Mercer International Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Mercer International EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$1.29
• Consensus EPS: -$0.73
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.56
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Mercer International Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $453.52 million
• Expected Revenue: $514.46 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$60.94 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Mercer International Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 7/31/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Friday, August 1, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Mercer International (NASDAQ:MERC), together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) and northern bleached hardwood kraft (NBHK) pulp worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Pulp and Solid Wood. It manufactures, sells, and distributes pulp, electricity, and chemicals through pulp mills. The company also manufactures, distributes, and sells lumber, cross-laminated timber, finger joint lumber, glue-laminated timber, wood pallets, electricity, biofuels, and wood residuals. In addition, it generates and sells green energy produced from biomass cogeneration power plant to third party. Further, it produces and sells NBSK pulp manufactured from softwood; green energy using carbon-neutral biofuels, such as black liquor and wood waste; tall oil from black liquor for use as a chemical additive and green energy source; bio extractives and biomaterials, including lignin, turpentine, cellulose filaments, and sandalwood oil; and biofuels; as well as provides transportation and logistics services. The company sells its pulp to pulp markets, integrated paper and paperboard manufacturers; and lumber products to distributors, construction firms, secondary manufacturers, retail yards, and home centers. Mercer International Inc. was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

Mercer International Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Second-quarter results showed a negative EBITDA of $21 million and a net loss of $86 million, driven by lower pulp prices in China, an $11 million inventory write-down and adverse currency impacts.
• Positive Sentiment: Launched the One Goal 100 program, securing $5 million in cost savings in Q2 and targeting $100 million of profitability improvements by 2026 through operational efficiencies and working capital reductions.
• Positive Sentiment: Maintained a strong liquidity position of $438 million (cash plus undrawn revolvers) and trimmed 2025 capital expenditures to $100 million, focusing on high-return maintenance and strategic expansions.
• Positive Sentiment: Advancing a potential carbon capture project at Peace River to sequester 500,000 tons of CO₂, estimated to generate about $100 million per year in revenue with ~60 percent grant support.
• Positive Sentiment: Expecting a softwood pulp price recovery in Q4 due to seasonal restocking and supply constraints from mill curtailments, setting the stage for improved margins into 2026.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to Mercer International's Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. On the call today is Juan Carlos Bueno, Mercer's President and Chief Executive Officer and Richard Short, Mercer's Chief Financial Officer and Secretary. I will now hand the call over to Richard.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Thank you, Michelle, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I will begin by touching on the financial and operating highlights of the second quarter before turning the call over to Juan Carlos to provide further color into the markets, our operations and our strategic initiatives. Also, for those of you that have joined today's call by telephone, there is presentation material that we have attached to the Investors section of our website. But before turning to our results, I would like to remind you that we will make forward looking statements in this morning's conference call.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

According to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, I'd like to call your attention to the risks related to these statements, which are more fully described in our press release and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This quarter, our EBITDA was negative $21,000,000 a significant decrease from Q1's positive EBITDA of $47,000,000 The key drivers of the lower results included a negative foreign exchange impact from a weaker dollar, primarily on our euro and Canadian dollar denominated costs and expenses, which reduced EBITDA by approximately $26,000,000 relative to Q1. Lower pulp prices in China negatively impacted EBITDA by roughly $8,000,000 and led to a non cash hardwood inventory impairment of $11,000,000 We also incurred higher fiber costs for both our pulp and solid wood segments. Our pulp segment had negative quarterly EBITDA of $10,000,000 in Q2 and our solid wood segment had negative EBITDA of $5,000,000 You can find additional segment disclosures in our Form 10 Q, which can be found on our website and that of the SEC. In the second quarter, our NBSK pulp sales realizations decreased compared to the first quarter due to the ongoing uncertain global trade environment impacting demand from China.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

In North America, MBSK published prices modestly increased due to both stable demand and supply constraints, while in Europe prices were stable. In Q2, the MBSK net price in China was $734 per tonne, a decrease of $59 from Q1. The North American MBSK list price averaged $18.20 dollars per tonne, an increase of $67 from Q1. The European MBSK list price averaged $15.53 dollars per tonne, flat compared to Q1. Hardwood sales realizations remain largely unchanged in Q2 compared to Q1 as lower prices in China were offset by higher prices in North America.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

The North American NBHK average Q2 list price was $13.10 dollars per tonne, up $42 from Q1. In China, the Q2 average net price for NBHK was $533 per tonne, a decrease of $45 from Q1. As a result, the average price gap between MBSK and NBHK in China for the quarter was about $200 per tonne, a gap we anticipate will be sustained in the 2025. In addition, lower Chinese hardwood prices resulted in Us recording an $11,000,000 non cash inventory write down this quarter. Pulp sales volumes in the second quarter decreased by 51,000 tons to 427,000 tons.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

