Holmen AB
STO:HOLM B

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Holmen AB
STO:HOLM B
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Price: 436.2 SEK 0.41%
Updated: May 31, 2024

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2022-Q1

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H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Good morning, everybody. It's not afternoon this time and welcome to the interim report presentation for the Holmen Group. In this room, it's me Henrik, and it's Anders, and we will go through the presentation as we usually do. And we're happy to take any questions you might have if after the presentation. But to start off, just -- I'm extremely happy to be honest that we have a business model to start with that also works very well in times with high inflation, lack of fiber and energy in the world and also terrible war around us. This has meant that we have a very nice result, and its 2 things standing out. It's high volumes from our Wood Products division. It's also very good prices from our Paper division. We'll come back to that when we go through the different business areas. A good result in the first quarter also means that we have a very strong cash flow. And it has also reinforced our -- from the beginning, already strong financial position and a very strong balance sheet. Then let's go through the different business areas, starting with our Forest division, and as we usually do, try to put some flavor to the wood market where we currently are. I think wood is one of the few raw materials that have not changed really in a world where everything has become much more expensive and especially everything related to energy. If you look at the situation right now, you can see or during the first quarter, you can see that, well, there is good competition for sawlogs and prices have ticked up. But if you look at pulpwood, not much has happened. But where we are right now, things are a bit different. First of all, we see that, of course, the sawmills are running full. They are making a lot of money. But also the activity in the pulp industry has increased. At the same time, as we also see that supply is restricted. There is no pulpwood or wood chips coming from Russia, which has an effect on the market. At the same time, also as we have seen that the pulp that we had -- the pulp, the strike that we had in Finland, the UPM strike has come to an end. So in the headlines, you can see competition intensifying in that it's not only for sawlogs, that's also for pulpwood going forward. But that's about what happens now, Anders, during the first quarter, not so much happened.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

It is and it should be normally.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Yes.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Then a few words about our Paperboard division and not the least, how we see the market. I think already last time we said that the market is quite strong. Customers are not -- maybe not crying for board, but they are eager on getting as much as they can. And when we talk about Europe, we still see strong demand, and we also see deliveries from European suppliers going up to European customers by a couple of percent. But also this market -- in this market now, we actually after 10 years, we finally see prices really going up. And that prices are going up, thanks to healthy demand, healthy market balance, but also from cost increases, especially for continental suppliers. And there is also a push from beneath. If you would look at the white line chip producers, the ones that base their production on recycled fibers, but they also have to buy gas to run their factories. You see that the cost pressure is even higher, and that has materialized in price increases. But also in folding boxboard and solid baseboard prices are moving up. In our case, our order book looks fine. And also, we are increasing prices, but we used to say, Anders that half of our production roughly is fixed in a bit longer contracts and with the rest, we follow the market. We also had a period, Anders, where the turbine out of production for more than half a year, which has been quite a challenge for us. But can you may be technically explain now how to see this?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Yes, it's back in operation since the mid-quarter. It was quite a complicated accident. So the insurance investigation took a long time, but now it's finalized. And the insurers will cover this event and which means that we have recorded an insurance compensation in Q1, and we have also had some costs since the turbine was out of operation for 1.5 months. Net-net, over this period, it costed us SEK 64 million, of which we have treated as an item affecting comparability, both in second half of 2021 and the Q1 report that we released today.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Which means when we look at the result…

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

This is as if the turbine was in operation.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Yes.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Correct. Thank you. Let's hope we can do even better in the future. Okay. Moving on to Paper. I normally say that if it's a nice place to be in producing consumer packaging board, paper is really, really difficult because we have structural decline. If we look at that chart that we have ahead of us now, one can think what on earth happened. And of course, it's again coming back to the lack of energy and in this case, also lack of and very expensive fiber in combination with energy in Continental Europe that has meant that has been quite expensive to produce graphic paper. It had also materialized in really big price increases in the beginning of the year. And in our case, our model with fossil-free electricity in Sweden and also as you saw on the slide before, when we looked at the wood market where pulp prices haven't changed so much yet that has meant that we have had quite good cost competitiveness, and we've had a good cost control in general in our Paper division. So we've been running full, and we have increased prices in line with the market, which means that, Anders, it has also materialized in some money.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Absolutely. And it makes sense to underline that it's really cost driven in -- for the most players in the market that makes the price come up the way it has now. Okay. Let's switch to Wood Products, which is a kind of a roller coaster. We had a good last year. We have a very good beginning of this year, but the markets look a bit different and there are also different parameters influencing the market as such. As you saw again in the beginning, we saw that the cost for sawlogs for the sawmills in Sweden, while the cost is up, prices for sawlogs are higher, but not that much yet, which means that it's a good start. But then the underlying demand both in Europe and in North America has been good in the first quarter. Prices in Europe bottomed out during the first quarter, while in the U.S. prices peaked and started to come down when customers have filled up their warehouses and with a lot of wood products in order to sell during the really the good building season. But there are also other things affecting this market. If you take America first, well, there has been logistic challenges, especially for the Canadians. They have a lot of wood products at their sawmills, but they cannot get them out to the market in the same extent to the same extent as we have been able to ship from here, which means that has had an effect on the market. And in Europe, we have the war again, and we have Russia being a rather big player, and it's restricted supply of wood products, which also affecting the market. And to some extent, in Europe also, we have Continental Europe where spruce bark beetle problems have made them harvest a bit more. And they will probably also have to restrict volumes a bit going forward. We also had a lot of deliveries to the U.S. in the first quarter, more than we normally have, which has helped us to a, I think, we say, a very strong result in the first quarter.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Can we do that again in the second?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

