Welcome to SCA's Capital Markets Day 2022. It's been two years since the last Capital Markets Day, and a lot have happened since then, hasn't it, Josefine?
It really has. Since the decision to exit publication paper in 2020, we have continued our growth strategy with products such as the Obbola expansion, the CTMP expansion, and expansion of renewable energy. On top of that, our forest has grown more than 20 million cubic meters and absorbed more than 10 million tons of carbon dioxide. That's quite impressive, isn't it, Anders?
That is quite impressive, Josefine, and we are very proud of the climate benefit that we generate. If you take into consideration the substitution effect, for example, replacing concrete with wood in buildings or plastic with paper in packaging, the climate effect is actually even larger than that, Josefine. We will talk more about sustainability later, but what's more on the agenda today?
We will hear presentation from our different business areas and make deep dives in renewable energy and forest operations. We'll also look into our expansion projects and give you a quick recap before opening the floor for a Q&A session.
First, let's take a bird's-eye view of our strategy going forward and our direction for the future. With us here today, we have Ulf Larsson, President and CEO of SCA. Welcome, Ulf.
Thank you so much, Anders. I like to start with this slide because when we did the split of the SCA company back in 2017, I said that we have two components for value creation, and the first one was to grow the forest, and the second component was to increase the value from each tree. If we start with the forest, we shall and should, of course, continue exactly in the way that we've done in the past. I mean, today we have almost 75% higher standing volume in comparison with what we had back in 1950s. At the same time, we harvest more or less 150% more than we did at that time. We shall, of course, continue to buy forest land.
The second component for value creation was to increase the value from each tree. At that time, we said that we should grow our pulp and kraftliner business. We should also continue to develop the good work that we were already doing in renewable energy. Last but not least, we should also reduce our exposure to publication paper. In 2017, I also presented this, let's say, project staircase, just in order to be a little more bit granular in how we should achieve our strategic goals. If you start to the left-hand side with the Östrand project, that one was already decided when we did the split of the company, but it was ramped up 2018. This project has been a success, I must say, and it has also been financed through our operating cash flow.
When we did this split, we also realized that the value of the forest was underestimated. It was more based, like, on historical acquisition values. In 2019, we started to valuate the forest based on transaction prices in the region where we are present, and I think that has been very helpful to visualize the real value of the forest. Five years ago, we had less than 3 TWh of installed capacity of wind power on SCA land, and according to the plan, next year, we will reach 9 TWh. The long-term target is today 11 TWh that we should reach around 2025. In September 2019, we took the decision to go for another mega project, the biggest kraftliner mill in the world in Obbola. That was another SEK 7.5 billion investment.
We said that this one should be up and running in the first quarter next year. As already communicated, we started this line already, the fourth quarter this year, before schedule and according to budget. At the same time, we have also increased the capacity of White Top Kraftliner during this period. In the spring 2020, we first realized that we had a pandemic in Sweden. Overnight, we lost more or less 30% of the consumption of publication paper. We took immediate actions. We decided to close down our three remaining paper machines. That was also done in the first quarter 2021. At the same time, we took the decision to invest SEK 1.5 billion in a new CTMP line based on the Ortviken site.
The reason for that was, of course, first, that we believe in CTMP as a product. Secondly, that we could make this investment in a very cost-efficient way as we could use a lot of the old equipment on Ortviken site. Maybe most important was also that we could prepare the Östrand mill for further capacity expansion. During this period, we have also started up a strategic cooperation with the Finnish company St1 in liquid biofuels. We have also taken the decision to go for a new biorefinery in Gothenburg, and that one will be up and running Q4 next year. The total capacity in this mill will be 200,000 cubic meters. The volume controlled by this joint venture will be 100,000 cubic meters.
Three years ago, we took the decision to start up a program for acquiring forest land in the Baltics. We said that we in five years time should reach 100,000 hectares. Up till today, three years after the start, we have reached approximately 60%. Last but not least, we also 2017 saw that we should have a further potential for capacity increase in Östrand. We are prepared, we have prepared for that step, we haven't taken the decision yet. We also saw that we had a big potential for building up a new biorefinery based on solid biomass, and from that go to liquid biofuels. We have the environmental permission today. We have also started to build land, we haven't taken the final decision to go for the second biorefinery.
The measures that have been taken has strengthened our competitiveness, both in relation to our peers, but also in absolute terms, as you can see in this slide. It has also contributed to a fossil-free society. Let's start on the left-hand side on this picture with the forest. As you can see here, we have a net binding capacity in SCA forests of a little bit more than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year. How can that come? Well, the gross growth in SCA's forest is around 10 million tons annually. We harvest around 5 million cubic meters per year, and we have some windfalls. We also do some pre-commercial thinnings and things like that. So that takes away another 1 million cubic meters.
The net growth is around 4 million cubic meter per year, which corresponds to 5.4 million tons of carbon dioxide. The reason is, of course, that when we harvest an old tree, we replant with two to three new ones. We are quite intensive when it comes to our silviculture operations. We do pre-commercial thinnings. We spend some money into fertilization and so on. Even more important is the substitution effect, as you can see on the right-hand side. Last year, it amounted up to close to 6 million tons of carbon dioxide. Here, I mean, we are replacing non-renewable fossil products and material with renewable products. Here we're talking about paper instead of plastic. We're talking about solid wood products instead of concrete and steel, and we are talking about bioenergy instead of fossil fuels.
Last but not least, we always try to reduce our emissions. In 10 years time in SCA, we have gone from a little bit more than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year down to less than 1 million ton. If one summarize, in 2021, SCA's climate benefit was a little bit more than 10 million ton of carbon dioxide, which corresponds to emissions from all Sweden's passengers cars. This year, we have done a more thorough review of our strategy, and we still have two components for value creation. The first one, again, is to grow our forest, and the second one is to increase the value from each tree.
When it comes to the forest, we shall continue to take care of the forest in the way that we've done in the past, and we shall continue to buy forest land. That we have done in the past, and that we will continue to do also in the future. We have some limitations for buying forest land in Sweden. By that, we have said that, we can also buy forest in the Nordic countries, but also in the Baltics, where we have already started up a program as I mentioned earlier. When it comes to the second component for value creation, to increase the value from each tree, we have said that we should focus on pulp, containerboard, but during the coming period, also in wood.
As, again, already communicated, we have launched a feasibility study together with Holmen in order to see if we have conditions for a mega mill in Västerbotten. A really interesting project, I believe. Then we have also said that we should go from just developing business opportunities within renewable energy to realize them. Coming years, we will have three focus areas. If we start from the bottom, I think it's super important to take care of what we already have to maintain our superior asset quality. That we will continue with. The second one is to deliver on already decided and ongoing projects. You know them all.
I mean, the kraftliner project in Obbola, the CTMP expansion. The acquisition forest program for forest land in the Baltics, the biofuel project together with St1, the Bollsta sawmill project in Ångermanland, and so on. Number three, to the right-hand side, you can also see that we like to continue to capture opportunities for organic growth. I mean, we have talked a lot about wind. From now on, we are ready to spend our own money into the wind business. We might do some acquisitions. We will absolutely start up some organic projects, but maybe most important is the potential that we have in repowering, and we will come back to that. We also definitely see some further options in and potential in debottlenecking in our pulp containerboard business.
We have already been talking about wood and what we are doing there. In renewable fuels, we will start up the biorefinery in Gothenburg, but as already mentioned, we are also looking into further potential in close connection to Östrand. Last but not least, we will continue to buy forest land as we have always done. I will finalize with this slide, just to show you that we will continue the transformation that we have started up, but we will remain the balance between the forest and the industry. Before the split of the SCA company back in 2017, we were an industrial company with forest, not too much focus on the forest asset.
After the split, we have been focused on making the forest value visible, and, next step among all other things that we will do is to realize business opportunities within renewable energy. Thank you.
Thank you. We make use of the entire tree and create the most value of our land. The forest is the core of our business, and around it, we have built a well-invested, integrated value chain. Let's take a closer look at how we make that happen.
SCA has created an effective and integrated value chain with its certified forest operations and modern production facilities in close proximity to its forest holdings. SCA produces more than 100 million seedlings every year, seedlings that grow into trees and together form the forests of the future. During their growth phase, the trees bind large amounts of CO2 . SCA's forests alone bind more than 5 million tons of CO2 every year. For every tree that we harvest, we plant at least two new ones, and by using all parts of the tree, we utilize its full potential and create sustainable products. The most valuable part of the tree, just over half, becomes saw logs that are processed in our sawmills into solid wood products. Solid wood products that in turn offer alternatives to fossil construction materials with large carbon footprints, such as concrete.
The part of the tree that cannot be used for solid wood products becomes wood chips used in our production of pulp and packaging paper. These products are used in hygiene products and recyclable corrugated board packaging, which can be used to replace plastic packaging. In addition to pulp, a kraft pulp mill also produces large amounts of renewable energy. Heat is recycled as district heating, and steam is used to produce electricity. Byproducts such as tall oil and turpentine are further refined into biofuels and green chemicals that replace fossil fuels and other oil-based products. Other byproducts, such as bark and sawdust from sawmills, become bioenergy, energy that is used to power our own operations or supplied to customers as district heating or pellets. As Europe's largest private forest owner, SCA owns land ideally suited to green wind power generation that contributes to the supply of sustainable energy.
We maximize the climate benefit from the forest by using our land for wind energy, conducting responsible forestry operations, and finding ways to use every part of the tree to make sure nothing goes to waste. That way, we also enable other industries to transition to more sustainable production, making SCA a leader in the fight against climate change.
I would like to present our CFO, Andreas Ewertz, who is going to talk more about how the value chain and our project portfolio contribute to our growth. Welcome, Andreas.
Thank you, Anders. Hello, everybody. I'll start off with our integrated value chain with high self-sufficiency, which help to offset cost inflation. If we start with wood sourcing to the left, which is our biggest cost, we consume around 11 million cubic meters. We get around 50% from our own forest and chips from our own sawmills. We get 35% from local private forest owners and 50% from external suppliers. In electricity, we are almost self-sufficient post exit publication paper. We consume around 1.7 TWh. At the same time, we produce 1.4 TWh internally. We have wind leases which are linked to the electricity price and brings down our net exposure to only 5%. Solid biofuels is our largest energy source and produce around 12 TWh.