This decrease is due to weaker demand caused by the ongoing uncertainties in the global trade landscape. Pulp production was flat in Q2 compared to Q1. We had twenty three days of planned maintenance downtime in Q2 compared to twenty two days in Q1. But we also had a total of six days of downtime related to a slow start up from Celgar's Q1 shut. In the 2025, we had a total of eighteen days of planned maintenance downtime.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

This includes fourteen days at our Rosenthal mill and four days at our Celgar mill. For our solid wood segment, realized lumber prices increased about 10% in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. This was primarily due to higher realized prices in the European market, a result of reduced supply and steady demand, while realized prices in The US market were essentially flat. The Random Lengths US benchmark price for Western SPF two and better averaged $472 per thousand board feet in Q2, down from $492 per thousand board feet in Q1. Today that benchmark for Western SPF number two and better is around five thirty three dollars per thousand board feet, an increase of about $90 from the beginning of 2025.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

In Q2 lumber production decreased to about 120,000,000 board feet or 6% from Q1 due to planned maintenance at our Friesau mill. Lumber sales volumes also decreased to 121,000,000 board feet, down about 8% from Q1, reflecting a lower production. Electricity sales for the quarter totaled two sixteen gigawatt hours, an 8% decrease from Q1 due to planned maintenance downtime at the Stendal mill. Q2 pricing decreased to about $90 per megawatt hour from $112 in Q1 caused by lower spot prices in Germany. Fiber costs for both our pulp and solid wood segments increased in Q2 compared to Q1 due to strong demand in Germany and higher logistics costs in Western Canada.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Our mass timber operations within the solid wood segment had lower revenues in Q2 compared to Q1 as the prevailing market uncertainty is impacting project timelines and overall market momentum. However, we believe this is a temporary headwind and we continue to see strong and growing underlying interest in mass timber and expect improved results going into 2026. In Q1, we announced our One Goal 100 program. This initiative focuses on cost reduction and operational efficiencies with a target to improve our profitability by $100,000,000 by the 2026, using twenty twenty four as a baseline. To date, we have approximately $5,000,000 in cost savings with an anticipated total of $25,000,000 of cost savings for 2025.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

We also expect our implemented operational efficiencies to further improve profitability. Juan Cardoso provide more details on our progress on this initiative. We reported a consolidated net loss of $86,000,000 for the second quarter or $1.29 per share compared to a net loss of $22,000,000 or $0.33 per share in the first quarter. In Q2, consumed $35,000,000 of cash compared to $3,000,000 in Q1. This increase was primarily driven by lower EBITDA, partially offset by a $21,000,000 decrease in our net working capital, excluding noncash items, due in part to working capital reductions from our One Goal 100 initiative.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

In Q2, we invested a total of $24,000,000 in capital across our facilities. These investments include upgrades to the log yards at Friesau and Torgau. These strategic projects are expected to enhance efficiencies, positioning us favorably for improvements in the solid wood market. At the end of Q2 our strong liquidity position totaled $438,000,000 comprised of about $146,000,000 of cash and $292,000,000 of undrawn revolvers. That ends my overview of the financial results. I'll now turn the call over to Juan Carlos.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Thanks Rich. Trade uncertainty resulting from tariffs and global trade disputes was the main driver behind our disappointing Q2 results. This is despite the fact that our products are now being tariffed up to this point. Market uncertainty coupled with excess supply of cheap hardwood fiber locally has caused Chinese demand for imported hardwood pulp to weaken, resulting in an 8% decrease in prices with a similar knockdown effect on softwood when compared to Q1. In addition, trade disputes have caused the US dollar to weaken dramatically against the Euro and Canadian dollar.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

This US dollar weakness created almost $26,000,000 of negative EBITDA for us relative to Q1. While these uncontrollable factors create significant macroeconomic headwinds for our business, we continue to focus on the things we can control. For example, we're beginning to see improvements in our reliability as our mills ran well this quarter. Early in the second quarter, we launched a company wide program aimed at identifying $100,000,000 in cost savings and profitability improvement opportunities by the 2026, when compared with 2024. Our organization has actively embraced this program, which is known internally as One Goal one hundred.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

