Interim Report January-September 2012
CEO’s statement
Rottneros is reporting a positive 9-month result after net financial items of SEK 6 million for the year. Cash flow after investments and net financial income was also SEK 6 million. The customary four-week vacation shutdown at Rottneros Mill together with the annual maintenance shutdown at Vallvik Mill, which predominantly fell in September this year, had a significant effect on the result for the third quarter. The quarterly result was burdened with approx. SEK 30 million owing to these shutdowns.
The summer downturn was unusually severe this year for Swedish pulp producers such as Rottneros. There was a global fall in USD market prices, which had a major impact when added to the significant rise in the value of the Swedish kronor. The market price of our dominant product, NBSK (or chemical softwood pulp), is monitored via the PIX index, which is published weekly, and this price indicator was approx. SEK 5,000 per tonne for Europe at the end of September compared with approx. SEK 6,000 per tonne at the end of May and approx. SEK 5,700 per tonne at the beginning of the year. We now envisage an upward turn in price trends for the final quarter of this year. List prices in Asia have increased twice by USD 20 per tonne. In North America, which has the highest price level, the list prices increased by USD 20 per tonne and in Europe by approx. USD 30 per tonne. Nor was the Swedish krona as strong as it was in August, which means that revenues should now rise again.
Developments have been favourable for us on the cost side, with falling timber and electricity prices as well as fixed costs. We must learn to live with being a high-cost country in an extremely competitive world. Our only protection will be our own competitiveness, including continuous productivity improvements. The continuous rationalisations that have taken place in recent years, including staff reductions, mean that we are not planning any further downsizing or closures at the current time. However, our focus on efficiency and improved customer offerings is stronger than ever. We are obviously pleased in this connection about the permit allowing an increase in production at Vallvik Mill to 242,000 tonnes in three years. This in itself will facilitate a significant improvement in efficiency. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has however appealed against this decision.
During the quarter just ended, the world’s largest CTMP supplier shut down a major plant in Canada and in Europe Södra announced that they were withdrawing from the CTMP market. This will entail the disappearance of around 10% of global capacity and significantly more of the current CTMP supplies to the European market. Hopefully this reduction on the supply side of mechanical pulp will result in improved price formation. These pulps have unique quality characteristics that are of value to paper and board makers and over time must be priced so that manufacturers also continue in existence.
Ole Terland
President and CEO
Analyst and press conference
Analysts and journalists are invited to a meeting on Friday 19 October 2012 at 10.00.
Location: Rottneros Head Office, World Trade Center, Kungsbron 1, C6, Stockholm, Sweden
Please register with Hella Wopfner, hella.wopfner@rottneros.com, telephone: +46 8 590 010 12
(For full report, see attached file)
Rottneros discloses the information provided herein pursuant to the Securities Markets Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act. This information was submitted for publication on 19 October 2012 at 08.00. A Swedish and an English version of this report have been drawn up. The Swedish version shall apply in the event of differences between the two reports.
Rottneros, a company that was originally established in the 1600s, is an independent and flexible supplier of customised paper pulp of high quality. Rottneros has been able to adapt in order to meet high customer expectations by continually developing its products and maintaining high levels of delivery reliability, technical support and service.
Rottneros has an annual production capacity of almost 400,000 tonnes of pulp at two mills in Sweden. Increasingly intensive product development in line with the requirements of customers will result in profitability that is higher and more stable throughout the business cycle.