Of this, we use 9 TWh internally. We have a surplus of two and a half, which are sold as district heating and pellets. We have our own logistics company, which have been a clear advantage during the pandemic. We have three own ro-ro ships and our own terminals in Sundsvall and Umeå. We also have long-term leases in Kiel and London. In total, around 40% of our logistics revenue goes to our own ships and terminals. Lastly, we have transportation fuel, where we have a total exposure to around 100,000 tons of bunker oil and diesel. At the same time, we produce 45,000 tons of tall oil, which price is linked to the oil price, plus our green premium, which brings our self-sufficiency to over 45%.
To summarize, our integrated value chain has helped to offset cost deflation and contributed to our high margins, which we can see on the next slide. Price increases have dropped down to EBITDA. On this slide, we have the EBITDA bridge between the first nine months this year and the first nine months last year. If we start with price mix to the left, it had the biggest impact of SEK 2.5 billion. We had higher raw material costs of only SEK 550 million, and we had a positive impact from lower energy costs, which really shows our high self-sufficiency. In total, EBITDA increased with 30% to SEK 8.2 billion and corresponding to a margin of almost 52%. Decided projects more than double EBITDA since the split and have been financed with operating cash flow.
On this slide, we have the EBITDA contribution of previous announced investments, this is assuming long-term trend prices and a normalized currency. If we start to the left, we have an EBITDA ranging from around SEK 3 billion-SEK 4 billion before the split. We doubled pulp capacity, which has increased EBITDA with over SEK 1 billion, assuming trend prices, and even more the last two years. We have closed our publication paper mill and invested in CTMP production, which will increase EBITDA with SEK 300 million and has also reduced our margin of wood cost with SEK 200 million. We have a target to reach 9 TWh of electricity in the end of next year, of lease income, which will contribute with SEK 100 million. Kraftliner expansion in Obbola will contribute with SEK 800 million-SEK 1 billion in EBITDA when fully ramped up in 2026.
This is assuming trend prices of just above EUR 600 per ton, and today we have prices closer to EUR 900 per ton. We're investing in our Bollsta sawmill, which will contribute with 100 million EBITDA. We are investing 650 million in our biorefinery in Gothenburg, which will contribute with 200 million and even more with current prices. We are increasing harvesting with 1.1 million cubic meters, which will contribute with 200 million. The forest acquisition in Baltics will contribute with over 100 million and significantly more long-term. We are investing in Sundsvall Harbor, which will reduce our logistics cost, and we're investing in 90 million in a CNCG boiler at our Östrand pulp mill, which will reduce chemical costs with up to 100 million.
We also have a positive revaluation effect of biological assets of SEK 1.2 billion, which will give a cash flow contribution later on. In total, these investments have more than doubled EBITDA to SEK 8 billion, assuming trend prices. The last 12 months, we had an EBITDA of SEK 11 billion, mainly driven by higher prices. If all these projects had been fully ramped up and assuming 2022 prices, they would have contributed with an additional SEK 3 billion. On the next slide, we have our capital allocation strategy, which can be summarized into three parts. First, we want to continue to increase in profitable growth. Here we want to invest in and around our value chain, as Ulf mentioned. Higher profit also enable increased dividend. We have a target to have a stable and increasing dividend over time.
Lastly, we want to have a healthy balance sheet and maintain an investment-grade credit rating. Thank you. With that, I hand back to you, Josefine.
Thank you, Andreas. To follow up on that broader perspective, let's take a closer look at the links in our value chain. Of course, we'll start where everything begins, in the forest.
Let's now welcome Jonas Mårtensson, Head of our Forest Operations. Jonas, SCA's product portfolio includes several expansion projects. How will that affect the need for forest raw material, now long term and short term?
Thank you, Anders. As a result of the ongoing investment, our needs for sustainable raw material will increase. I will come back to how we plan to supply your industry in the short and the long term. When we did our first harvesting calculation in 1950, it presented a sustainable harvesting level of around 2 million cubic meters. As a result of our well-managed forest, the harvest rate has more than doubled since then. At the same time, we have increased the standing volume of living and growing trees. In the most recent harvest calculation we did a couple of years ago, higher growth than expected will enable a gradual increase of 25% in the sustained annual harvesting volume for the coming years. This will support our raw material supply for our industry in the short term.
SCA has been purchasing forest land for several hundreds of years in Sweden to supply the company's value chain. In the early 1900s, Sweden implemented a new Land Acquisition Act. It states that in Sweden, we as a legal entity, cannot purchase forest land from private forest owners without selling an equivalent area. Therefore, we have mainly been able to increase our forest land in Sweden by acquiring companies that owns forest land. Since the 1950s, we have increased our productive forest land by 60%. In the Baltic region, companies are permitted to purchase forest land, both from private forest owners and companies. That is why we, in 2019, launched a program to increase our forest land in the Baltic region by 100,000 hectares over a five-year period. As you have heard, SCA's forest industry are growing.
We have a strong and well-integrated value chain with a self-sufficiency rate around 50%, which makes us unique in the industry. This give us the ability to maintain competitive raw material cost for our industry over time. Growth in the Baltic region is high. It is 2x-3x higher than in northern Sweden. By being able to increase harvesting on our own land, we will maintain a stable and increasing cash flow over time. SCA has been developing and practicing active forest management on our forest land in Sweden for a long time, which has led to a significant increase, both in the volume of standing forest and harvest rates since the 1950s. With our expertise and resources, we have the ability to make the same journey in the Baltic region as we have done in Sweden.
If we look at the cost of forest land in the Baltic region, it is marginally higher than in northern Sweden in terms of Euro per hectares, but considerably lower than in other parts of Sweden. On the other hand, as I mentioned, growth potential is much higher. This means that the cost of investment in relation to the growth is very attractive. Since we launched the land acquisition program in the Baltic region, we have acquired just over 60,000 hectares of forest land. This means we are in line with the target we set three years ago. We initially acquired some larger portfolios of forest, but have also completed a large number of smaller transactions with private forest owners. The price of smaller objects from private forest owners are considerably lower than larger portfolios that are purchased from forest-owning companies.
Based on the price levels of major transactions, in the last year, the value has increased by 40%-50% compared with the purchase price for our completed acquisitions since we started. The higher value is partly due to the price trend for forest land in recent years, combined with the premium we see on transactions made by companies, but also, as I described, the price difference between large landholdings and small objects. We will come back to the price difference between transactions for properties that are purchased from companies versus private forest owners. As you can see from the map on the right, we own forest land across the entire Baltic region. Most of the land is in Latvia. Let's take a quick look at our forest holdings in the Baltic region.
We'll get back to Jonas in a moment. Now I would like to introduce our guest, Niklas Lundberg from Svefa. Niklas, you're here to tell us more about forest property markets, a subject of great interest. Welcome. The floor is yours.
Thank you. Starting with the outline, first of all, a short description of Svefa. Svefa is one of Sweden's largest property consultancies, with 18 offices and more than 200 employees. We are an independent property consultant company with certified valuers specialized in all property types. Outline for today is basis of data for the study, description of market development for private investors and legal entities and property size, three, value-affecting factors. Basis of data is Svefa's sales comparison database. Svefa has 20 years of nationwide transactional data for forest properties with very detailed information since 2010, with thousands of sales registered with forest data gathered from investment memorandums. Each transaction has been analyzed by Svefa's property valuers. The data enables extensive analysis of market trends, impact from different value-affecting factors, and is typically used by property valuers in valuation reports.
If you're interested in learning more about the Swedish property market, please visit svefa.se. Market development for forest properties in Northern Sweden. This chart is privately owned forest properties sold in Northern Sweden, a large study area with ranging market conditions. First of all, we see a strong positive market trend. Second, looking at the sales, there is a distinct price floor slowly rising over time, starting at SEK 150 in 2016. This price floor is now at SEK 200 per forest cubic meter. Three, there is a high range or amplitude upwards. This highlights that each transaction has individual price driving factors. Four, there is a clear year seasonal pattern in the data.
First, properties in Northern Sweden are generally placed on the market from late spring till early fall, each transaction is completed with a registered deed in the end of the year. The most recent sales indicate a slowing and more stable market. It is at this point too early to determine exactly what this means in the market other than that the final months will be extra interesting to study. If we look at the same data set for Southern Sweden, we see the same pattern except that there is no seasonal pattern. Positive market trend, one. Two, the rising price floor. No trends are noted below SEK 600 . Three, increasing value amplitude upwards, especially the last years. Staying in Southern Sweden, we add legal entities to the chart.
This chart is basically the same data as the previous picture, the addition of legal entities shown as red bubbles in the chart. The size of the bubble is proportionate to the sales price. There might be additional transactions between legal entities that we do not know of. They are much harder to identify and more commonly sold as off-market transactions. As you can see, there is the willingness to pay higher values for forest sold as legal entities than privately owned. A very brief background to price difference. As Jonas explained in the previous presentation, the purchase of forest land in Sweden is regulated in the Land Acquisition Act. This law results in a very limited supply of forest land that may be easily purchased by legal entities. This very limited supply results in a value markup for the transactions between legal entities.
A few comments to the chart. There is a clear distinction between forest land sold between private individuals and legal entities. The red line is parallel above the yellow line with a markup. There is a stable value relationship since many years. The largest bubble is the Stora Enso sale in Halland at SEK 940 million in December 2020, at almost SEK 1,200 per forest cubic meter. The effect of sale as legal entities and the size premium are hard to separate due to low number of transaction, but there is a combined positive effect. The effect, of course, depends strongly on the specific property, its location, its size, forest inventory, the number of bidding parties, et cetera. In this chart, we also notice that there are no registered sales this year.
We know of ongoing sales, but at this point, they are not finished yet. Moving on to Northern Sweden, we see the same data set. The largest bubble is the Nora transaction in the fall of 2020. The purchase price is not disclosed, but our estimation is SEK 1.8 billion based on annual reports. Left is the transaction of Östmark, Värmland at SEK 95 million , and right is the SEK 73 million sale in Ånge, Jämtland. Except these sales, there was also, in 2019, the sale of 89.9% of the shares in Bergvik Skog to AMF Pension Company, and this was done at SEK 12.2 billion . In the chart, we notice that in the beginning of the chart, there was no value difference between privately owned properties and legal entities.
The markup began in 2017. From 2018, the markup has been rising, and the markup is today at levels of approximately 40%-50% in Northern Sweden compared to private transactions. To this date, during 2022, there's only one registered transaction of legal entities. This makes interpreting the data a bit more difficult. In September, the company of Skiraskog was sold at SEK 46 million, correlating to price level of SEK 500 per forest cubic meter. This is the bubble at the right side of the chart. When interpreting this data, some caution is necessary due to the low number of observations. We do not want to extend the rising pale trend line for legal entities due to the lack of observations.
