they do not intend to give a dividend proposal this year, given all the current circumstances. Instead, the board intends to give their dividend proposal in the normal way, together with the publication and the report for Q4 and 2020. By that, I think that we can open up for questions.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again that is star one if you wish to ask a question. Your first question comes from the line of Alexander Berglund from Bank of America. You may ask your question.

Alexander Berglund
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you very much. Two questions from my side. First of all, on the expected SEK 300 million EBITDA positive impact. My question is if that assumes the current spot pulp prices or if you have any specific long-term pricing level in mind? The second question is more strategic here on the reason to make a decision to go for CTMP pulp rather than your other growth area, kraftliner. Is it just more of a technical reason? Is it also a reflection of your view on the current supply and demand outlook in container board? Thank you.

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Yeah, if maybe you, Toby, can start with the SEK 300 million.

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Yeah, I can take the first one. Basically, the SEK 300 million positive EBITDA impact is what we expect from what we regard as normal trend prices for CTMP pulp, which is how we always look at investments. That's how we view the EBITDA impact.

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Yeah, the second question, why do we invest in CTMP instead of kraftliner? It's not a choice really in Ortviken. Ortviken is today a publication paper mill, and by that, you also use mechanical pulp, which is not possible to use for kraftliner productions. We do both, honestly. Not recently, but we have started up the big project in Obbola, where we invest SEK 8 billion in order to increase capacity of kraftliner. We really believe in kraftliner and the packaging business, definitely so. CTMP is a different animal. We can utilize the equipment and the infrastructure that we have in Ortviken in a good way. As Kristina mentioned, we will have an investment cost around SEK 5,000 per ton, which is a really low cost, and we will reduce the indirect cost by 15%.

That will give us a world-class position when it comes to production of CTMP. CTMP will be used for some packaging applications, but also for hygiene applications and to some extent, also to the printing paper area. That is obviously not our focus. We go for packaging, hygiene, and we also will try to increase the cooperation we have with our current customer base in CTMP.

Alexander Berglund
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you very much. Just, Toby, a follow-up. When you say a long-term trend price, what does that mean in dollars per ton?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

We don't give that information today. As of today, I think we're informing on this decision. We may be able to come back in Q3 with a bit more clarity. I think we always look at trend prices over a long period of term when we take investments. We don't have that information for you today.

Alexander Berglund
Analyst, Bank of America

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes on the line of Christian Kopfer from Nordea. Your line is open.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Yeah. Thanks, operator. Just one follow-up. You mentioned that you will be able to potentially increase the NBSK production in Östrand when you move the CTMP to Ortviken. When do you expect to take that position, and what kind of CapEx would you look at to increase NBSK in Östrand?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

It's too early to say. We have done some feasibility studies at Östrand, and obviously we have invested also SEK 8 billion in Östrand, and we have the biggest mill in the world producing NBSK pulp. It is a possible project to go further there. Now we are focused on negotiations with the union about taking away capacity in publication paper. We've also taken the decision now to go for CTMP production in Ortviken. By that, we can start up a new project in Ortviken anytime. One thing is preparation, another thing is money. We need to find the right timing for that decision. We will come back on that.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Johannes Ventilias from Capital Group. The line's open.

Johannes Ventilias
Analyst, Capital Group

Yes. Hello, everyone. It's Johannes here. Just want to follow up also on the investment calculation. If I start with what sort of USD SEK assumptions are you using, and also energy cost assumption, am I right that you're using the spot rate on the FX? Thanks. First question.

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

I'm not going to get into detail on all the investment assumptions. We believe taking everything into account in a SEK 300 million normally EBITDA effects from this investment, taking into account trend prices on the product, taking into account trend prices on key input materials and energy and so on as well. I think that's what we believe will be the impact of this investment in our bottom line.

Johannes Ventilias
Analyst, Capital Group

Okay. Yeah. All right. If I look at prices for the last, let's say, five, 10 years, I get a feeling for what's sort of behind your long-term assumptions, I suppose.

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Yeah, exactly. I think we normally look over a 15-year period to develop our trend pricing. Of course, there is some volatility in pricing of pulp. As you know, there's volatility in exchange rates. All of that we have to manage and come with our view of where we think that the trend level is going forward, and that's what we've done in this case as well.