At the end of Q2, we achieved $5,000,000 of cost savings and have already identified an additional $20,000,000 by the end of this year. This initiative also includes targeting working capital reductions of $20,000,000 as well as another $20,000,000 in CapEx reductions. Beyond this, we have started to unlock some significant reliability improvements that combined with additional cost savings next year gives us high confidence that we will reach our $100,000,000 target by the 2026. In parallel, our working capital and CapEx reduction plans are tracking exactly as planned. The trade war has created an unprecedented level of uncertainty in the markets in general.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

As a reminder, on average, we sell about 200,000 tons of pulp into The U. S. Annually. About half of this volume is hardwood pulp. We also export from Germany about 200,000,000 board feet of lumber to The US.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Today, these products do not have any tariffs applied to them. However, lumber is subject to section two thirty two review by the US Department of Commerce, so it is unclear if tariffs will be applied at some point in time. This review is to be completed before the end of the year, but we expect decisions will be made beforehand. In contrast, our main import from The US into Canada is wood chips for our Selgar pulp mill, which today amounts to about 45% of the fiber consumption of the mill. There are no counter tariffs currently applied to this fiber.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

As I previously mentioned, our businesses are being impacted by the secondary effects of tariffs, as this uncertain business environment directly affects the regular trade flows of the commodities we produce, and forces delaying construction projects that we aim to serve. In addition to the above, the weaker dollar has an immediate effect on our cost basis on our receivable balances. With this global economic uncertainty in the background, our Board has taken the difficult decision to suspend our dividend. We view the suspension as temporary, but prudent from a capital allocation standpoint, as we focus on debt reduction and navigate the uncertainty impacting our industry. Our Board of Directors remains committed to a competitive dividend as the market uncertainty dissipates on our balance sheet strengthens.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Our EBITDA of negative $21,000,000 reflects a heavy maintenance quarter. Our Peace River mill was down for twenty days, Stendal took a short three day shut. And as a reminder, Seldra's Q1 shot had six days of slow start up in Q2. In Q2, the combined effect of uncontrollable negative market impacts, including a weakening of the U. S.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Dollar on pulp pricing and the associated hardwood inventory impairment reduced our EBITDA by almost $45,000,000 compared to Q1. These were the results of the indirect impact of tariffs and trade uncertainty. Even though we carried good momentum during Q1, the strength changed very quickly as we entered into Q2. Midway through the quarter, the Chinese market weakened dramatically on concerns and uncertainty on tariff costs and the availability of export markets. Today, pulp prices in China appear to have hit the floor.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Given that we're now in the seasonally low summer period, we don't expect pulp prices to regain any positive momentum until the fourth quarter. While some trade agreements are beginning to take shape, the global trade landscape continues to be unclear. We will continue to work on mitigation strategies and remain flexible to manage through the uncertainty. In the meantime, we continue to maintain an open dialogue with our customers, government officials and our industry associations and are prepared to take swift action, redirecting products to other geographies as necessary and adjusting our operations accordingly depending on the scenario that actually plays out once the dust settles and the tariff map is completed. Turning to the pulp markets, softwood pricing is expected to remain weak through the summer months.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

However, we are confident that overall demand for softwood will be steady in the midterm, which when combined with reduced supply, will create some upward pricing pressure in most market in the 2025 and into 2026. In the second quarter, hardwood pricing remained weakened significantly in China due to weak paper demand and increased domestic pulp supply. Conversely, hardwood pricing in North America was resilient due to steady demand. As we have highlighted in previous calls, we believe that the ability of paper makers to substitute hardwood pulp in the place of softwood pulp is limited as most of the substitution options have already been exhausted. And understand that while customers will continue to push the limits given the wide gap that still persists between the two fibers, only a marginal amount will still be possible.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

In total, our Pulp production was flat at almost 460,000 tons compared to Q1. Our lumber production was down slightly relative to Q1 by about 6% due to planned maintenance at our Friesau mill. Overall, we are pleased with our lumber production and look forward to the incremental lumber production at our Torga mill going forward. As a reminder, we expect the increased annual capacity to be about 100,000 cubic meters of dimensional lumber or roughly 65,000,000 board feet. In Q2, our overall pulp fiber costs were up slightly relative to Q1.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

In Germany, we saw increased demand for sawlogs, which pushed up the price of sawmill chips. While in Canada, costs were up slightly due to the increased logistic costs. The increased demand for sawlogs in Germany also pushed the price of fiber up for sawmilling business. Looking ahead to Q3, we expect fiber costs to modestly decrease for pulp business, and increase by about 10% for solid wood business as harvesting levels in Germany are very low due to lack of calamity wood. The business environment for solid wood segment remains consistent with Q1.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Our Solid Wood segment continues to be held back by a weak European economy and the impact of high interest rates on the construction industry, despite some modest price improvements on certain grades in The U. S. Lumber market. As a result, our Solid Wood segment posted a negative EBITDA of $5,000,000 in q two, with higher European lumber pricing not offsetting the sustained weak demand for pallets. Looking ahead, we feel we are seeing the beginning of improved economic recovery growth in Germany and Europe in general, which we believe will bring improved pallet pricing.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