If we look at the regression line from January 2019, the dark red line, we see that the trend line is parallel to the yellow line for the private transaction. Our rendering of this is that the market for legal entities in Northern Sweden is becoming more similar with Southern Sweden and establishing a more stable markup compared to the private transactions. Looking more closely at the five largest transactions in the material, the basis is the entire material of all 75 sales of forest between legal entities. Each sale has been compared to the average value for sale between individuals in the respective county and quotas are studied. From this material, we studied the premium for legal entities compared to the private market. In the next step, we compare the five largest sales to the material to the 75 sales.
If we look at the bar chart with these historical transactions, we have a premium for legal entities ranging from 30%-55%. On top of this, there is also the premium for the largest transaction to reach the transaction price. These five transactions display size premiums in the range of 5%-15% on top of the value premium for transactions between legal entities. To conclude the material, these transactions indicate that the combined value premium for a large transaction of forest land in Northern Sweden that may be purchased by a legal entity can be estimated to approximately 140%-155% compared to normal sized forest property sold between private individuals. The indicated level of 140%-155% value premium is based on the now available sales material.
The value premium varies between legal entities and the size of the object, and has to be individually assessed. Value affecting factors. Why do we see a rise in the premium in Northern Sweden right now? There is a strong belief in investing in Swedish forest properties from many parties, combined with a limited number of locations and properties to invest in. There are many actors in the markets, ranging from small local entrepreneurs to large international investors. We see financial forest funds such as Silvestica. We see pension funds, both Swedish such as AMF and international. We see industrial forest and pulp corporations primarily seeking wood supply for their industries. We see property developers buying and sometimes holding for future development and trading purposes.
For some of these categories of investors, there is the element of risk diversification from the stock market and other property categories, and enhanced focus on portfolio diversification for large scale investors. During the last year, there's been also rising interest from parties seeking investment to hedge or protect from inflation. Others invest for a stronger sustainability profile and possibly future return from carbon sequestration. These factors are hard to recognize individually in each investment. Altogether, Swedish forest land is viewed as a solid investment by many potential buyers. This, in combination with a limited number and location of properties to invest in, is the main influencing factor increase in the premium in forest investment for legal entities and the premium for property price in Northern Sweden.
If you get the opportunity to invest in a large property instead of searching for years and slowly building a portfolio, investors are simply more willing to pay a premium for this today than five years ago. This concludes my presentation. Thank you.
Thank you, Niklas.
Thank you.
Welcome back, Jonas. We just heard from Niklas from Svefa talk about forest valuation. Now you will tell us about how we value our forests at SCA.
Thank you, Anders. The value of SCA's forest assets is based on the sales transactions in the area where SCA owns forest. We use official price statistics from the two largest independent property consultant companies in Sweden. The vast majority of the transactions comprise private purchase and sales. In other words, smaller objects. To create stability in the valuation, we use a three-year historical average to calculate the value of our forest holdings. By the end of June this year, the average price was SEK 342 per cubic meter, which gave us a healthy headroom in relation to current market price around SEK 400 per cubic meter. As shown on the previous slide, we currently estimate the value of our forest to be SEK 342 .
As I said, it is based on a large number of smaller transactions, mainly between private individuals. In Svefa's presentation, we just saw statistics that show a premium of about 30%- 40% for forest land purchased and owned by companies. They also show a premium about 5%- 15% for large land holdings transactions, a size premium. Based on these statistics, there is a potential for a 40%- 55% higher valuation of our forest land than the present. Forest land generates long-term value in many ways. This graph shows the total return on forest land in Sweden since the 1950s. The average increase in the value of forest land has been about 6% per year over a period of almost 70 years.
We can also see how the increase in value has remained stable throughout this entire period, despite a number of recessions. Active forest management has enabled us to increase harvesting rates, generating an annual yield of 3%. Moreover, the standing volume of forest is increasing every year despite the increased harvest rates. These three aspects combined have generated an annual total return of about 10% since the 1950s. This is how long-term value is created with the force of the forest. This completed my presentation.
Thank you, Jonas. SCA has come far in its sustainability work, generating a yearly climate benefit of more than 10 million tons of carbon dioxide. We have also started an ambitious initiative to preserve biodiversity. One person who can tell us more about this is Hans Djurberg, Head of Sustainability. Welcome, Hans.
Thank you, Josefine.
Many people talk about how the world's biodiversity is challenged. What's your view on that?
Well, it's true that we often hear quite concerning news about biodiversity in mainstream media. Concerns are raised by many stakeholders, ranging from intergovernmental panels, civil society, and not least the local activists. Concerns are often about the loss of biodiversity. We hear numbers like 1 million species being at the brink of extinction. We also hear about the link between climate change and biodiversity loss, and the resilience of ecosystems. This is a great concern to many people, including the scientific community. What about forests in Sweden and forests at SCA in particular? Let's have a closer look at that. Before we do, we should realize that monitoring biodiversity is problematic. It's quite difficult actually. Monitoring species abundance is difficult, especially when it's about species that are rare or mobile, or even sometimes invisible.
This is a challenge that we face when we monitor and try to work with that biodiversity. One way to get around that is to look at features instead, features in the forest that we know are important to biodiversity. On the slide here you will see a set of such features using data for Sweden. On the bottom right-hand corner, you will find the standing volume of forests in Sweden, and you can see a steady increase from 1955 and onwards. There seems to be forests around. On the left-hand bottom side, you will find the area of old forests in Sweden, and you can see an increase steadily from 1995 and onwards. The top chart, the top line there is including protected areas in Sweden.
On the top right-hand side, you will find another very important feature for biodiversity in forests, that's dead wood. You can see a steady increase from the 1980s and onwards in the volume of dead wood in Swedish forests. Last, on the top left-hand, you can see the average size of cutting areas in Sweden, which is believed also to influence at least some of the species that are found in forests. You can see a decline, a steady decline actually from the 1970s until today as far as average cutting size is concerned. What are we doing then in SCA when it comes to managing biodiversity? First of all, biodiversity conservation is nothing new. It's something we have actually included in our forest management since 1987.
Traditionally, we often monitor biodiversity conservation by monitoring the area we do not manage, so what we call set asides. Over time, we've realized that this is quite a blunt tool to use, instead, in the 2019, we tried to find a way to increase our precision and quality in the nature conservation efforts. This is when we started looking at real data on real species, if you will, we used the best available data presented by the IUCN called the Red List. The Red List actually represents species that are in decline. For one reason or another, the populations are decreasing of these species. They may be rare to start with or there's something in the environment that actually causes the populations to decrease. This list covers all of Sweden, so from the very southern tip to northern Sweden.
What does the list actually tell us if we look closer at the list? First of all, the list includes some 20,000 species. Out of these 20,000, roughly 20% are Red Listed, so under some degree of threat. Out of these 5,000 or so species, roughly 40% are affected by forestry. They are found in forests, and they are affected by forest management. What we have done in SCA is really to look even closer at the list and try to understand, what about Northern Sweden? How many species are actually found in Northern Sweden, where we have our forests and are at the same time negatively affected by forest management? This gives us a list of 203 species, and we call this list our species commitment.
What we've done based on that list is also to identify a dozen or so habitats that these species are dependent on for their long-term survival. If we, again, look a little bit closer to that, how do we manage for biodiversity in SCA forests? Well, first of all, one has to realize that there's one thing that's more important than anything else when it comes to forests and biodiversity in Sweden, and that is fire. The forest landscape is shaped by fire over thousands of years, and all species are adapted in one way or another to fire. They can either be adapted to thrive through fire, or they are doing their best to avoid fires. In one way or another, all species are adapted to fire. Our forest management approach also follows this logic.
We try to mimic fire when we design our forest management methods. This includes how we define our management methods for biodiversity. We have tried now, and with the support of our species commitment, to define habitats that we manage for that are important to those threatened species. Those are habitats like burned pine forests, deciduous forests, and also open sunlit pine forests. All of these are actually habitats that are created by fire. Since we have done our best to avoid fires in the forest landscape, they have become rare, and therefore we need to manage for them. This is the core of our approach to biodiversity conservation. Last, I would like to just summarize our approach to biodiversity conservation by simply showing you four categories of measures that we do to conserve biodiversity.
On the top left hand, you will find our voluntary set aside. This is where we focus 100% on biodiversity. We retain 100% of the forest, simply setting it aside for biodiversity conservation. On the right-hand top side, you will find what we call combined targets. This is where we put equal weight to biodiversity conservation and wood production. It means that we retain roughly 50% of the volume, and then we manage for biodiversity. This includes areas that we burn, such as you can see on this picture. We burn the forest to create habitat for biodiversity. On the lower left-hand side, you will find what we call adaptive retention. This is where we manage forests specifically for certain species. This means we retain some 15%-30% of the volume in those forests to care for particular species.
In the bottom right hand, you will find what we call basic retention, which is basically the rest of the forest. We manage it by setting aside buffer zones, caring for individual trees as well as tree groups to create structures and features important for biodiversity in the forests that will grow up in the future. This would be, in summary, our approach to responsible forest management. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Hans. Now, let's take a look at some real examples on how we preserve and protect biodiversity in our forests.
Welcome to the heart of SCA, the forest. Right here is the foundation of our business, our expertise and our passion. Now we're gonna meet Ola and Anna and talk more about how we create growth with sustainable forestry. Hi, Ola. In what way does a sustainable forestry contribute to sustainable business?
Well, for SCA, sustainable forestry means that we both produce wood and other values such as biodiversity and social values, et cetera. For biodiversity, we use conservation measures in order to secure the habitats of the 203 Red-listed species. For wood production, we use active forest management to increase the amount of wood that is produced. This wood can be utilized in our business, in our products, and thereby it can substitute fossil-based products, which is very good for the climate. The order of magnitude of this substitution is the same as the uptake that we have in our forest. It's very dramatically high.
Is this unique for Sweden?
No. In the Baltics, where we have forest assets, we are using the same high standards as in Sweden. The aims, they are the same. That is to utilize the growth potential of the forest, care for biodiversity, of course, and also produce a lot of wood that can be used for climate friendly products.
Hi, Anna. Could you give us an example of what we really mean by sustainable forestry and biodiversity?
Yes. Here, I can give you an example of active conservation measures. In this case, we have within the SCA species commitment, we want to both preserve and develop habitats for different kinds of species. So in this stand, we have harvested Norway spruce trees, but left all the deciduous trees like birch and aspens, which are very important to many species. That is one example. Another example would be general conservation measurements, which we do at all final fellings. For example, we leave single conservation trees that are either old or rare. We also set aside conservation patches and buffer zones along lakesides or streams or wetlands. These are just two examples of what we do for biodiversity within our forestry.
