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Copec's fourth quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. Today's presentation and the fourth quarter 2022 earnings release are available on the company's Investor Relations website. investor.empresascopec.cl. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this presentation may include market outlooks and forward-looking statements, which are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Empresas CapEx management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Empresas Copec and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. This presentation contains certain performance measures that have been adjusted with respect to IFRS definitions, such as EBITDA. In this opportunity, questions will be received in written form. If you have a question, please write it down in the Q&A session. Please be aware that your company's name should be visible for your questions to be taken.
I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rodrigo Huidobro, Chief Financial Officer of Empresas Copec. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. Sorry for the delay, we had a small technical problem. Thank you all for joining us today. In this conference call, we will be taking a look at the results of fourth quarter 2022 for Empresas Copec. For that purpose, I'm joined here today by people from our Investor Relations department, led by Mr. Cristian Palacios; and also people from Arauco, led by Mr. Gianfranco Truffello. They will all be helping us out in the Q&A session at the end of the presentation. Having said that, let us go to the main findings here for the quarter. So as you can see there on the screen, this was a quarter where we recorded lower results at what we have been recording for the last few quarters, that had to do essentially with a drop in the results in our Forestry sector -- in the different divisions in our Forestry sector, and together with that, we recorded a couple of nonrecurrent nonoperational results, which were also very significant for the quarter and for the year as a whole. If you go division by division, you can see that in Forestry, we had a drop in volumes, offset by higher prices in pulp and panels, but in general drop in volumes across all segments.
We had increased costs for all segments as well. Drop in volumes as well will be compared with the immediately preceding quarter drop in volumes and in prices in pulp and wood. And as I said, a very strong nonoperational result, nonrecovering we had to do with remuneration of biological assets and also impairments of assets. We'll look at some more of that in detail going forward.
In Energy, it was a good quarter. We had a good result in energy. We had higher margins at Copec, Mapco and Terpel together with higher volumes at Terpel, slight decrease in volumes in Chile, together with decreasing volumes in Mapco essentially with the fact that at the beginning of the year, we sold out approximately 10% of the total gas stations in Mapco. In terms of other developments and projects during the quarter, we had the beginning of operations at MAPA by the end of the quarter. Together with that, we had the closing of the acquisition operation for Blue Express, this last-mile logistics company, which was acquired by Copec and also the authorization to enter the digital payments industry. And we have Mina Justa in Peru the copper [indiscernible] completing the first full year of operations.
Regarding ESG, Copec continues to make progress very steadily in electromobility. And Empresas Copec was confirmed in the Dow Jones Index -- Sustainability Index, and also awarded some interesting recognitions in a couple of local rankings. And finally, at Arauco made a good progress in terms of waste revaluation. The numbers for this quarter are $679 million for the EBITDA, $679 million, which compares, of course, unfavorably with the latest EBITDA that we had recorded. We had recorded EBITDA of around $900 million to $1 billion for 6 quarters in a row, and now we're down to $679 million, which means 25% down year-on-year and 29% quarter-on-quarter. In terms of net income, it's a minus 9, so it's a loss of $9 million, essentially stemming from the nonoperational nonrecurring effects that we mentioned.
The main differences in EBITDA comes from the forestry sector as you can see there, Arauco accounts for $235 million of the difference with respect to the EBITDA of the quarter -- corresponding quarter of the previous year. This, as I said, is a 25% decrease and has to do in Forestry essentially to drops in volumes and that applies for pulp, panels and sawn timber, added to a drop in prices of sawn.
We also saw higher costs across all divisions. In terms of energy savings, this is increased and increasing Copec essentially and has to do with improved margins basically across all geographies for Copec.
With that, moving on to the net income. The comparison with respect to the fourth quarter of 2021, you can see that it's actually the same analysis, but most of the difference comes from Arauco, where we had this drop in operational figures together with this nonrecurring effect that we are recording due to impairments, essentially Argentina and also a negative revaluation of biological assets. Together with that, we had some decreased results Mina Justa in when you compare it with the fourth quarter 2021 and also at the parent company level because of some negative tax results in this particular quarter when compared with the fourth quarter last year.