I know. Thank you. And then finally, a few words about Renewable Energy. Again, we are coming back to the energy situation in Europe, which has -- it was quite difficult before the war, and now it has become extremely obvious that the way it works with so many countries dependent on Russia and gas is not a good situation and it's also -- it's been reflected in the energy prices. When we look at this chart here, we also see that there is a difference between south and northern part of Sweden. And remember that Holmen is a company. Unfortunately, when it comes to this, that we consume all our electricity in south of Sweden, we produce most of our electricity up in the north. But we also make use of hedges in order to come out better than what it looks like on this chart, and we have done that. We come back to that. But just a reminder, where we are now, we are in Europe, which is -- we have said it before, dependent on fossil fuels, but now we also have to add that, well 1/3 of that is actually coming from Russia, which has become a great headache. Then it's nice to be a company which can contribute to a reduced dependence at least a little bit as we have now in the first quarter. We have started up the Blåbergsliden wind farm. And you have bought the shares that we didn't own before from Varsvik, which means that we now fully own also Varsvik, which has actually contributed a bit of the result in the first quarter, which is nice to see. But Anders also please mention the -- what we have done with our hydro power, which has had an impact on our performance as well.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Sounds good. As said in the beginning, we're happy to see that -- of course, we believe in our business model. But we also see that the model we have works fine also when times are a bit more difficult. Like now when there is an energy crisis, it's not easy to get a hold of raw material at all and especially energy, especially fiber. And having the base in Sweden with our own forest, good control of the raw material, also having the fossil-free energy system in Sweden, and also having all our business areas contributing not only with profit but also with climate benefit is a good feeling. I think it's also something that makes sense going forward. Before we take on the questions, just a little reminder that we would be extremely happy to have as many of you as possible with us on the 11th of May, where we have an Investor Day up in the north of Sweden, where we'll have a closer look at our operations up north. What we do and discuss maybe our business model and also what to do going forward. So welcome, the ones of you who have also already shown some interest. And maybe we have some space for some more ones, who knows, let's try at least. And with that, we are happy to take on any questions you might have.

Operator

The first question from the phone comes from Lars Kjellberg from Crédit Suisse.

L
Lars Kjellberg
analyst

Congratulation for an exception in the quarter. So a couple of questions there. When you're looking at -- you called out, of course, your very solid cost base in home and paper versus continental and you increasing -- maybe you can call it windfall profit in the Paper division. What are you seeing in terms of your incremental cost pressures and that may be also transferable into both the Board business and Wood Products in terms of your wood prices? I mean they tend to come with a lag. Nevertheless, they start to move up and then ultimately, the P&L impact comes at some stage. So in essence, what are you seeing then in incremental cost pressures from wood? And in the Paper business and now with UPM back or not yet, I suppose, but ramping up. Would you envisage any short term on the order books? And then, of course, maybe then some thoughts about price elasticity in that business? Final question, which surprised me that your capability to move a lot more wood products to U.S. in an opportunistic way, considering what we are hearing about freight rates and lack of availability of shipping capacity. So, how was that even doable?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

We start with the cost inflation. What we see, actually, the most cost inflation is chemicals. We have seen them moving up in Q1, and we see quite a step change going to Q2, 20% increase in chemical costs and 2/3 of the chemical costs are within Paperboard and 1/3 is in Paper. We do also see some cost inflation on wood. It has not really started yet, but that they will go up somewhat in the second quarter. But most likely, you will have cost inflation in second half.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

I'm sure you follow the index for recycled fibers. OCC for board producers is around 200 and today [ O&P ] newspapers and magazines that's around 230, which is much higher than what we are used to. And that's, of course, important for the cost competitiveness over time. But then electricity…

L
Lars Kjellberg
analyst

Yes, just a quick follow up on the Wood Products side here. You commented that you got a return to the normal 5% share to the U.S. What sort of profit impact or what sort of boost that we had to the opportunistic and just speculative anyway in a successful way did the U.S. impact have on you in Q1? Just think about that and carry through into Q2?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

Operator

The next question comes from Robin Santavirta that's from Carnegie.