Thank you, Anna. Well, I don't know about you, but this is new knowledge for me. Now back to the studio.
SCA is a leading producer of renewable energy. By-products from our sawmills, as well as branches and treetops from the forest, become biofuel and pellets that can be used in our own industrial operations or sold to external customers. SCA is also working together with Finnish St1, and we are building a biorefinery in Gothenburg. SCA is also an important actor in wind energy with about 20% of Sweden's installed wind capacity on SCA land. Starting next year, Renewable Energy will be a new reporting segment. To highlight this growing new segment, we have invited Mikael Källgren, Head of Renewable Energy, to tell us more about what is coming up. Welcome, Mikael.
Thank you, Anders. Hello. As Ulf presented, we have an updated strategy within renewable energy, moving from developing our position to execution. The purpose of my presentation here today is to share some more color and light on our strategic foundation and execution plan. Let's start with some high-level logic. We all know that net zero policy will shape demand for renewables for a very long time. If you look at this slide to the left, you recognize the decrease in CO2 emissions from the IPCC report from 2021, showing what is needed in order to keep the 1.5 degree target. A few weeks after the IPCC report, the IEA, the International Energy Agency, presented their report, a roadmap towards net zero.
To the right in this chart, you find a summary from that report showing how we need to move away from fossil fuels towards renewable in a rapid pace. From an SCA business point of view, we recognize that we have competitive advantages in several of these areas, especially wind power, biofuels, and potentially e-fuels. Our strategy is grounded in two pillars. First, the rapid growing markets within renewables, driven by net zero policy fighting climate change. The second is our strong competitive advantages within these areas. If we move and look and transform this development into growth charts and start to the left with renewable electricity generation, you can see the high growth numbers within wind and solar. This is driven by light-duty vehicle transportation, industry processes, and low-temperature heating.
In the middle, you can see the double-digit growth rates expected within biofuels, driven by transforming hard-to-abate sectors like aviation, maritime, and heavy-duty transportation. Finally, to the right, you will see the high growth rates of hydrogen and e-fuels in order to transform not only the same hard-to-abate sectors as within biofuels, but only industrial processes. If you look at why will SCA win in these markets, we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on this transformation towards renewables. If we start with wind power, we are the biggest private landowner in Europe, and with that comes a lot of areas with really good wind conditions. We also have, as Anders mentioned, 20% of Swedish wind power on our land with current land lease agreement with a starting point and an end point, and a built-out grid infrastructure.
Finally, we have experience from co-developing projects together with others or on our own. Within biofuels, we have access to those feedstock that are required to produce advanced biofuels according to the Renewable Energy Directive, or if you like, the second-generation biofuels. We also have existing infrastructure in place. We have harbors, we have utilities and sites. And relation to key technology suppliers and partners. As you know, we have chosen not to do this journey on our own. We have entered a partnership with St1, and we are about to construct, as we speak, the first biorefinery down in Gothenburg. We also have competitive advantages within e-fuels. If you want to produce an e-fuel, you need access to low-cost renewable energy. We have that not only in our area of Europe, but also by entering into wind power as a producer.
We also have access to biogenic CO2 in large amounts. Finally, the competence needed to build and running large-scale processing plants. This is nothing that we're focusing on today. It is a future opportunity. By entering into the wind power business and the biofuel business, the leap towards e-fuels will be smaller and smaller over time. Let's start with wind power. A slide on the characteristics around wind power profitability. I would like you to look at the chart to the left, which is a classic value creation and de-risking curve for a wind power project. Today, normally, a developer develops a project from starting point, they secure permits, land lease agreement, route to market, financing, EPC contract. After that, they normally sell this project to a long-term investor, like an infrastructure fund.
At financial close, they extract almost 95% of the net present value, leaving a de-risked asset to a long-term owner with quite a low profitability, but also a lower risk. However, if you do this by yourself and, look, you develop this project through the same phases, once facing the final investment decision, you will find a project with a double-digit IRR as the market is today. It's quite clear that participating in the development phases of a project ensures the highest return. For SCA, this is about control, getting access to the full potential value of wind power on our land. If you look to the right in this slide, you will see our view on how we will build up our portfolio.
We will be striving for the areas where we have the biggest competitive advantages and the highest profitability. That is doing organic development ourselves or together with others, doing repowering ourselves or together with others. We will also look at M&A, not for merely the cash flow of existing lifetime of that asset, but to position for repowering. From an SCA perspective, our new strategy is about moving away from leasing out our land to others to taking control of all wind power development on our land from now on forward and building up a portfolio. Why now? If we look at this slide and start from the bottom, you can see that we have successfully built up a land lease portfolio on our land during the last decade.
We met our 2020 target, aiming for 5 TWh wind power on our land. We're now moving in a steady pace toward 11 TWh by 2025. Already today, with the wind farms that are under construction on our land, we know that we will exceed the 9 TWh subtarget by 2023. During this period of time, a lot of things have happened. If you start in the top of this slide, we can see that global levelized cost of electricity from onshore wind has gone down its cost curve in a quite dramatic way. Today, onshore wind power is, together with solar PV, the most cost efficient way of generating power on a global level, regardless if it's renewable or not. The competitiveness of onshore wind is dramatically changed compared to previous decade.
If you look at electricity consumption in Sweden during the same decade, we can see that we have had a slightly decrease over time in consumption. We foresee that this will change. There are prognosis from Energimyndigheten and other institutes that expect a double consumption in Sweden next 20 years. That will be a huge difference in the market, and the demand for renewable power will go up. With that, we will see more healthier price levels than we have seen the last years. To sum it up. The cost of production for onshore wind is going down and continues to go down. The consumption in the northern part of Sweden will go up, and with that, we will see higher prices than we have seen before.
If we continue and look at, okay, if we have a doubling of consumption and demand of power in Sweden, how will we supply it? I think we're facing quite big challenges here because we have never built as much wind power as we do today on a five-year average. However, if you look at this graph, the project pipeline is going towards real low levels just in a few years. Right now, it's really hard getting permits for new onshore wind. We're facing a scenario that if nothing changes from a policy and process perspective, there will be a shortage of wind power project, greenfield. From an SCA perspective, we feel like if this happened, we will focus more on repowering.
If we can do more with less on our existing brownfield wind sites, we will contribute and focus our business on that part of our portfolio. However, if incentives for our municipalities are created and the permitting process are eased, we have a huge potential of developing a new organic wind power portfolio on our land. If this happen, we can put our resources and focus a little bit more on this part of a strategy. My bottom line point is when having control of our portfolio, not only from a repowering perspective, but also from organic development, we can adapt depending on how the future will look like. To give you some color on how big is the potential on organic growth and development, we have the next slide.
Within, as I mentioned in the beginning, with our competitive advantages, we have access to big land areas with good wind conditions. Our full potential is around 60 TWh-65 TWh until 2045. With today's restriction in the process and policies, as you saw in the previous page, this is reduced from municipality veto, reindeer husbandry, and over-implementation of nature conservation, and we have defense and civil airports restricting wind power expansion. We have, in the low case, a net potential of 15 TWh. The point here is that we will shift our focus depending on how this will play out. The point is also that if the processes are eased, which we believe they have to be in order to keep up with the demand in renewable power, we have a huge potential to build up organic portfolio on our land.
Finally, I would like to say something about repowering. Repowering of existing wind farms on our land represents a major opportunity. What is repowering? Repowering is where you change the turbine size. You take away the old turbines and exchange them with new. If you remember the cost curve, you can understand the leverage you get when you exchange old turbines that are inefficient from 2000, 2010 on around 2 MW to future turbines that has gone down the cost curve and with a size around 10 MW. We have calculated an example on a wind farm with 52 MW turbines that was built fictive 2010. That wind farm produces around 250 GWh. If you continue to run this wind farm through its technical lifetime, you will get the net present value around SEK 400 million.
If you instead apply for a new permit with modern turbines, and you get it approved, and slightly after 2030, you take down the old turbine. You can exchange those 52 MW with 20 10 MW turbine. By that, you will produce more than double the amount of energy on the same land area. The cost level in your production will go down quite dramatically, and the cash flow will go up. You can see the difference in net present value compared to just running this existing asset through its lifetime with repowering, and it's kind of 4x the NPV. This means that if there are M&A opportunities, we will look at those on our land. We will look at those as well
For us as a landowner, we can unlock the value of the new land lease agreement for the next 50 years and do repowering. With that, we will go to Nylandsberget, where we will meet Jon Persson and Anders Edholm. See you in a minute.
We are here in Nylandsberget in the northern part of Sweden, and with me here today, I have Jon Persson, Head of SCA's wind power business, and he will tell us more about wind power generation and why this is important to both society and to SCA. Jon, we're standing here in front of this gigantic wind turbine. Tell us more.
This turbine here, it's one of the turbines at the site called Nylandsberget, where we are today. It was a site commissioned in 2019, contains 18 turbines like this, each with a capacity of 3.8 MW. It's a tip height of 180 meters, and, all of this was commissioned in 2019.
Why is this so important to society, this, fossil-free power generation?
This particular site is, of course, important for the Swedish systems and since it will keep delivering power to the grid for well over 30 years from now. If you speak about onshore wind power on a more general basis, it will become increasingly important for the Swedish transition. That is for three reasons, really. One, it's the most cost-competitive source of power that can be constructed in Sweden today if you include the cost of capital. Two, it's a sustainable source of generation, and three, it can be constructed relatively fast in order to meet the rapidly increasing demand for renewable generation capacity or renewable power that we are experiencing today, not least here in mid and Northern Sweden, where we have a lot of industrial establishments planned over the next coming years.
Why is it important to SCA?
If you look at the growth outlook, we are expecting a doubling in power consumption in many scenarios up until 2050. That means that we have to add a substantial amount of new generation capacity. During this period, we also need to replace a lot of the existing capacity that will simply get too old. This is a great growth opportunity for SCA. All the land that SCA owns today, which is 2.6 million hectares, a lot of that is very well suited for renewable generation. If you look at all the existing wind power that are on SCA land, which is roughly 20% of the total installed capacity in Sweden, that poses a great repowering potential for SCA as well, once the existing land lease agreements sort of comes to an end over time.
You mentioned repowering. Maybe you can explain that concept to our viewers today.