Getting into some more detail into the numbers. You can see that the -- as we said, the net income for the quarter is a loss of $9 million. Operating income amounts to $357 million, which is a decrease of $248 million with respect to last year to 2021. Once again, it has to do with decreased results at Arauco coming from volumes and prices going up, essentially across all divisions. And that is offset to a certain extent by our Energy division where we have good margins at Copec in all its geographies.
So Chile, Colombia and Mapco in the U.S. with good margins. In terms of nonoperational results, we had this impairment of fixed assets, essentially Argentina. We had a revaluation of biological assets which we do once a year, in this case, turned out negative. There's a huge effect of the increase in interest rates, discount rates for the different countries. So a lot of that comes from the sector of interest rates.
We also have higher financial expenses associated with higher debt and also, of course, the increase in interest rates. And finally, a negative exchange rate extending essentially from some assets that we hold in local currencies that were depreciated when measured in dollars because of the rise in the exchange rate.
All in all, we had, as I said, a net income of minus $9 million and an EBITDA of $680 million approx. In terms of our balance sheet, we continue to do well in our financial ratios. Still a good EBITDA margin, lower than the comparable quarters, a good return on capital employed, amounting to 13% compared with 16% last quarter and 13% as well, 1 year before this quarter.
Leverage is totally controlled. EBITDA on net interest is at 12.6%, very good, and net debt to EBITDA is 2.3%, slightly higher than those preceding quarters, that is a little bit [indiscernible] though because it includes a very good effect of working capital having to do with accounts receivable essentially with the state of Chile matter which should be regularized over the next few months.
So a little misleading this 2.3. If we make some adjustments, it should go down to 2.5. So anyhow, well, into the range that we have defined in our financial policy, and very much controlled net debt-to-EBITDA. We have a well-balanced debt schedule for the years to come, although this particular year, we're facing a lot of maturities and the refinancing requirements. We have started doing so already. We, in fact, we issued a bond in the bulk market in November, $254 million in very good conditions. And we are looking at other options to refinance the coming maturities that, of course, as always. -- as always, local bonds, international bonds. We have local and international credit lines. We have cash in hand and so on and so forth.
So this maturity should be well attended. If we get into more detail for the different divisions, getting into the Forestry sector to start with, you can see that EBITDA went down and reached $408 million compared to $643 million for the comparing quarter, 1 year before, which means a decline of $235 million. As we said before, this stems basically from a deterioration of the market condition in different segments. We had a drop in volumes across all divisions. We had an increase in costs for all division as well.
And we had a decrease in sawn wood or timber prices offset by higher prices in pulp and panels. So market general have become more challenging, and we'll see some more of that in a while. Net income, of course, goes down. And part of that has to do as we explained before with nonoperational factors, which were very significant during this quarter. Other income is impacted by a negative evaluation of our biological assets, in part from the increase in discount rates. We have higher other expenses linked to impairments essentially made in Argentina for our fixed assets. And as we also said before, some negative effects coming from exchange rate differences. If we get deeper into pulp, you see that EBITDA for pulp goes down from $352 million to $282 million fourth quarter 2022 and also compares unfavorably with the $308 million that we record in the third quarter 2022.
Year-on-year, the difference is explained basically by lower volumes offset to a certain extent by higher prices. And the difference is also explained by costs going up across all fibers in percentages that range between 2% and 44%, in this last case for bleached Softwood and having to do with the long [indiscernible] that we had to contribute [indiscernible] essentially. In the quarter-on-quarter comparison, we also see lower prices, also lower volumes in this case. Slight increases in costs also for the different fibers.
Once again, unbleached the increase from unbleached is higher because this [indiscernible] in one of the [indiscernible]. A brief discussion of the conditions in the markets for the last quarter -- the fourth quarter last year, in general, pulp prices weakened across all geographies, global inventories increased now outstanding by the end of the year at 59, 48 days for softwood and hardwood, respectively.
We continue to see hardwood restrictions from Scandinavian suppliers related to the supply coming from Russia. And therefore, they have been producing more softwood instead of hard. In China, demand was low, conditions were somewhat normalized in terms of logistics, but still with some delays. In Europe, we began to see conditions deteriorated after many, many quarters of very strong conditions in Europe. We began to see pulp demand declining by the end of the year in relation to paper demand basically.