Johannes Ventilias
Analyst, Capital Group

Yes. A question on your wood balance and your own sourcing of wood from your own forest. Am I right that this is not impacting the balances within SCA? Should one expect, actually, that you will use more wood internally since you're increasing the pulp capacity? How should one view basically the wood balances?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

With the decision today, we will reduce the consumption of wood for a while. The total consumption in Ortviken today is 1.2 million cu m annually. If we can find an agreement now with the union, we have the opportunity to close down 1.2 million cu m of import for a while. We will start up the production in CTMP in 2023, but we will use substantially share of the wood that we need will come from birch, which is also good for the balance because we have an oversupply from our own forest in birch. That is a positive thing. Of course, when Obbola is up and running, that will require some extra volumes in Obbola. If and when we take the next step in Östrand, depending on the volume, that will also, of course, require some extra volumes.

For a while now, we will improve our balance, definitely.

Johannes Ventilias
Analyst, Capital Group

Okay. Sure. Okay. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Thanks.

Operator

Next question comes on the line from Oskar Lindström from Danske Bank. Your line is open.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Thank you, operator. First of all, I just want to say that your strategic staircase there has been very helpful, since you're following it step by step, feels like. My first question is around the CTMP investment in Ortviken. You're now converting one of the paper machines that you have in Ortviken. Why would you not convert all of them? Is that because the other ones are older and not as efficient? Add on to that question is, would it be feasible to add a board machine sometime in the future to the CTMP line and sort of move into that segment? Is that possible?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

I think first, now we have taken the decision to convert one of the machines. Today we produce 100,000 tons of CTMP at Östrand. This will, when it's up and running, add another 200,000 tons in the market. The total market for CTMP today is 4.5 million cu m. With this investment, we will find a really good cost position here. I think still we should not challenge the market too much. We know that the market in total will not find the fiber that's needed in the future. I think CTMP will be a really good product for the coming years. Still, I think 300,000 tons, that's a rather big additional capacity. We think this is the right balance.

We can, of course, increase capacity further, and we can of course add the board machine, but still this is not in the scope for the moment being.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Just a follow up.

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

As I said, I think next step for us probably will be to find a way to further expand Oskar.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yes. You certainly have a lot of options there. Just to follow up on this, are you dismantling the other two lines at Ortviken or will they remain in place so that you have sort of an optionality in the future to actually increase the CTMP further if you should wish to do so?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

We haven't taken that decision. We did dismantle paper machine two when we closed that one back in 2015. We haven't really taken the decision yet. We now have to fulfill the negotiations, and then we can decide later on.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

All right. My second question is coming back to the wood balance. You're today a little bit over 50% self-sufficient and at least for a couple of years now, you'll be consuming about 1 million cu less. You'd be sort of 60% self-sufficient in the coming two years, with the closure of the Ortviken. Is that correct?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

We are a bit below, just slightly below 50% self-sufficient today following the ramp-up of Östrand. This will, as Ulf said, is 1.2 million cu m we talk about. That will increase it by around 10%. As you mentioned. The CTMP line will come on, and then that will have an effect from that day forward. We'll improve it in [crosstalk].

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Again, what's really positive is that in the new CTMP line, we will use birch to a certain extent. That is very positive for us, because today we have, well, maybe not the surplus, but still we have a lot of birch available in our forest.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

Yeah. I just did some very sort of rough calculations here this morning on this. Given that you're also increasing harvesting, at the same time as you'll also be ramping up expanded capacity in Obbola, and you will be starting up the new CTMP line at Ortviken. I sort of, again, rough calculation, but you would be at about 60% self-sufficiency in the future, so more than what you've been in the past. Is that a position that you like? Is there a sort of strategic value in that?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

As you can see, it's a good thing to have a higher degree of self-sufficiency. On the other hand, you have seen the staircase and we have some projects there and we like to continue to grow our production in pulp and so on. That will have an impact on the wood supply, of course. We will do that in a balanced way. In many cases, the margin cost for wood is a big impact for the profitability in a project. Definitely so. Also now, short term, it will have a big positive impact that we can close down a big part of the import for the moment being. We will continue to buy wood and also forest land in the Baltics, and we will continue to develop the industry.

We have just adapted the portfolio to growth areas, which I think is the absolute right thing to do just now.

Oskar Lindström
Analyst, Danske Bank

All right. I think I'll stop there, but I think very interesting developments. Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Martin Melbye from ABG. Your line is open.