As a reminder, a $1 per pallet increase or roughly 10% will put this business into a very positive cash flow position. Given the economic forces affecting The U. S. Construction activity, U. S.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Lumber pricing would be volatile in the short term. Currently, weak housing construction due to high mortgage rates is a headwind, but the expected implementation of significantly higher antidumping and countervailing duties is expected to push lumber prices up. It may also result in the curtailment of some Canadian sawmills, which could create additional pricing tailwinds. In contrast, we expect modest upward pricing pressure in the European market, primarily due to increasing sawlog prices. However, any meaningful long term improvement in either the European or US markets will be dependent on improved economic conditions and lower interest rates.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

The cost competitive configuration we have in FreeSell, gives us the flexibility to have a strong presence in Europe, The U. S. And the quality sensitive Japanese market. In Q2, 40% of our lumber volume was sold in The U. S.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

As we continue to optimize our mix of products and target markets to current conditions. Looking forward, we believe The U. S. Lumber market will be driven by favorable homeowner demographics. Additionally, factors that we believe will improve lumber market dynamics include potential Canadian sawmill curtailments in the aftermath of higher softwood lumber duties and relatively low housing stock.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Combined, we expect these factors will put sustained positive pressure on the supply demand balance of this business in the midterm. Shipping pallet markets remain weak with the pallet pricing staying generally flat due to the overhang of the European economy, particularly in Germany. Once the economy begins to show signs of recovery, we expect pellet prices to recover towards more historical levels, allowing Torga to deliver significant shareholder value. Heating pellet prices were up in Q2, which is unusual given the seasonality of this product, but higher German fiber costs created supply constraints and drove prices up. We expect demand and prices to be slightly lower in Q3.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

With regard to our mass timber business, we have seen steady growth in the number of incoming projects inquiries. In the last two quarters, the potential sales volumes of these inquiries have exceeded $400,000,000 and equates to well over 100 projects per quarter. And as a result, our order book is growing. The projects we are bidding on and winning today are meant to be constructed nine months from now, well into 2026. While our orders while our work orders for q three remain weak, revenue will start picking up momentum in q four to the point that we're planning on ramping up one of our facilities to two shifts in the early part of next year.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Today, our mass timber backlog of projects sits at about $68,000,000. We remain confident that the environmental, economic, speed of construction, aesthetics benefits of mass timber will allow this building product to grow in popularity at a pace similar to what happened in Europe. As such, we're highly confident in this business being a growth engine for MRSA. We are well positioned to take advantage of that market growth as we have roughly 30% of North American cross laminated timber production capacity, a broad range of product offerings, including design assist and installation services and a large geographic footprint with manufacturing sites in the Northwest as well as Southeast, giving us competitive access to the entire North American market. As part of our objective to keep all of our pulp mills running reliably, we plan major maintenance shutdowns at all mills throughout the year.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Our remaining shut schedule is as follows. In Q3, Rosenthal will be down for fourteen days or about fourteen thousand three hundred tons, and Celgar will take four days or 5,300 tons. In Q4, Stendo will be down for eighteen days or 37,100 tons. In light of recent economic uncertainty, we have reduced planned CapEx and now expect to spend about $100,000,000 on capital projects in 2025. This capital budget is heavily weighted to maintenance, environmental and safety projects and includes both Torgau's lumber expansion project and Celgar's recently completed wood room project.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

We're currently conducting a FEL two engineering review for a potential carbon capture project at our Peace River Mill. We have a lot of work to do given where we are in the project, but we're excited about the potential that such a venture could have on the economics of this mill. As we look forward, we believe that products like mass timber, green energy, lumber, pulp, and lignin will play increasingly important roles in displacing carbon intensive products. Products like concrete and steel for construction or plastic for packaging. Furthermore, the potential demand for sustainable fossil fuel substitutes is very significant and has the potential to be transformative to the wood products industry.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

We remain committed to our 2,030 carbon reduction targets and believe our products form part of the climate change solution. In fact, we believe that demand for our low carbon products will dramatically increase as the world looks for solutions to reduce its carbon emissions. We remain bullish on the long term value of pulp and are committed to better balance our company to our growth in our lumber and mass timber businesses. Overall, our Q2 operating results were disappointing and equally frustrating given the cause for a weak earnings lies on this uncertain business environment created by global trade challenges. We believe our businesses have strong fundamentals and when combined with our debt reduction strategy, we're poised to create significant shareholder value.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

We will continue to pursue the benefits of our One Go 100 program and continue to improve the reliability of our mills to strengthen our resilience. We remain committed to increasing shareholder value by reducing our leverage through aggressive cost reduction programs, strong mill reliability, and prudent capital management. Thanks for listening. And I will now turn the call back to Michelle for questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. And our first question comes from Roger Spitz with Bank of America. Your line is open.