Repowering is really, to do more with less. If you look at the installations done in 2010, many of them were made with 2 MW turbines. If you look at where we would probably be around 2030, we will be at 10 MW per turbine, maybe. That means that if you have these old sites with maybe 50, 2 MW turbines with an accumulated capacity of 100 MW, you could rebuild the same site in the future, maybe with 20, 10-MW turbines. By that, you will get the double capacity still using less than half of the turbines. If you look at generation output, you will even get more than double the output since the new wind turbines are much more efficient than the old ones.
All of this you can do still utilizing the existing infrastructure on site, roads, connection points, et cetera. All of this, is a unique opportunity that SCA can capitalize very well on.
Today, SCA acts more as a landlord for wind turbine projects. When will SCA own its own wind farms?
That will happen not in a too distant future. We are working intensely now with a dedicated team on realizing this strategy. Try to do it with speed as well as profitability. Exactly when it will happen is a bit difficult to say since we don't control all external processes ourselves, but probably soon.
Thank you very much, Jon. Now back to the studio.
With that, we move on with biofuels and a market outlook. We see that the market for renewable liquid fuels is expected to grow. In the chart to the right, you can see an outlook in jet fuel demand from World Economic Forum and European Energy Council.
Transforming hard-to-abate sectors like aviation or maritime will require liquid fuels. As you can see in the chart, biofuels will play an important role. It's also quite obvious that this will be a feedstock game. Somewhere in time, the feedstock for sustainable biomass will reach an end, and new technologies and ways of producing these renewable fuels will come into play. Here you can see the expected growth also in e-fuels, as I mentioned before, is a long-term potential for SCA. We expect an attractive market, and we can see now that quotas and mandates are being discussed to put on all aviation within Europe, and we expect new target to come into play. Single countries had already started putting mandates on aviation. When we focus on liquid biofuels and a long-term outlook, we're looking at aviation fuels.
We have decided, as mentioned before, not to do this journey alone. We have created a partnership with St1, we have also, within that partnership, created two joint venture. One in Gothenburg, where we will produce renewable fuels from liquid feedstocks like the SCA crude tall oil. We have entered into a joint venture at our development project in Östrand. The unique thing with our partnership is that we, by cooperating together, control the full value chain from forest to fuel station. With that, we believe that we can handle risk and opportunities in a better way moving forward in an uncertain world. A few words about each of these projects. The Gothenburg biorefinery is being constructed as we speak.
The expected startup will be in Q4 2023, the biorefinery will have a yearly capacity of 200,000 tons. Our share from SCA point of view is indirectly 50,000 tons. The biorefinery will have a flexible design that allows the use of a wide range of feedstocks, including our tall oil. The biorefinery will also be capable of meeting the current and future specification of renewable fuels, that includes HVO diesel, jet fuels, as mentioned before, and naphtha. This is conventional technology, as said before, we plan on ramping up end of next year. The Östrand biorefinery is a development company.
It's located next to the Östrand pulp mill. Since this summer, we have started the land reclamation, investing and building land to make sure that we have a ready site to put an industry on in a few years. This does not mean that we have taken any investment decision on the biorefinery. We are doing the preparatory works on the site. Our plan is to use sustainable feedstock from the SCA value chain, which we control. It's sawdust, bark, wood chips, residual forest products. We have that in place. We also have energy available on site. The permits are in place. We have the right to produce up to 300,000 tons of renewable fuels. We are now in a stage where we're spending time finalizing the design. With that, I'll summarize my presentation.
Our main focus right now is to speed up our strategic new direction within wind power. We will develop a portfolio in all maturity phases through M&A, organic development, and repowering. We're aiming of having more than 3 TWh in our own portfolio within the next 10 years. In wind power, it's about, as mentioned before, taking control, entering into early phases of development. Within liquid biofuels, we will start up the biorefinery together with St1 in Gothenburg. We expect high IRR levels in this project, above 20%, and our crude tall oil will be an important feedstock in this project. In Gothenburg, we will have a capacity of 200,000 tons, which SCA owns 50,000 tons. In Östrand, we will finalize our design phase and do the land reclamation, and the capacity here will be up to 300,000 tons.
We also have an existing biofuel business today, and we will increase the value of our existing biomass up until we have new biorefineries in place. We will optimize our production of pellets, our product portfolio, and profitability for the solid biomass business. With that, I conclude my presentation, and we move to Gothenburg to meet Johan and Oscar on how the project in Gothenburg are progressing.
In Gothenburg, SCA and St1 got an interesting collaboration, which we will now take a closer look at.
Hi, Johan and Oscar. What's happening here?
Here we are in the middle of constructing a biorefinery that will have a capacity of 200,000 tons per year once finalized in 2023. The production from the biorefinery will be renewable liquid fuels such as naphtha, jet fuel, and diesel.
Can you tell us how this works?
Well, we at SCA are supplying tall oil as one of the feedstocks for the unit. In the unit, oxygen and other unwanted contaminants are removed using hydrogen and a catalyst. Once the oxygen is removed, the product is fractionated into naphtha, jet fuel, and diesel.
What is the end product and how could we use it?
Well, the biorefinery and the process as such is very flexible, so we can basically choose to maximize the production of renewable jet fuel or renewable diesel fuel.
The Swedish domestic aviation sector uses approximately 170,000 tons of fuels per year, so this unit will have a significant contribution. 200,000 tons of liquid biofuels will also replace roughly 500,000 tons of fossil CO2 from the road transport sector.
Thank you for the information.
Sure.
You're welcome.
Now let's move on and learn more about our strategic investments. With me here today, I have Jerry Larsson, head of business area Wood. Jerry, you are going to give us an overview of our work in your business area, for example, our investments at the saw mill in Bollsta. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Anders. Well, SCA is all about how we create value of our forest asset, and we do that through our integrated value chain, and in that value chain, SCA Wood plays a crucial role. If you look upon the enterprise value of the company and divide that, as our analysts do, in different parts, 70% of the asset or the value is actually in the forest, and 30% is in the industry. Out of the industry, SCA Wood represents 25%. As a forest owner, the largest part of the revenue comes from the sawlog, actually around two-thirds. If we add together the value of SCA Wood as an industry and the value that we put on the forest by our purchase of sawlogs, we represent almost 50% of SCA total value, and it is really dependent on a competitive sawmill industry.
In the next picture, we want to show the balance between long-term demand and supply. The view for the nearest 10 years is that the demand will increase with approximately 2% per year. How is that demand then is going to be supported? Well, it has to be supported by an increase of harvesting of sawlogs. If we divide the world into regions and look upon the harvesting potential and begin with North America, we can see that there's an increase in harvesting potential, which gives a region in balance. The other part of the world where there is an increase of harvesting potential is Russia, but we all know the limitations and the sanctions put on Russia the last year, so that potential is blocked by sanctions.
If we move into Europe, we can see that the harvesting potential is limited or actually will decrease over a period of 10 years due to the large insect damages that we have in the central part of Europe, and also possibly by conflicting policy proposals from EU. The region of Europe will go from being a net exporter of sawn goods to a net importer of sawn goods over a period of 10 years. What conclusions can we take from that? Well, there are two, and one is that the forest is a strategic resource for the future, and secondly, that we will probably see a very good price environment for sawn products over the next 10 years.
In SCA Wood, we also work with how we are able to increase the value from each log. We want to give an example from the project that we're doing at the Bollsta Sawmill. It's divided in two parts. The first part is a CT log scan, which gives us the possibility to increase the revenue from each log. We will increase raw material yield. We will be able to optimize the product value from each and every log. Secondly, we're also putting in place the world's most efficient grading mill. That grading mill will increase our production efficiency. It will also create a base for potential increase in production at the Bollsta Sawmill up to 700,000 cubic meters from today's 550,000 cubic meters. With that, I conclude my presentation.
Thank you, Jerry. Now we head over to Bollsta Sawmill, where digitalization has become a successful and natural way to increase efficiency, but also safety for our employees.
I'm now located at Bollsta. In the background, you can see the sawmill. There, we're gonna meet up with some of my colleagues. They're gonna give us a tour.
Here we have an example of a cutting pattern. Here we have the center cut. We have sideboards. That will be the sawn products.
Thank you for the tour, Magnus and Ida. The sawlog is the most valuable part of the tree for a forest owner. What do you say about that?
Yeah, that's correct. About 70% of the value for a forest owner comes out of the sawlogs, and that's why it's so important that you have a well-invested, high technology at the sawmill, so we can produce maximum value out of the logs that we are getting here.
Ida, how do we create the maximum value of these logs?
One important factor is, of course, the volume yield, to get as much sawn products out of each log. That, in combination with our latest investment here in Bollsta, a 3D X-ray at the log sorting, makes it possible for us to look into the log even before the log has been cut, and in that way, we can see the log's internal characteristics. That combination makes it possible for us to meet the customer's demand in a profitable way.
Okay, what happens with the part of the log that isn't made into wood products, Magnus?
Correct. Some part we can't produce sawn products out of. Some part will be wood chips that is transported down to our pulp mill in Östrand. Other parts, the sawdust is transported to SCA Bionorr in Härnösand, where they do wood pellet. Out of the bark, we produce own energy in our boilers that is needed for our kilns. We also deliver district heating to the Bollsta society.
Ida, why is it important for a sawmill with digitalization and new technology?
That is, of course, important in many ways. SCA in general has very high-tech sawmills. In Bollsta, we have not only invested in this 3D X-ray at the log sorting, we will soon also have a completely new grading wheel with an IoT platform and a digital twin. That development, together with our employees, SCA can also in the future continue to be a leading supplier of sustainable products for a specific end use for our customers. In that way, we can maximize the value out of each log.
Okay, thank you for showing us one of Sweden's biggest and most modern sawmills.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
Business Area Pulp continues its strong growth. We are expanding our production capacity through a new facility at Ortviken in Sundsvall. Isn't that right, Kristina Enander, Head of Business Area Pulp?
That is right. Thank you, Anders. I will start to tell you about the global pulp market and some words about SCA's position in the pulp market, then I will continue to tell you about the status in the CTMP project in Ortviken. The total demand for pulp in the world amounts to roughly 400 million tons, and the total consumption of fresh pulp is about 200 million tons, of which 68 million tons is market pulp, and the rest is integrated pulp. The majority of the market pulp is hardwood pulp or short fiber, mainly eucalyptus, produced in South America, but also birch from Sweden and Finland.