Softwood prices decreased. However, hardwood remained quite stable. The solid pulp prices have also been affected, and that's due to lower demand coming from [indiscernible] And as I said before, our production was affected by the stoppage -- nonscheduled stoppage at the constitutional mill, which is our bleached pulp. We had this significant decreases in the cost of production because of this stoppage. For the last few months, some discussion on pulp. You can see that the prices in China by the end of February, we are standing at [ 910 ] approximately for softwood and [ 730 ] approximately for hardwood with a gap of [ 178 ]. In Europe, they have also been declined a bit, standing at [ 1,389 ] and [ 1,300 ] basically for China demand has been declining a bit.
We had the Lunar New Year. We had some sources of demand declining as well. Dissolving pulp, in particular, has been declining because of lower viscose demand, and we could see these conditions to stay there during the following months. However, we still have to see the effects of the reopening of China due to the lifting of COVID restrictions. So still a question mark, but pulp markets are definitely weaker than in the preceding quarters. Likewise in the wood products markets across all geographies we have seen a weakening of conditions. EBITDA is down to $154 million. We had been -- we had seen EBITDAs of over $300 million for many quarters in a row, and now we're down to $154 million, so a quite significant decline. And as you can see there in the charts and the table to the right-hand side, basically, sales volumes and prices have been declining for all segments. With the possible exception of panels, where you see a price increase year-on-year. But other than that, the trend has been down for the different products and the different geographies.
Some further discussion on this in the case of North America, which has come to represent more than 50% of our revenues, we can see a declining demand for MDF higher interest rates definitely have taken a toll on demand for housing. And you can see the housing starts to the right-hand side.
We have also faced the increased competition from producers in Brazil, which are exporting to the North American market. So additional pressure in MDF coming from that. In Particle board, situation is slightly better because we do not have the competition component. Now we do have a decreased demand, but we do not have the competition component from foreign players. In case of remanufactured products, they also are presenting some oversupplies, some increased inventories, but we are already seeing some signs of stabilization. In the case of plywood, we have a slightly more positive view with healthier inventory levels and the spring season coming up. So potential good outlook for plywood for the next few months.
In the case of Brazil, we continue to see a weak market. We have more MDF supply coming online. And as a result of that, we have seen more exports going to foreign markets, which is a clear sign of weaker internal market. In case of Chile we also see declining prices, but already some signs of stability. In the case of Argentina, we have seen quite a stable market in the last few months. Asia, Australia basically similar trends. So somewhat slightly decreasing trends during the last few months, but already seeing some signs of stabilization. So all in all, the pattern is very similar. We have seen a clear signs of deterioration in the market, lower prices, lower volumes in general, but already seeing some signs of stabilization at this level, will be outlook for the next few months, could be somewhat more positive than what we have seen.
In terms of non trends stabilizing a bit. This, of course, turns to a great extent from the housing markets, but also from the remodeling segment, which was very strong due to the pandemic and in the year following the pandemic, but also showing some signs of weakness.
If we move to the energy market, our Energy division had a good quarter. We had volumes increasing in the basically across all countries in the panel, although slightly offset by the decrease in Chile and also decrease in Mapco. The decrease in Chile was not very deep. And in Mapco, it was very significant, 13% down, but it has to do essentially with, to a great extent, at least with the fact that with both part of the gas stations network at the beginning of the year.
Very good performance on the lubricants segment, segment, which has been favored by good commercial strategies and also by costs going slightly down. All of this has been partly offset by a lower effect of inventory revaluation in Chile and in Colombia.