Martin Melbye
Analyst, ABG

Yes, good morning. Could you explain a bit more about the CTMP market versus the normal NBSK market, the prices you achieve, the economics, and which customers can buy CTMP versus NBSK, please?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Yeah, I'm not really an expert into CTMP, but I think Kristina, she gave you some ideas on the special properties in CTMP with not least with the bulk and that kind of things, which is good for liquid packaging board and so on. In many cases, we will sell these products to existing pulp customers, both those who already purchase CTMP from us and customers who purchase kraft pulp but could use more of CTMP. In this investment, we expect rising volumes go to Asia, and we will also expect CTMP to become interesting new applications due to the falling supply of recovered fiber and in particular, white recovered fiber. Focus areas now will be in packaging grades, but also hygiene as mentioned. We have a small part already today in printing papers, but that we like to reduce as much as we can.

We don't like the exposure to publication paper neither in this area.

Martin Melbye
Analyst, ABG

Say the margins in CTMP versus NBSK?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

I could say broadly CTMP has a lower price level than NBSK. You have as a mechanical pulp, then you have less wood per ton of CTMP than you do in NBSK. It has different properties, of course. Generally, you have a lower price level and the customer benefits also from the bulk of the product, which is a key property. They get some cost benefits, and different properties to NBSK, but the margin level is broadly similar.

Martin Melbye
Analyst, ABG

Okay, excellent. Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Markku Järvinen from Handelsbanken. The line is open.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Yes, good morning. I have a few more questions. Just to start with Östrand. I think you've said in the past that you'd like to take the capacity of the mill to 1 million tons with the CTMP, so 900,000 tons for the NBSK line. Are you now talking about increasing capacity above that 900,000 on that line?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

NBSK, we don't really know the potential exactly. We have said between 100,000 and 200,000 tons in additional capacity. I believe that we should reach, again, it's a combination between cost and capacity as always. I think that we can maybe do 200,000 tons more now that when we close down the CTMP production, when we take that decision. We have to do some more studies and prepare for that expansion, and in due time, I'm sure that we will do it. Again, it's a question of timing. We are now focused on negotiations with the union and also to start the project in CTMP at Ortviken.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay, good. In terms of the bottlenecks that discontinuing of the CTMP production at Östrand opens, is it sort of in bleaching or is it wood yard or what are the sort of opportunities that this creates?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

We need space in Östrand. It's a narrow area. It's a big mill in a narrow area, so we need space. It's also according to the long-term strategy. We said when we started up the project in Östrand back in 2015, that 2017 the plan was to close down the CTMP production. They did a really good job at mill site and developed a new product portfolio, not the least including a lot of birch in CTMP, and we found another and more profitable market. My thinking in 2017 was that it was a pity to close down the market, and it has given us a good contribution over the years.

We have not invested in the old CTMP line because we knew already at that stage that if we one day in the future like to expand the NBSK production, then we cannot do that and also run the CTMP production at the same site. For us, it's much more clever now to move over the CTMP production to Viken because there we can utilize the infrastructure, as I said, and not the least the TMP production. That was close to SEK 1 billion investment back in, I think the integration was back in 2009. This is much more cost efficient way to do it now.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay, good. I appreciate that you don't want to discuss the sort of trend price level that we are seeing here. Historically CTMP has it traded, you said it has traded at a discount to softwood pulp, has it also traded at a discount to hardwood pulp? What has been the typical pricing mechanism there or the pricing dynamic in the past?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Generally, the pricing follows the same pattern as NBSK, so you follow the same cycle. You have a price difference of around SEK 100 per ton is the typical price difference between CTMP and NBSK over history. You can see that trend. They follow the same kind of cycle.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Very good. Let's clarify that. On the wood consumption, you said you have a surplus of birch. Is that going to fuel all of the birch that you need at the Ortviken plant in the future? Is it going to be 100% birch? Does that birch come from the Swedish forest or your Baltic forest? If it's not own forest, does it come from Baltics or where does it come from?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

I think the main part of the birch will come from our own forest in Sweden, to be honest.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Very good. Still on the two lines that you are not converting at Ortviken. Of course, the one line that you're converting is going to stand there for two years before start up with the investments. The two lines, is it feasible to sort of maintain them beyond this time period, or it is going to be too expensive to hold on to them for some potential future use? How do you see that?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Clarify a bit. We have three paper machines in Ortviken, and then we have the pulp refiners, which supply the TMP pulp to all the paper machines today. We will be using one of the paper machine lines, but the TMP is the part of the mill which is recently invested, and which we will convert to CTMP pulp. It's not as simple as saying we convert one line and we keep two lines. It's really the TMP mill that we utilize in this investment primarily.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Sure. How does it split the SEK 1.45 billion investment?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

You mean time-wise?