Long fiber pulp or softwood pulp makes up 26 million tons, of which 50 million tons is NBSK, the strongest and most expensive pulp. This pulp is produced in the Northern Hemisphere, Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. SCA has a market share of about 6% in the NBSK market. The total consumption of CTMP in the world is roughly 4 million tons, and here SCA will have a market share of about 7%-8% when Ortviken pulp mill is up and running. The pulp market is global, with three dominant geographical players. We have Europe, U.S., and China. We have chosen Europe and U.S. as our core markets, where we have 85%-90% of our volumes contracted. In this market, SCA has its own market organization.
Our ambition is to have the market's best NBSK offer in for tissue customers. Today, we have 70% of our volumes in that segment. The tissue market is growing by about 3% every year, has viable players and a stable demand. If we have a leading position in this segment, we can secure a market for the production. Our assessment is that the demand for NBSK increases by 1%-2% per year. Over time, almost all the increase will take place in Asia, and mainly in the tissue segment. Also the board segment, and including special paper, has a healthy development, but the printing paper has a declining demand.
Additional new capacity of long fiber until 2025 is about 900,000 tons. Metsä Fibre is building a new softwood kraft pulp mill in Kemi, which will have a production capacity of 800,000 tons. Södra is planning to increase the production in Värö by 100,000 tons. This corresponds to a growth rate of 1%, and this will give us a healthy balance between supply and demand. Regarding CTMP, Ortvikens is the only non-decided additional CTMP capacity, and the latest forecast, it shows that an increase of demand of about 2.8% per year. However, the majority of the additional pulp capacity comes from hardwood, as much as 8.5 million tons in the coming years.
In 2020, SCA made a decision to close the printing paper business, and at the same time, took the decision to invest in a new CTMP plant at Ortviken with an annual capacity of 300,000 tons. The investment cost is about SEK 1.5 billion, and Valmet is the main supplier. In 2009, SCA invested in a new TMP plant. Since the paper machines now are closed, we can use some of the equipment in the CTMP plant. For example, the top modern peroxide bleaching plant with world-class chemical consumption figures, and also refiners with low energy consumption. This ends up in the very low and competitive investment cost per ton and also low cash cost up and running.
This will place us in top quartile regarding cost position among the American and European CTMP producers. The CTMP market is 4 million tons, and it is growing. The main market or our main market will continue to be Europe, but since the market is limited, we will also establish in U.S. and China. So far, the sales in Europe has been very, very successful, and 2/3 of the sale will go to existing CTMP and NBSK customers, and that is the strength of the project. Expanding our CTMP business will create an increased customer value by offering our customers a product portfolio that is still based on several wood raw materials, and also a broadened portfolio regarding fiber grinding and brightness.
We have developed a unique birch CTMP. That product is more bulky than other products and has particular interesting properties for the board customer, which is a growing CTMP segment. The expansion project began in 2020, and initially, we planned to start up the production in the first quarter of next year. We are ahead of schedule, and we are starting up the plant as we speak. When production is stable, and we have verified all the main products, we will close the plant in Östrand. As I told you before, this project, with this project, we will increase the production from 100,000 tons- 300,000 tons of CTMP at SCA, also add SEK 300 million to the EBITDA.
By moving the CTMP production from Östrand to Ortvikens, we will also create opportunities for a further expansion of the NBSK production at Östrand. Next year, the annual production of CTMP totally will be between 150,000 tons and 200,000 tons. That will conclude my presentation.
Thank you, Kristina. That's very impressive. Josefine, you were visiting Ortviken the other day, and you had a look at our new production facility for CTMP over there. Let's have a look
Welcome to Ortviken and yet another investment project where we reuse existing equipment to build one of the most efficient CTMP mills in the world. Come along. Hi, Håkan. Thank you for having us.
It's a pleasure.
Can you please tell me a bit about this project?
Well, we are actually building a new CTMP plant here at Ortviken, and right now we are in the middle of the commissioning and the water run phase, and very soon, we are actually going to produce the new pulp here.
That's exciting.
Yes, it is.
I have heard reusing plays an important role in this project. In what way?
Well, we have tried to reuse, of course, the wood processing plant, the refiner, the heart of this CTMP plant is also reused, and the infrastructure, the water treatment, and so on. Also the operators have been working here at Ortviken before, so that is very good.
Sustainable and efficient.
Yes, it is.
How is this mill equipped for the future?
We have really thought a lot about the energy consumption, and here I think we are in the top league in the world, and also with chemical consumption, we are really in the top. That is very, very good.
Impressive. I'm looking forward to coming here soon again.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Now, I would like to welcome Mats Nordlander, Head of Business Area Containerboard. We're in an exciting phase, making a major investment in what will be the world's largest kraftliner machine, featuring a nearly fossil-free production process. Mats, does that mean we're phasing out fossil fuels?
That is correct, Josefine. With this project, we are phasing out the use of fossil oil in our production process, which is very important, not at the least for our customer, who can strengthen their sustainability work when they are using our products. Now, with this presentation, my intention is to make a short recap of the logics of making this huge investment, and secondly, status report of the project in itself. We are, of course, investing into more kraftliner production because it's a profitable business. We have shown that over a long period of time. It's also a growth area. It's a business that is growing long-term, as you can see here. It's of course, not unaffected by the general economical development, but the long-term trend is very resilient and very positive.
When we made the investment, we had gone through a period of time where the growth had been 2.4% annually, our projection for the coming 10 years or the basis for investment was based on a growth of 1.8% over the next 10 years, which would give an additional demand in Europe of 900,000 tons of kraftliner. With the investment we are doing here, we can fill that gap and satisfy the needs of European demand. We are also investing into the best available technology. We made the investment making sure that this machine would be competitive in the next coming 50 years.
As you can see of this graph, we, which is showing, the width on one axis and the speed on the other axes, it is a very productive paper machine, but it's also filled with the best available technology, giving us a huge development potential going forward. We are, of course, improving our cost position, and we can at least short-term, strengthen our leading market position in Europe. The project, when we made the investment, we said that already year one, that means next year, we are going to have a slightly higher production than previous year, this year, as you can see. The ramp-up curve would be over the years. Our estimate is that we are going to reach the 725,000 tons by 2026.
We are already now producing on the new paper machine. That is a project ahead of time, and we are on budget, which is very good, following the challenges we have met during the project. We are now producing 24 hours per day and seven days a week on the new paper machine, and the old paper machine is permanently closed. We are now entering into the final phase of the full project, where we are investing into a new recycled paper line to satisfy the full needs of pulp to the new paper machine. That is expected to be ready by mid 2023, and then we have the pulp capacity needed for the paper machine capacity.
What has been very unique with this project is that we have been able to run the old paper machine at full speed up till we were satisfied with the productivity of the new paper machine. We have been test running now the new paper machine for some months, and we are feeling comfortable to close the old one. This also means that we can produce a project that is profitable already from year one. Thank you.
Thank you, Mats. From Sundsvall, we now head over to Umeå and Obbola that you were visiting recently, Anders.
That's right, Josefine. I met with Gustaf Nygren and Per Strand who told me more about this impressive project in Obbola. Welcome to Obbola, a small village just outside Umeå in northern Sweden. Here, SCA is running its containerboard expansion project, and now we will meet Gustaf Nygren and Per Strand to tell us more about this exciting project. This is a major project, Per. What makes this project so special?
This is by far the biggest kraftliner machine in the world. Our unique competence and experience from over 60 years of kraftliner production in combination with new technology will make us meet the growing demands for sustainable packaging paper.
We're also taking a major leap when it comes to sustainability and being fossil free. Tell us more about that, Gustav.
Yes, we take great pride in that we now can run the kraftliner production process fossil-free. We accomplished this by replacing oil with wood pellets made from SCA's by-products. The result of that is that we now can take out the need of 10,000 cubic meter of oil per year.
All this you have accomplished in a very short period of time. Can you tell us a little bit more about the project, Per?
The project started already in 2019 when we got the approval for the project. We started immediately with the civil works because it's a huge machine hall we have built. The machine hall was ready for a start of machine installation in August 2021, and then when the machine installation was done, we have been in test running mode with the paper machine since September this year.
Just about when you started this project, we were impacted by a global pandemic. How did you manage this global pandemic at the same time as you built this new machine? Gustav, can you tell us more about that?
The mill organization together with the project organization managed the pandemic with a structured approach and strict control. Despite the pandemic, the project is on time and on budget.
Thank you, Gustav, and thank you, Per, for having us here today.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our products have to reach our customers on time, which means structured, effective, and sustainable transport is of vital importance. Josefine, you met with Magnus Svensson, our Director of Logistics and Purchasing, the other day. Let's have a look.
Growing industrial production also requires more and smarter logistics. We will now meet Magnus to find out how SCA is reshaping the logistic operations for the future. Magnus, good to see you. There is a lot of activity going on. Can you please tell me where we are and what is happening?
Well, Josefine, right now we're standing in the port of Sundsvall, beside us is the port terminal, which SCA is building, and directly connected to this is the new rail terminal, which the municipality is building. This will really improve the possibilities for us to develop our logistics. The port here, which we see, will have 15 meters draft and allow SCA to use as big container and bulk vessels as can trade to and from the Baltic Sea. The rail terminal will allow us to use the longest and heaviest train possible to use within Sweden. Together, they will help us to improve our logistics to our customers worldwide. Connected to this, the Swedish state is investing in the rail tracks to and from the port and to and from our industries.
Together with the rail connection SCA is building at the industrial sites, it will also allow us to use rail, the longest and heaviest trains and most efficient trains for raw materials, logs and so on, into our industries. This combination will help us to develop our logistics for the coming decades.
How will these infrastructure investments affect SCA's future competitiveness?
Logistics cost accounts for roughly 20% of our total cost base, so it is very important that we have efficient logistics. Just close to this port, SCA have three of its largest industrial sites, the Östrand, Ortviken, and Tunadal sites. In the region also, we have the Bollsta and Gällö sites. This will improve the competitiveness for a large part of SCA's industrial base. They will be more competitive. This, of course, also very important because SCA have a large part of our forest land in this area. Indirectly, it will also strengthen the value of our forest holdings.
SCA's ongoing growth investments will also increase delivery volumes. How will that affect the logistic operations?
Well, of course, more volumes means that it's easier for us to put in larger vessels without reducing the frequency. We can still keep the service level, but reduce the cost and improve our environmental performance. Bigger vessels means less energy consumption, so less emissions and lower cost. Same goes for the rail. The more volume we have, the easier it is to run block trains, long and heavy block trains, which will reduce our cost and increase our energy efficiency and also then our environmental performance. The new investment will be a big help to improve for the logistic solutions also for the future.