All in all, we have an EBITDA for Copec at the consolidated level for the fuels division consolidated of CLP 201 billion compared with CLP 187 million in the comparable quarter last year. So still increase over the fourth quarter 2021. Market share is very stable. In Chile, standing at 58% approximately. In the industrial channels, we have seen volumes going up 1.8% year-on-year, 2.7% quarter-on-quarter. However, in the gas station channel, we are seeing some decreases in volume, 5.5% and 1.6% year-over-year and quarter-quarter, respectively. Trends we continue to see volumes above pre pandemic levels. Margins were measured in pesos. This is a real peso business. We tend to see stable margins in the pesos. However, at this inflation level, it's very hard to see that stability. So we have seen margins hurt in inflation-adjusted terms because of these high inflation. As always, the total margin generated by the division is subject to potential volatility coming from FIFO effect and also industrial variations. Actually, industrial effects have been positive during this quarter having to do basically with some interesting supply optimizations that we have done in the industrial segments.
We have very good network positioning, good brand positioning. So all in all, the outlook is positive. In total, we also had a good quarter. We had EBITDA of CLP 311 billion compared to CLP 282 billion. So an interested increase on the part of the quarter last year and also on the immediately preceding quarter. In this case, we have an increase over 3Q 2022 as well. We had an increase in volumes across the board. So with the exception of a slight decrease in Ecuador, we have volumes growing in all countries. Peru stands out clearly because of the volumes by 66%. Aviation plays a major role there. And in the other geographies, we've seen interesting increases as well. Lubricants have been doing very well. We have integrated the operations of ExxonMobil in the last few years, and that has been going very well and contributes also to the increase in EBITDA when compared to the last year.
As you know, local currency segments, we have been hurt by the increased interest rates because of some debt that is leading to inflation that has happened across all segments linked to local currency. In the case of Mapco, we came to an EBITDA of $11 which is quite good for the last quarter. In general, we have some seasonalities last quarter, but this $11 million compared very well with the preceding fourth quarters of previous years. We've seen a stabilization of margin is at higher levels, [indiscernible] margins have stabilized. Together with that, we have seen a good performance of our convenience stores network. The focus in Mapco continues to be margin stabilization. Operational efficiency, we continue to improve our product mix at the convenience store network. And we have also been working in gas station renewal and of course, the network optimization, which involves selling part of the network at the beginning of the year. And that accounts for part the drop of 70% that we saw in volumes from 1 year to the next. That also has to do with some changes in users and customs.
Apparently, people are traveling less to the office. So we have seen a decreased flow in general in the areas of the U.S. where we are [indiscernible]. So that also explains part of the drop in volumes. In the case of our liquid gas division [indiscernible] we had an EBITDA amounting to CLP 28 billion, which compares favorably with the last quarter of year '21. In general, we have seen better margins in Chile, together with good volumes in Peru and Colombia. As I said before, we have also incurred in terms of financial costs because of inflation-linked debt. In operational terms, the partners are similar in Chile and Colombia. We have seen the bottled segment decreased basically, that has to do with the effects that we are still seeing -- stemming from the high prices, the higher international prices of propane. So volumes have decreased in the bottled segment. In the bottled segment, in both countries, we have been able to offset the drop in volumes by increases in offset the drop in margins by increases in volumes. And that has to do with very successful commercial strategies that have allowed us to increase our customer base.
So similar patterns in Chile and Colombia. In the case of Peru, we have seeing volumes increasing, essentially due to a very successful commercial strategies with a good product mix, with a good distribution network. However, over the last few months, essentially during the summer in southern hemisphere in January and February, our operations have been disrupted to some extent, not very significantly, but to some extent, in some geographical areas have been disrupted by the [indiscernible] protest and the political situation in generally in Peru. That is showing some sign of stabilization over the last few weeks, though. In Ecuador, very good performance with distributors switching from other brands to our own brands and therefore, increasing market share. Moving on to our other investments. Many things to comment here is in Peru, which completed the first full year of operations. In the year-on-year comparison, we had a decreased net income. However, quarter-on-quarter, we were able to recover the EBITDA to increase the sales levels and the production level that we have been showing before. Cash also went down from the third quarter. So all in all, we got EBITDA of $251 million and a net income of $149 million. We have completed the first year, as we will see in a couple of minutes with very good numbers for-- the other companies that are listed there have been performing in a quite stable way, so there's not much to comment regarding that. In terms of the projects for the quarter, yes, we have started operations at MAPA by the end of the quarter -- by the end of December, we were able to load chips in the digester and therefore start operations and produce the first sale of Pulp actually some days after that.