R
Robin Santavirta
analyst

First, a question related to the Wood Products segment and especially not particularly the sales in the U.S., but rather in Europe. What is the outlook for prices going into Q2 and the busy season? Any comments on that would be appreciated.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

R
Robin Santavirta
analyst

Yes, is the pricing in line with what we saw last year during the summer?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

R
Robin Santavirta
analyst

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

R
Robin Santavirta
analyst

If I try it this way, do you have any price agreements that are shorter than 1 quarter in place?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

R
Robin Santavirta
analyst

All right. I understand. And then finally, related to Renewable Energy, I understand you have ramped up production in Blåbergsliden how has that process gone, is it now fully operative as of Q1?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

Operator

The next question comes from Cole Hathorn from Jefferies.

C
Cole Hathorn
analyst

Just like to follow up on the Wood Products division. Can you give any more color around the amount of Russian supply that has been reduced into the European market and how that's impacting negotiations with customers is the first question? And then the second one is also related to removed Russian supply, but on the raw material, the sawlogs and the pulpwood into Europe. How is that impacting the kind of the demand for forest? I mean, you alluded to it in your statement and your comments earlier, but where do you -- where could pulpwood and sawlog prices go from here due to the restricted supply? Or is this just kind of a timing situation where it will be manageable and just drive a bit of inflation in pricing? Or should we be expecting a real step-up in pulpwood and sawlog pricing?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

China, Asia.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

North Africa.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

C
Cole Hathorn
analyst

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

And remember, the sawmills also contribute to the pulp mills with wood chips. Remember also, so far, sawlog prices have increased a bit, but really determining whether we own money or not and how much in the sawmill business is really the wood products prices.

Operator

The next question comes from Martin Melbye from ABG.

M
Martin Melbye
analyst

My questions have been answered now, but I can do a different spin. So what is the difference now between the cash cost of the marginal producer, say, in Germany and the paper price? Is it breakeven? Or is it making a margin now after prices have gone up like 100%?

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

I think we have to include state subsidies and things. It's not so easy, but…

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

And you also have a problem of sourcing the raw material, getting recycled fiber to produce new papers is very difficult.

Operator

The next question comes from Oskar Lindstrom from Danske Bank.

O
Oskar Lindström
analyst

Yes, 3 sets of questions from my side. I mean first off, on Wood Products. You talked about price increases in Q2 versus Q1. Could you say anything about the magnitude of those price increases in Europe for your business? And then I'm wondering also, do you see a possibility for European producers to increase production to compensate for the loss of previous Russian imports? Can harvesting levels in the rest of Europe increase further? Or are we looking at a possible timber squeeze? And also on that Wood Products, is there any possibility for you to increase capacity in your operations? And then a question also on recovered fiber, which you mentioned several times as the lack of recovered fiber in Continental Europe is one of the reasons for higher paper prices. Could you maybe just explain a little bit, again, the reasons why we're seeing this shortage of recovered fiber in Continental Europe now, what has changed? And how long term do you think that is? Those were my questions.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Shall we start with the last one, as I remember that. If you take the recovered fiber market, Oskar, remember, it's like 2 markets, but they are linked together. It's the paper that's suitable for de-inking all newspapers and magazines. And when, first of all, demand or consumption is going down and especially with closures of capacity up in the Nordic countries, where we have the virgin, fresh fibers and closing capacity as such means that it's more and more difficult to find the fibers suitable for de-inking. And another thing which is important to understand as well is that when you produce testliner fluting, if the mix from the household waste is containing not too much of graphic papers, you can take it all and use it for producing testliner and fluting. So step-by-step, it will become more and more difficult to get hold of fibers that you can de-ink. That's part of the market dynamics. But on the other hand, the price for O&P O&G is also linked to the price for OCC. I have never seen that prices go totally different ways. But there will always be a surcharge for O&P O&G because you have to sort out the whiter qualities suitable for graphic paper production.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Now you answered the bonus question. Should I try -- make a go at the 3 questions from Oskar? No, we did not comment on the magnitude of the price increase. You have to look at the price index published by the wood industry on that to get the guidance and how things develop. And then you had the question on, can people start to ramp up supply. The price signal that we have had for the last 12 to 18 months have meant that people have ramped up production as much as they can, and the question is not about having the machines, it's having availability of raw material. It might be so even that you have to decrease production in Continental Europe because you have this problem with the infestation. So we have a hard time seeing that you have a supply shock coming or having that ahead of us. Our ability to grow is short term. We do it day-by-day, but we do have ability to remove bottlenecks and we are making an investment at Iggesund sawmill as we have announced, et cetera, to increase production. We'll talk more about that at the Investor Day, our ability to increase production at our sawmills. But we will do that at a reasonable pace so that we actually have control over the raw material supply.