Great. Thank you, Magnus.
Thank you.
We now have a better view of SCA's operations and how well-positioned the company is for a future where sustainability will be even more important. Now it's time for Q&A. If you wish to ask a question, please dial one of the telephone numbers written in the invitation. First, we'll take a short break. See you in a few minutes.
Welcome back, everybody. Ulf, we have highlighted several successful projects that are on budget and on time. What is the key to a successful project?
I think we have done a lot of really big projects. I think if you train on something, sooner or later you get good on it. That is one explanation. I also think that we are performing rather solid pre-projects. We spend quite a lot of money before we run into the project, that is also super important, I think. Last but not least, of course, we have very competent people, both inside SCA, also I think that we try to find best suppliers. That altogether, I think that brings some kind of success.
We've seen presentations today from large parts of the organization. How would you summarize this day?
Well, I think that we are well-positioned for the future. Today we have heard about a lot of ongoing projects, and they will come on stream next year. I mean, we have the kraftliner project in Obbola. We have the CTMP project here in Ortviken, Bollsta Sawmill, the new biorefinery, and so on and so on. I mean, they will start to deliver cash next year and that will give us a strong position, I think. Basically, we also invest a lot in our current asset base, and by that we also have a good cost position, which is, of course, good. I think also next year might be a turbulent year and we have been talking about degree of self-sufficiency, and we have a high degree of self-sufficiency.
We have it in wood, we have it in energy, we have it in logistics, and that will also be important things to have if things getting worse, of course. We have the forest. I think it's also important because the forest is growing both good days and bad days. Last but not least, we have a super strong balance sheet.
Thank you, Ulf. Now let's move over to our Q&A session. First, a couple of house rules. Please direct your question to one of the members of the panel that we here have here today. Secondly, please ask one question per time so you can come back later on and ask another question, but one question at a time. Operator, please go ahead and the first question, please.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure your mute function is switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. As a reminder, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up to allow all participants the opportunity to signal for a question. Our first question comes from Robin Santavirta of Carnegie.
Thank you very much. Really good and interesting presentations you have had today. I guess my question is to Ulf, and it's related to capital allocation. I guess you show now that the target is 3 TWh worth of wind power in production in 10 years time. Can you share some sort of information about what kind of CapEx that would require? Secondly, what kind of returns of, or profitability or earnings impact, should we expect? I know it's early days, but I guess you have more information on this than we. The second part related to capital allocation is it only now wind power and renewable energies of which is the key focus?
Historically you have the big forest and you have proven track record in the industrial operations, quite good proven track record. Now it seems that the focus is more on energy rather than increasing the industrial production. Is that the right way to look at it? Thank you.
If we start with the wind power, I mean, you can calculate yourself, and it depends on what kind of project we will run. I mean, 3 TWh, that should be around SEK 10 billion-SEK 15 billion, something like that. Return, I mean, it depends if you, if you buy something that is already ready, up and running, that can be good, probably a low return, but it can be long-term a better case because you might have positioned yourself for repowering, so that could be one thing. Organic, if we develop projects organically, I mean, then you probably have a higher return. We have some challenges when it comes to permissions, some environmental permissions and things like that.
Of course, we see also, as Mikael mentioned, the big potential in repowering. I mean, it is a mix of different projects. You will have slightly different return in different times, but all in all between SEK 10 billion-SEK 15 billion, I would say. That was the first one. If I remember the second question, because it was a second question anyway. I mean, we will continue, as I said, we will continue to capture opportunities for organic growth in our industry. I also said that we have a number of different projects and of course we will, we will utilize the position that we have and continue to develop the industry as well as we will continue to buy forest land and develop that part.
Our next question comes from Oskar Lindström of Danske Bank.
Good afternoon, thank you for very interesting presentations today. My question is to Mikael Källgren on the wind power strategy. I mean, I agree with you that most of the value creation in onshore wind power is probably in the development phase. What is the logic for SCA to sort of essentially replace pension funds as long-term owners of wind power on its lands? I mean, once built, you know, is there any potential to increase value further? Are there any sort of synergies or other things which means that there's a logic for you to remain, you know, just an owner of these wind farms? Thank you.
Thank you. I think the important part that we're focusing on today is getting control of the development and building a portfolio. Exactly how we will tackle the future depends on many things. I guess for now, we're focusing on getting control and building our portfolio ourselves. I think what we see is that we want to contribute in this transition towards renewables, and we see all these industries being announced. Of course, we will follow this closely and monitoring this. I guess our focus right now, control, developing a portfolio, and then we will adapt our tactics along the way.
Our next question comes from Johannes Grunselius of DNB.
Yes. Hi, everyone. It's Johannes here, thank you for a very interesting event also from my side. I have a question for Andreas. I was thinking about the forestry values, and in the presentation, I got clearly the impression, of course, that prices are stable or on its way up, or rather on its way up. I was just thinking about if you can indicate something about your upcoming valuation on the forestry. Also related to the, yeah, forestry business, I mean, on a.
Areas where you can perhaps be sellers if really, you know, if there's a really high demand for some areas of forestry or you can use them in as a seller. I was basically also thinking on the fact that you have quite a lot of non-productive forest land in your books. Thank you.
Thank you. Start off with forest valuation, we use a three-year average. I mean, if you see now the prices have continued to increase in 2022, and in the second half of 2022, the prices have been on a high level and almost increased compared to the first half-year. They have continued to increase. I mean, that will be positive for our yearly revaluation. On the second part for if we want to sell, I mean, we are a net buyer of forests, but I mean, we can always sell if we want to, but in general we are a buyer. What we do is that we sell land far away from our industries, and then we use that money to buy land closer to our industries.
Our next question comes from Michail Filippidis of Jefferies.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Hope everyone is well. I have one on first valuation. It's partially been answered, but I guess just a quick follow-up is that it looks like that after years of positive market trends, some investors are starting to fear some reversion in valuation due to higher rates impacting cost of capital. They're starting to apply discount to SCA forest value even if theoretically should get the legal entity and size premium. What's your thoughts on that? Thank you.
No, as I said, I mean, we use a three-year average price, we have not seen any impact from higher interest yet. What we have seen is that the prices have continued to increase driven by high demand. We think we see a lot of interest from forest as a protection against inflation, and also a lot of high net individuals interested in buying forest as part of their portfolio. Accounting-wise, we have to divide the total value between biological assets, which we do by a long-term DCF, and then the rest is land value. We focus on the total value and then we are free, use a three-year average, and then we have a headroom to current prices.
We can go to Christian Kopfer of Handelsbanken.
Yep. Thanks. Thanks, operator. A follow-up on the forest valuation then, I guess for Andreas then, because you already talked about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding, you are not including any premium for company-owned forest versus privately owned forest in your three-year rolling average valuation model. If not, are you considering to include it as you now pretty much very clear, you know, highlighting that there is a premium?
No. That's correct. I mean, we use the total market prices, so we don't include that premium. We have not included that in our book value because there are too few transactions to have reliable statistics each year. As Svefa said, this year has only been almost no legal entries for sale in our region. It's few two transactions to base the forest valuation.
Our next question comes from Oskar Lindström of Danske Bank.
Yes. I have a question for Kristina on the pulp side. You say that you will be transferring CTMP production from Östrand to Ortviken, and that this will enable you to increase NBSK production at Östrand. Could you say something about, you know, when and how much you will be able to increase NBSK production at Östrand?
We have no decision in the expansion of the NBSK production at Östrand yet. We have an environment permission of 1.1 million tons in Östrand of NBSK.
Our next question is from Andrew Jones of UBS.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to ask about biofuels and just get some idea for the contribution to EBITDA. There's not many numbers on the slide. For both projects, what sort of EBITDA contribution are you expecting? And, you know, what sort of margins are typical for these sort of plants? And, you know, how does it compare now? It's obviously peak, you know, energy price levels compared to a quote-unquote normalized environment pre 2021. Just some ballpark that we can understand, you know, what the, what the value proposition is here. Thanks.
Yeah. If you start with the biorefinery in Gothenburg, we guided that we're investing SEK 650 million, and we give a EBITDA contribution of around SEK 200 million with normalized prices. Today it will be more. I mean, today we have HVO prices of over SEK 3,000 per tons. If we become large, I mean, you can look at our Finnish competitors know we're a large player in the US to see the margins. We have guided SEK 200 million with trend prices, and with the current high prices, it's even higher.
Our next question comes from Linus Larsson of SEB.
Thank you very much, many thanks for interesting presentations today. I'd like to come back to capital allocation. You have a strong balance sheet, thank you very much for the guidance on the wind power initiatives or the CapEx in the years to come. If we look at the next couple of years, say 2023, 2024, how do you see capital allocation split between dividend buybacks, acquisitions and not least CapEx? Are you seeing increasing or declining CapEx from 2022 levels, for instance?
If we start with CapEx, if you start with our ongoing strategic projects, we have around SEK 1 billion left during the next years, also including some forest acquisitions in Baltics. Then we have our current CapEx, which will be around SEK 1.5 billion, and we expect something similar next year, plus inflation. Then we have, as Ulf mentioned, our target to reach 3 TWh of wind, which will be SEK 10 billion-SEK 15 billion in 10 years. Then it depends on what kind of other decisions we take. In terms of dividend, we have a target to have a stable and increasing dividend over time. I think you can look at our track record to see how much we have increased each year.
As a reminder, if you do have a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Andrew Jones, UBS.
Hello. I just wanted to follow up on the previous question. You didn't mention anything about Ortviken. I mean, do we basically just scale that 200 million EBITDA guidance from 200,000 tons- 300,000 tons or is there a major difference in terms of feedstock or profitability? Can you just tell us about what the sort of feedstock mix is gonna be for those two plants? Thanks.
If you talk about the biorefinery in Ortviken, I mean, that is at an early stage. The CapEx for going to for solid biofuels to liquid biofuels is higher compared to going from liquid to liquid. That's a too early stage to say anything about the CapEx.
Our next question is from Christian Kopfer of Handelsbanken.
Yeah. Thanks again. My second question is for, I think, Mikael on wind power. Are you talking about there is a lot of potential to repower older turbines? What would you say about the chance of success when it comes to environmental permits and or say general permits from the neighborhood and so on to repower old turbines?
Okay. Today, we have the same process for repowering as we have for greenfield, but there are discussion of shortening the permitting phases and also easing up for certain kind of permits and I think repowering is something where you exchange old turbine, new turbines, old turbines with new, sorry, is something that you could do much shorter than today. Of course, we should have a good permitting process, but today you can have like, it could take seven years to get a greenfield permit, and that is not, I think, acceptable for repowering. Today, there is a challenge of getting new permits in Sweden. That's a fact.