And you can see the picture there with the whole team celebrating the first sale of Pulp. With this facility, the Arauco mill, the total full out the complex will reach a production capacity of 2.1 billion, out of which the new line is being contributes with 1.6 billion. And the total new capacity for [indiscernible] pulp is 5.3 million tonnes.
Second thing to highlight here is that we have a difficult season in terms of forest fires. There were forest fires that had affected various locations in Chile during February. The company has a very good infrastructure, a lot of equipment and a lot of efforts to technology innovation to fight these fires. However, due to the completions during the quarter, that is done by these fires increased with respect to previous years. Total plantations potentially affected so far are 47,000 hectares that we estimate at this point. And in terms of the potential impact on the company's financial statement, the estimate with the currently available information is $50 million. That is net of the timber that could be recovered, and net also of the issuance [ cut ], so $50 million approximately the final impact of this forest fire season.
At Copec, we continue to look for ways to transform our business model and to also make the energy transition both things at the same time. We were able to close the operation for Blue Express, the last biologistic companies that we acquired because the operation in December, this is a company that has a lot of synergies with the existing Copec network in Chile. The value added to the company, therefore, by Copec acquiring is quite significantly. Together with that, we received the authorization by the Chilean Financial Authority to potentially enter the digital payments market. We have a strong base of customers. We have an application. We are working with -- on customer loyalty programs. And therefore, that provides us with a very interesting base to eventually drive some additional sources of value for our customers such as digital payments. So this is all very preliminary, but it is in line with options to transform and component the business model that we now have. Now it's all of these operations definitely add value to our existing assets.
A word on Mina Justa which completed its first full year of operations, it has the operations in 2021, but they were partial operations during the year that began in May 2021. So this is the first full year. We ended up with an EBITDA of $800 million and a net income of $420 million, so very good numbers for in all.
Total sales of approximately 125,000 tons, in line with we had -- what we had announced previously. There was also the first distribution of resources to the shareholders. And in we see a total of $140 million during the year. So very good news for the first year of Mina Justa. Moving on to ESG. We have some news here to talk about. We have once again been confirmed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. And together with that, we have to distinguish the sustainability yearbook of Dow Jones, which means that we are in the top 15% of the industry. Together with that, we have received some prestigious awards in the local market. One of them is the award, where we were -- we led the holding category and the other one is La Voz del mercado carried on by EY and the Santiago Stock Exchange, where for the fourth year in a row, we have been distinguished as one of the companies with the best corporate governance. So this is very rewarding and this is a recognition of the many efforts we are doing in these matters. In terms of electromobility, as always, we have news of expanding our network being expanded.
Copec Voltex, which is the brand that we use for electromobility, we'll be supplying Antofagasta, which is a large city in the north of Chile with 10 chargers and Copec will be in charge of the management services to supply to the bus. Together with that, we opened up another terminal in 1 large district in Santiago, area district with 7 chargers. And also one of the tourist spots in Chile, San Pedro de Atacama on we have opened up some new charging points in the route between Antofagasta and San Pedro. So making steady and good progress in terms of electromobility. And finally, in terms of waste revaluation, we had out making progress towards its goals. And to be 100% -- aims to achieve 100% by 2030. This, of course, has to do with reducing the disposal of waste and also benefit from resources that can be found in the waste of different industrial processes.
In the case of pulp segments, for example, which can be used in the production of concrete, soil, pH regulator and manufacturing of fertilizers. In the case of wood products, they also have many interesting users. So Arauco achieved 60% and 47% in pulp and wood, respectively, for revaluation of waste. So that's an increase -- an important increase on the numbers reported last year. With that, we are ending -- we're finishing what we have prepared for you. And we will be opening up the Q&A sessions. Cristian and Truffello be joining me in this Q&A session. So please go ahead and write on your questions on the tab that is before this.