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

No, I mean, what are you spending bulk of the money on? It's still a fairly substantial investment while you're using existing equipment. What's the fallout?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Yeah. A significant part is drying capacity because rather than the pulp being supplied onto a paper machine wet, it now has to be dried to be packaged for sale to customers. There are a number of other parts around connecting the parts up. Those are significant parts.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Do I understand correctly that you're converting one of the existing paper machines to a pulp dryer and the other two paper machines you haven't made decisions on?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

No, that's not correct. We'll be having new drying units, which then dry the pulp into bales.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

The paper machines will discontinue completely, and there's no use for them at all.

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Effectively, yes. They will not be used in the new mill, no.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. You haven't made decisions on dismantling them at this stage?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

No, we will have to take care of them. Exactly how we both take care and dismantle is no firm decisions are taken, and obviously this decision is subject to a negotiation [crosstalk] with employee representatives. Until we reach that stage, we haven't taken a decision definitively on what will happen to them.

Markku Järvinen
Analyst, Handelsbanken

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Next question comes on the line is Christian Kopfer from Nordea. Your line is open.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Yeah, thanks again. Just a follow-up or a follow-up, just forwarding a question that I received from an investor here. It's about the closing cost that you have said that will be maximum SEK 900 million. The question is that it looks quite big, and if you could break that down, if possible, on why it costs so much to close it down. I understand obviously 800 people will be a big cost. Yeah, if you could mention something on this.

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Firstly, you're right. We think that closing cost up to SEK 900 million. This is subject to consultation and negotiation. Until we go through that process, we don't have a firm figure to give, and we expect to be able to give a firm figure when we're further along the process, of course. Included in there is costs related to employees and redundancy. There's costs related to the machines and taking care of the machines and the decommissioning machines. Those are the main items, I would say. Some costs needed to clean up and take care of the site.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

If you compare it to what you have previously closed down paper machines p er ton or anything? Can you compare it?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

Yeah, I think we see this. The one thing I could say is when you compare to other closures of paper mills and paper machines, if you were to do a benchmark per ton or per mill and size of mill in terms of volume or number of employees, I think it's pretty much in line with what other mill closures have cost. It depends a bit on the country and the geography. Typically, some countries in Europe are more expensive, in France or Netherlands, whereas some other countries. It depends on the legal environment and the environment you're in. I think we view this as broadly in line with other mill closures, both in SCA and outside SCA.

Christian Kopfer
Analyst, Nordea

Okay, thanks, Toby.

Operator

Next question comes from Cole Hathorn from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

Thank you. First of all, in terms of the paper production, sorry if I missed this, if you already commented on it, but when would you expect the publication paper production to cease at the Ortviken?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

Within six months.

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay. In terms of the paper machines, would you consider selling the machines for conversion to, for example, testliner or something else, if there would be such an interest in the market?

Ulf Larsson
President and CEO, SCA

We don't have the answer yet. As Toby says, now we will finalize the negotiations with the union, and then we take the decision what to do.

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

Finally, on the CapEx for the CTMP investment, how should we think about that in terms of distribution across the next couple of years?

Toby Lawton
CFO, SCA

I think we expect the investment to come in 2021, 2022, and a little bit further in 2023. You could split it, you could say 80% between 2021 and 2022, and the remaining part 2023, just to give a rough guidance. It's obviously subject to the negotiation process as well, but that's our expectation.

Cole Hathorn
Analyst, Jefferies

Okay. That's very clear. Thank you very much.

Operator

There are no further question at this time. Please continue.

Björn Lyngfelt
VP of Communications, SCA

Okay. Thank you for the interest you have shown in this press conference. I should mention that Kristina Enander is President Pulp and nothing else. We had a misspelling on the website, but Pulp is her business and responsibility. We couldn't answer all your questions. We are sure to be able to shed some more light on some of the questions in our quarterly report, which will be published and presented on April 30th. Until then, thank you and look forward to hearing from you again. Thank you.