O
Oskar Lindström
analyst

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Sawn timber.

O
Oskar Lindström
analyst

Sawn timber. Are there also significant timber imports?

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

No.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Not that we are aware of.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Not to the Western countries, that's already forbidden or forbidden…

O
Oskar Lindström
analyst

Also to the…

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Russians themselves have stopped that.

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

No.

Operator

The next question comes from Linus Larsson from SEB.

L
Linus Larsson
analyst

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

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Yes, SEK 30 million was the EBIT contribution from the wind. It's predominantly from Varsvik because Blåbergsliden was starting up. And electricity prices were not that high in the northern part of Sweden. And the price impact from our hedging was SEK 40 million in the first quarter that contributed to the result compared to selling on the average price in the northern part of Sweden.

L
Linus Larsson
analyst

And so I think you said 30% was hedged in the first quarter. What's Q2 looking like in terms of hedging levels and average realized pricing?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

We have very modest hedging so far in the second quarter. The transactions where we did for Q1 were quite good, difficult to repeat them.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Definitely.

L
Linus Larsson
analyst

Okay. But it's rather that the second quarter will see more of a ramp-up from Blåbergsliden and that's the delta that we should be looking at for then?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Yes. And depending on how the market prices pan out in the northern part of Sweden.

L
Linus Larsson
analyst

And with Blåbergsliden how much of a ramp-up contribution volume increase should we expect in the second compared to the first quarter?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

L
Linus Larsson
analyst

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

L
Linus Larsson
analyst

But do you think it's -- the doubt -- if I say that the price realization was 6% for Q1 and Q4. Is it more or less Q2 and Q1?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

Operator

The next question comes from Christian Kopfer from Handelsbanken.

C
Christian Kopfer
analyst

Sorry, I missed most of the presentation, unfortunately, I had to call in to other places. So sorry if you have already mentioned this. But on the Paper side, obviously, exceptional development on the profit generation. But just to understand how much of the production has been renegotiated on the Paper side, on the new price levels?

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

Most of…

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Yes, almost all.

C
Christian Kopfer
analyst

And when is the next, call it, price negotiations? Is it quarterly? Or is it half year?

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

C
Christian Kopfer
analyst

And then you also talked a little bit on the renewable energy side. You previously have worked a lot with hedging and net exposure on the group level. And are you expecting that to be established again in the short period? Or how does it occur?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

Not in the short period. Right now, we treat the Paper division's hedging separately from the Energy division, given that there is such a big discrepancy between the prices in the northern and southern part of Sweden. If they go back to together again, then we will look upon it as internal hedging again, but until further notice we will treat them as 2 separate positions.

C
Christian Kopfer
analyst

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

Operator

The next question comes from Harri Taittonen from Nordea.

H
Harri Taittonen
analyst

Well, continuing from Christian really on the pipeline, I was thinking with this cash flow, it's time to start thinking how you use it and are there any investment projects that could be speeded up. And I would imagine that permitting would be picking a lot of speed, should be picking up in this sort of environment. But are you seeing any of that? So the question is about like the cash flow and cash allocation between projects and something else?

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

I'll take the first one. Unfortunately, it's not in our hands when we have the environmental permits. If it would have been, we would have been doing things at a quicker or faster pace, absolutely. And we are awaiting an environmental permit for a wind farm next door to the Blåbergsliden, but we don't have it, so not yet. And what [indiscernible].

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Harri Taittonen
analyst

The other question, if I may, just on the paperboard delivery volumes. And I mean, it's flat quarter-on-quarter, maybe a bit sort of low -- I mean, how do you see the volume development sort of for the year, there's going to be less maintenance isn't it? So just kind of reiterate the volume outlook?

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

We have one big maintenance shut at Iggesund mill in the fourth quarter. Except for that, I tend to agree a bit. Yes, we would have liked volumes to be a little bit higher, and I think it could be as well.

H
Harri Taittonen
analyst

How much would you say that when things are kind of running?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

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

H
Harri Taittonen
analyst

Was it the turbine that was taking some, if one thinks of the total delivery volume? Is that the reason why?

A
Anders Jernhall
executive

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

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Gentlemen, so far there are no more questions.

H
Henrik Sjölund
executive

All right. Thank you very much for taking your time this time in the morning, not in the afternoon. And don't forget about 11th of May. You are warmly welcome if you have the time. Thank you.

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