[Operator Instructions]
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for attending this webcast. I'm going to start reading a few questions here. I have -- the first 1 comes from Gabriel Simoes at Goldman Sachs. In Forestry, Gianfranco, if you can provide more details on the expected number ramp-up production and when you should see basically the first batches produced impacting results for [ Aramco ]
Okay. Thanks for the question. Well, we started the process at the end of December last year, and we produced the first bale January 20. From that time, we were producing with only one of the pulp machines because the other one was under completion. We've completed that I think, at the beginning of March. So right now, we are in full ramp-up with the new. Our expectation is that we could produce around 800,000 to 850,000 tonnes this year. A full month of capacity probably will be reached at the end of the year or probably the beginning of next year. And in terms of sales, of course, you have to build inventory. So we taking into account about a month of production, that could mean that we will sell about 700,000 to 750,000 tonnes during this year. I will guess that the impacts will be -- start feeling probably the second quarter. This quarter, the production will be still very low and the sales very good in order to make an impact on the EBITDA.
Thank you, Gianfranco. The next one comes from Jens Spiess Morgan Stanley. [indiscernible] is also asking about this. Basically, we have experienced an issues at the Mina Justa operations due to the social unrest in Peru. And if the company is considering expanding capacity in this business.
Well, yes, the [ political ] situation has been quite difficult over the last few months. We have seen stability. We have seen a politic crisis after the ceasing of government. Lots of social demonstrations, some blockages, some imbalance. We had experienced some interruptions in our LPG operations, as I said during the presentation. And we also have experienced slight delays in shipments for Mina Justa. They are stabilizing and normalizing and they have been doing so in the last few weeks. So we think it won't be a major effect at Mina Justa during the quarter. But of course, the political situation in Peru is still unstable.
Disruptions in general have been normalizing over the next -- over the last few weeks. Fortunately enough, Mina Justa mines located near the coast, in the middle of the desert. It operates with the highest environmental, labor, safety standards, very good relationships with the communities nearby, which are basically mining communities and a very good acceptance and very good relationships with its workforce. And so we haven't seen any major disruptions, but some slight decreases in shipments. Which is we hope that the situation will be solved in a positive way that democracy will prevail and we can go get to a path of stability -- institutional stability and also certainties for the business environment. And then you asked about potential expenses of Mina Justa. Well, yes, that's a matter that we envisaged at the very beginning when we decided to enter the product, Mina Justa, one of the very attractive elements that we saw in the project is that it had a very interesting upside. As a matter of fact, the percentage of mining properties used by the current project as it is, is not more than 10% or 15%. So in other words, there's a lot of mining property to explore and to potentially expand the mine. So we have already started explorations. The first results are, we are very optimistic about the very first results, but they are still very preliminary. But if everything goes well, we could definitely evaluate expanding the buy. We will get back to you as soon as we have more certain information on results of exploration.
Thank you, Rodrigo. The next one also from Jens Spiess of Morgan Stanley. What is the CapEx guidance for 2023? And if you can provide some breakown for division, please?
Yes, we're still working on that. And as we always do, we will get the final figure, we will make the final figure public by at our shareholders meeting, which is taking place in a few weeks in April. But what I can tell you is that, as you well know, we are coming from several years in which CapEx has been over $2 billion. We're going ahead with many large projects such as [indiscernible] Mina Justa In 2022, again, we recorded a figure that was more than $2 billion because of final expenditures at MAPA and also the acquisition of Blue Express. And for 2023, the initial figure very preliminary, a rough number is going to be the visibilty of $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion, which is made up of the maintenance CapEx base that we have of around $900 million. In addition to that, we have additional projects.
In this case, the bulk of those includes our panel [indiscernible] plantation acquisitions for future growth, some small remainders of MAPA, network optimizations, gas station growth in some geographies, in fuels, electromobility, energy transition, all of that amounts to a total of $600 million to $700 million. So on top of the $900 million, we have the $600 million to $700 million additional projects in the different divisions. And on top of that, another roughly $200 million, which is comprised of many different projects across all the divisions, which are efficiency projects, all of them very profitable, very reasonable projects, many of which we have postponed during the pandemic. So all in all, we should come to a total of roughly $1.7 billion, $1.8 billion for the CapEx in 2023. As I said, the final figure will be communicated in our shareholders meeting in April.