It's something that we need to handle, and I think as a local stakeholder and, being present in the northern part of Sweden, we have good opportunities to do this better than others. Yeah.
Our next question is from Robin Santavirta of Carnegie.
Thank you. I have a question related to the growth investments and especially, the kraftliner expansion in Obbola and then the CTMP pulp expansion in Ortviken. You have provided quite good information about obviously the volume, but also the long-term earnings impact, and that is very appreciated. What about shorter term? How should we look at the end of this year and next year when it comes to both these investments and the earnings impact? Related to that, how should we model the depreciation then of these investments? Are they started now already fully or coming in gradually next year? Thanks.
Maybe I should answer this question. When it comes to the more short-term situation, we know that we are now for different reasons coming into a weaker market. You can see that in the statistics that's public, that the demand goes down. We are seeing that inventories have gone up, and they are on a quite high level.
The question I think is whether and how long time the postponements of purchase will continue before it turns back. In my presentation, I showed you the resilience of the growth trend of containerboard. Short-term, we have impacts that's impacting, I would say, both, demand in Europe or globally, and it impacts pricing. I don't want to make a prediction of the pricing outlook. But you saw in October, the index price was reduced by EUR 30 in October. November pricing comes soon, and it's yet too early to speculate on that one. On the depreciation, we start the full depreciation of the project that is part of the project that is ready as of 1st of January.
The remaining project part will come when they are finalized. As we have announced, we have yet to finalize the recycled pulp part. There was a C line in the first half of next year. The vast majority of the capital is within the project scope that we start full depreciation of as of first of January.
As a reminder, if you do have a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. We can go to Oskar Lindström of Danske Bank.
Yes. I have another question here on the forest side. I guess it's for you, Jonas. You mentioned the Baltics and you know, that you have an ambition to buy more forest land. I'm wondering, I mean, I realize there might be smaller lots available sort of continuously. How often are there larger tracks of forest land available for you to acquire? I mean, are we looking towards, you know, you adding hundreds of thousands of hectares, or will we, you know, will it be more smaller additions?
Yeah. Thank you. If you look at, Since we started to acquire forest land in the Baltics, we have acquired between five to maybe eight, as we call it, larger portfolios. They will be in the market, not every year, but sometimes, maybe once or twice per year. We are very focused right now on purchasing small plots from private forest owners. We just have to wait and see, so I cannot predict how many we will have the coming years. Right now, we see that we will be around 70,000 hectares of forest land by the end of this year, which means we are in line with the target we set three years ago. We hope that there will be some larger portfolios also available during next year or the coming years.
We are focusing a lot on smaller plots also. We have a very efficient process to buy these small plots right now.
All right. Thank you.
Our next question is from Andrew Jones of UBS.
Hi. Thanks again. slightly provocative one. you know, you're telling us that your book value per, you know, for the forest, which is about SEK 120 per share, something in that ballpark, should be valued on 40%-50% more, so, you know, way above where your share price is today. What's more important to the company? Is it being integrated into forest or is it growing your share price?
Maybe it's my question. If it's most important to grow the forest or the share price, was that the question?
Kind of, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the forest will grow even if you like it or not. I mean, you have that growth every year. Then as we say, we buy the forest land that we can buy. That is important. I think long term, that will also increase the share price. I think it is a combination. Forest is a great asset, and that's also the foundation for the industry. We think it's really crucial to keep the balance between the industry part and the forest part, I also think it will be beneficial to now increase the renewable energy part in the company. Was that some kind of answer for you?
Kind of. I'm sure the forest will grow regardless, but whether you have to be growing it may be another question given.
I mean, again, we have, I mean, the foundation of this company is the forest, and that was also the starting point back in 1929. Step by step we have increased, I mean, the forest land in the company. As we've said also in the past, we have bought a lot of forest land and we will continue to buy forest land also going forward. In Sweden, we have a limitation when it comes to buying from small private forest owners. That's the reason also why we now say that we will buy in the Baltics, of course, but we're also looking into opportunities within all Nordic countries.
I mean, so that might be the limitation, Nordic countries and, the Baltics. Everything in this region is of, interest.
Okay, thank you. Our next question is from Linus Larsson of SEB.
Thanks again. Here's another question for Jonas, and it's on carbon sequestration. I occasionally get questions about potential monetization of carbon sequestration in forest land and how do you see that market potentially developing? Do you want to play a part in that development? Overall, what's your stance towards such market?
Okay. Thank you. As you said, the market is developing, but we also see a risk that it will reduce the amount of available, sustainable raw material for our industry, which will also have a negative impact on climate smart products like wooden houses and other products. There is also a risk. We see some potential of course, but also a risk. Right now we think that the wood that comes from the forest makes better use in our industry than standing there and for just standing. That's our view right now.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question is from Joffrey Bellicha of Bank of America.
Yes, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I guess this question is for Ulf. Kind of taking the step we're beginning this discussion around forest here. As you said in the presentation, you are not fully integrated on your forest asset and actually not as many people are in Europe. We know that also that there are large private buyers for forest assets in Sweden at the moment. Do you think that there is a risk in the short or mid term that you lose the contract that you have secured with some of the private forest owners in terms of wood supply for your businesses in Sweden? Thank you.
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, all forest owners, they need an industry in order to put value on the forest. That goes for SCA as being the biggest private forest owner in Europe. I mean, you have the same situation for a small or a mid-sized private forest owner. You need the industry in order to put value. I mean, that's the reason why we always try to find out how to maximize the value all the way from each tree down to end products. That's the reason also. One day we closed down our publication paper business, the other day we invest SEK 8 billion in a new kraftliner machine in Obbola or SEK 8 billion in a new pulp line in Östrand.
Of course, I mean, in the northern part of Sweden where we are present, we are more or less all over the place, and that give us a good opportunity to be really efficient in our purchasing from private forest owners. Not only that, I mean, we can also be efficient when it comes to hauling and to harvesting and so on, and by that also increase the value for each forest owners, not only for SCA or forest owners, but also for other players.
As a final reminder, it is star one if you'd like to ask a question. We can go to Robin Santavirta of Carnegie.
Yes, thank you. Perhaps a final from me related to sawn timber and this is again a bit of a shorter terms of the question because the long-term trends are well explained, and we know them. What should we think about the outlook for 2023? I know you, Ulf, gave a good prediction on your view of Q4. That's good. When we go into 2023, I guess there's different kind of thematics in play, perhaps not at least more supply, but on the other hand, the end demand of construction and DIY probably quite weak.
should we look at low prices for all of the year or do you expect a rebound, when we come to the high season in the summer? What is your view?
Well, as you say, the conditions in the world is difficult to foresee. If we start with what we know, and that is that the prices has decreased from the second quarter to the third and from the third to the fourth. Cost has increased, general inflation and, especially the log cost. Those two areas has decreased margin for us and for many others. With that said, we can see production going down already. We foresee that the production will continue to go down, the later part of this year and into the first quarter next year. With that said, our view is that, we won't lower prices anymore, for the first quarter next year from today.
If you look further from there, it's difficult to foresee, but that is what we know as of today.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up from Linus Larsson of SEB.
Thank you. Just a quick follow-up on your forest land purchasing strategy. You previously talked about targeting 100,000 hectares, and I think Jonas just said that you're expecting 70,000 hectares reached by the end of the current year. Now, Ulf, you make a point also to say that it's not only the Baltics, but also other Nordic countries that you're looking at. If you could just please clarify, How much forest land are you looking to buy? And is it so that in the coming year or years we should expect forest land purchases outside of the Baltics, and if so, where?
Our target right now is to reach this 100,000 hectares of forest land in the Baltic region and then we will see. That is what we are focusing on right now.
Maybe I'll just add, if that was not clear, I mean, we have set some kind of limitation because from time to time we had the question, "Are you willing to buy forest land in Brazil or other areas of the world?" We're not. We will stay where we are in the same geography. As Jonas says, I mean, we buy as much as we can to at least a decent price level in the Baltics, and I mean, you never know when you have the opportunity to buy something from someone. You have to be two for a tango, so. If we have the right opportunity, then of course we are interested, so. We will stay in the geography where we are today.
Would you buy forest land in, say, Finland or the current geography? Does that mean northern Sweden and the Baltics?
If you have something to sell in Finland, I buy it from you. Yes.
Great. Thank you very much.
Great.
We have a follow-up from Oskar Lindström of Danske Bank.
Thank you. I have a final question from my side, and it's to you, Ulf. 10, 15 years ago, you were exploring the opportunities together with others sort of Nordic or northern Swedish industries in developing new nuclear power in Sweden. Then you dropped that, I think, around 2014, 2015.
Mm-hmm.
Is this something that could become, you know, interesting for you again as a way to help develop, sort of industry and the real estate that you have in northern Sweden to participate in a consortium to develop new nuclear power?
I think it's much cheaper to develop what we can do in wind power. As Mikael Källgren said, I mean, we have a potential on land of 65 TWh and what we see as now is that we can realize 15 TWh. The reason, you know, I mean, we have this process for getting permissions and things like that. I think that something will happen here. Also Mikael talked about repowering, and I mean, I think that's a no-brainer to go from six, seven years to get a no to six months to get a yes in repowering. That's also. We discussed what kind of projects are we interested in wind power.
I mean, we like to position ourselves in a way that we can benefit from mainly from the repowering potential that we can see. Also, of course, greenfield projects. The answer on nuclear is no, I would say.
All right. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Pardon me. We have a question from Andrew Jones.
Returns on those different projects. I mean, obviously you don't know how much is gonna come from each, but what sort of returns do you sort of see in, you know, in greenfield generation of wind compared to, you know, this repowering idea, you know, compared to just basically taking on existing projects and running them? How do those IRRs sort of stack up from what you can see?
Yeah. As I said in my presentation, if we look at, of course, wind power profitability is also about power prices. If you look at today, and if you do a greenfield development on your own and you continue with an operation and final investment decision, you will get, I believe double digit IRR levels. Bottom line, onshore wind power is a profitable investment.
That's the greenfield.
Yeah, that's-
What about the repowering?
If you do repowering, we expect 10%-15% of the infrastructure is such that you can reuse. That is why we also see that repowering will be also more profitable than greenfield.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Thanks.
As there are no further questions at this time, I'd like to hand the call back to Anders Edholm for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. With that then, I would like to thank you all for watching and wish you a happy weekend. Thank you.