The next one comes from Leonardo at Bank of America. Two questions, actually. The -- 1 in fuel, what is the demand outlook for your different regions and markets over a few quarters? And what was the effect of inventory revaluation on 4Q results?
And the second question goes for Gianfranco. 4Q was challenging a challenging quarter in the wood segment in terms of prices and volumes. So if you can provide some color on that business and what could be reasonable margins going forward.
Yes. Regarding the first one in fuels. This is a market that moves very much in line with the local economies. The gas station channel was affected positively to a certain extent in the last couple of years by the fact that we had a lot of liquidity -- monetary liquidity in the local economies. And at the same time, we had a huge increase of the total stock of cars in the local economies, particularly in Chile. So going forward, it will depend on the evolution of the local economies. We have seen that in Chile, we've seen some decreases in the gas station channel, but some increases still in the Industrial segment. In Terpel, we continue to see a good behavior, a slight growth in all channels and in all countries. So that is performing quite well. And in Mapco, as I said before, we are operating with a reduced network. So we will see lower volumes at the beginning of 2022. And this change in customs and users regarding the frequency with which people basically go to the office that has translated also in less traffic flows and therefore, less demand for fuels. So we will see stability on the figures that we have recorded over the last few quarters, but that's definitely a figure that is down with respect to the preceding years. So that's the outlook for the different divisions in fuels. And then you mentioned the FIFO effect for the last quarter, right, which was not significant. It was very slightly positive but not significant at all. So that means when comparing it with the last quarter of 2021, it's a $30 million decrease approximately because of that effect. The total FIFO effect in Chile and Colombia.
Okay. Regarding the question about the Wood Products division. Of course, it was a challenging quarter, but we're coming from a very good 2 years, not normal levels of EBITDA, you probably have seen in the numbers.
So we are adjusting our production capacity in order not to increase our inventories and try to decrease prices. And I think that we most probably reached already the bottom of demand, and we are more optimistic about the second semester -- second semester, sorry, most probably the first quarter will be challenging also in terms of results. But I think the situation will start improving, probably starting from June because we see a healthy demand coming from our customers, especially in the U.S. So the long-term prospect of construction wood continues to be good. And I think that once the economy adjusted the inventory all the chain, I think the things will improve. But I would say that we will still have 1 or 2 quarters more challenging in terms of margins and EBITDA in the wood division.
Thank you, Gianfranco. Alfonso Salazar at Scotiabank is asking for, you can provide Rodrigo some breakdown of by-product production at Mina Justa last year.
Well, last -- Mina Justa has 2 main products, which are cases and concentrates. And last year, we came up 28,000 tons of cases and 97,000 tonnes of concentrates, which adds up to approximately 125,000, which is in the rates that we had projected. And then we also have some byproducts essentially silver. That's the only significant byproduct, which would account for less than 10% of sales. I can give you some more detail, we can send you some more detail if you did. But that's roughly the breakup.
Okay. And another 1 from Alfonso Salazar. What are your projections for fuel volumes in Chile and LatAm, but basically longer-term period 2025, 2030, please?
Yes. Well, as I said before, -- they are usually linked to GDP growth. So it will depend a lot on the economy, and our projections for the economy. Longer term, however, they will be, at some point, begin to be impacted by the transition to electromobility. We think there is not going to be a short-term trend in LatAm. It will be longer term, definitely than in developed countries. We have some estimates according to which the fuels market in LatAm continues to grow for the next 15 years or so. So we are working with those sort of projections, where our main markets still and Colombia continue to grow for approximately 15 years. And after that, they remain stable and gradually became beginning coming down because of the gradual substitution by electromobility. And along those lines, as you well know and as we have commented before, we are already working preparing ourselves for that transition and moving ahead very quickly electromobility and also opening up options for borrowing our assets in the fuel division and for gradually complementing and transforming our business model. And as I said during this presentation, all of the initiatives that we mentioned will experience payments and electromobility and energy generation, so on, fit in well with the strategy of diversifying, complementing and allowing energy transition and opening up options for reasonable options well thought options for our fuels
Next one also in fuels. It's Thiago Lofiego at Bradesco BBI. After obtaining approval from the CMF paving the way for new developments in digital payment tools. She would like to ask more color on this strategy looking forward for Copec, please.
Well, as just mentioned, this fits in with the strategy of opening up options for fuel division. This is an option that is very well fundamental because we have a very strong base of very loyal customers.
We have a strong brand customer preference, as we've said before. And we have an application that is penetrating very successfully among our clients. And we have a base of approximately 1 million clients per day and growing in our network of gas stations in Chile. And therefore, that provides us with an interesting base of customers to which we can provide some additional services, some value-added services in order to enhance their experience and make them more loyal to Copec. So the digital payment authorization goes in line with that and opens up options to grow along those lines. Still very preliminary, we just have the and we will be informing you of the different developments that we make along those lines.
I have Rodrigo Godoy, Credicorp with 2 questions basically. Firstly, in Forestry Gianfranco, concerning the forest fires occur in Chile during the summer, if you can provide some color about the impact of this event. But basically on the wood supply side in the medium term? And secondly, -- what is the current status of the dissolving pulp market these days? And then a question for Rodrigo. What are the production forecast and cash costs Mina Justa in 2023.
Okay. We have already disclosed the potential financial impact of the forest fires this season, which we calculated approximately $50 million. That amounts to 47,000 of potentially affected plantations. Remember that we have until about 650,000 hectares implementations. The impact on the supply of wood in the coming years.
It's hard to assess right now before having a detail on that plantations damage. But normally, what happens and what we experienced during the 2017 fires was that during the first 1 or 2 years, you need to harvest more because some of the standing trees are damaged, but you -- there's wood that you can use. So you have an increase in supply of wood in the short term, let's say, 1 or 2 years. And then a lack of, of course, of supply of wood in the near future, starting let's say, year 4 in some buckets of years that we need to assess more carefully. I don't expect any problem with the supply of our mills in terms of the amount of wood because of the size of the damage, but we need to run our models and to see what is the best use of the forest that we will have in the coming years with that lack of less than 10% of forest. And of course, there's other sources of fiber. In eucalyptus, there's exports fiber getting out of Chile. So there's a lot of sources of fiber that you can get in case of need. But of course, we don't expect to have any problems with the production of the mills going forward. Regarding the dissolving pulp market, we have seen a decrease in price. That comes from the decrease in demand of this cost. So normally, that happens, the adjustment in the lines of the demand for [indiscernible] for viscose. Right now, in our case, we have the stoppage of Valdivia that will start on April 1 for about 4 months to repair the dryer. So we're going to have less production available to our clients. So in that sense, we're not going to be so affected. But still, the price of dissolving pulp is attractive compared with alternative, which is short fiber. So we will keep on dissolving pulp, waiting for the margins to improve.
And Rodrigo, the last one also from Rodrigo Godoy, you can comment the levels of production and cash cost for Mina Justa in 2023?
Yes. We have been gradually increasing production in Mina Justa. We started in 2021 with a partial operation during the year, then we completed the first full year in 2022 with a production of 125,000 tonnes approx.
We have been ramping up the 2 sources of production. The sulfide plant has been operating at design capacity since late 2021. And we are about to finish the ramp-up of the oxide plant. So all in all, production for this year should be very close to full capacity. So very close to the 150,000 that we have announced of the total capacity of Mina Justa, let's say, in the 140 to 150 range. And regarding costs, we have set 1.3 as a long-term guideline. We have gone through quarters with less than 1.3, and others, like the third quarter of 2022 with 1.6, besides 1.6 and we began to see a normalization in the fourth quarter of 2022, where we completed the quarter with a 1.4. So 1.4 seems to be a good estimate. They should be very stable around that figure for the years to come, given the cost inflation that we experienced in the last couple of years. And so 1.4 is a reasonable figure to have in mind.
Thank you, Rodrigo. We don't have more questions at this moment. So I'll turn it back to you for your final remarks.
This concludes the question-and-answer section. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Rodrigo Huidobro for any closing remarks. .
Well, thank you all very much for joining us today, and we will see you at the beginning of May for looking at the responsible first quarter 2023. Thank you very much. Bye.
Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect now, and have a nice day.