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Thank you very much. Just can you provide any information on other cash flow items like twenty twenty five cash taxes and perhaps all the way to twenty twenty five operating cash flow, less the $100,000,000 of CapEx?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Roger, it's Richard. So we expect our tax for the year to be about $20,000,000.25000000 cash tax. And then I'm not sure so our CapEx, mentioned we're targeting $100,000,000 interest probably around 110,000,000 and working capital should be slightly negative if not flat for the year. Does that answer your question?

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

I'm sorry. A slight outflow to flash.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

For example, yes. Just a modest negative. Yeah.

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

I think you just said cash tax of 25, but you've you've already kind of there in the first two quarters now?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Yep.

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Or did I mishear you?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

No, no, you're right. It's about 25 for the year.

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Got it. And my other question is regarding the German revolver facility, Can you remind us of the any maintenance covenants under that and what kind of headroom you have given where you are as of June 30, Jaw?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Yeah, there's no maintenance covenants and we have lots of headroom. The number escapes me, but it exceeds $100,000,000 probably like $150,000,000 $200,000,000 ish. So there's lots of capacity there. I just don't have the number off the top of my head.

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

But your home available, basically.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Not all but most.

[Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay, got it. Okay, that's great. That's it. Thank you very much.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Okay.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sean Steuart with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

[Sean Steuart, Managing Director at TD Securities]

Thank you. Good morning. I want to follow-up on the balance sheet. Rich, I guess just perspective on what given the capital intensity of the business and the exposure to maintenance downtime schedules, what's the minimum liquidity level you guys are comfortable with as sort of a baseline going forward? And then follow-up on that, you're talking about flat to slightly negative working cap changes this year.

[Sean Steuart, Managing Director at TD Securities]

But Juan Carlos, you mentioned an opportunity to bring working cap down further as a part of broader cash management initiatives. Can you give a little bit of perspective on longer term opportunities to bring working capital down?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Well, maybe I'll touch on that first. So we've got some initiatives around inventory, specifically wood inventory that will continue to push our working capital down. This is sort of an ongoing thing with the mills, managing those inventories. So we're confident that we'll get our one goal, 100 target hit. And then, Chancellor, your first question,

[Sean Steuart, Managing Director at TD Securities]

remind The minimum that was available liquidity that you're comfortable with, just given the capital intensity inherent in the business.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Yes, we're a long way from being uncomfortable I would say. So we've I don't know if I have a minimum number in mind but we're not even close to that. When we look out and we look at the levers that we can still pull around CapEx, We talked before Sean about the MOB is probably like 60,000,000 or $70,000,000 a year. And we could probably push that down if we needed to. So I think we've got plenty of room, not worried about liquidity at all at this point.

[Sean Steuart, Managing Director at TD Securities]

Okay, that's all I have for now. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sandy Byrne with Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open.

[Sandy Burns, MD & Head - High Yield Research at Stifel Nicolaus]

Hi, good morning everyone. You mentioned how you had to take the write down on the hardwood pulp side in the quarter. Just given how it looks like based on the production versus sale numbers on the softwood side, your softwood inventories are probably at elevated levels. Maybe, Juan, can you comment if you would agree with that or how you view your softwood inventory levels? And maybe related, do you think there is the potential risk to have to take a noncash write down on those inventories as well?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

I can take that. At least the impairment part of it. Yes, we're not close to taking any impairments on softwood inventories. Inventory levels, I would say, are slightly elevated, primarily in Canada just due to the slower Chinese sales. But I wouldn't say we're uncomfortable with the inventory levels at this point.

[Sandy Burns, MD & Head - High Yield Research at Stifel Nicolaus]

Okay. And then also maybe just to discuss your current liquidity. You discussed the covenants under the German revolver. I guess under the Canadian revolver, anything that may start to you're getting close on or may trip up in the next quarter or so given current conditions?

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

No. So that revolver has a springing covenant that kicks in once you hit a certain threshold of borrowing which again we're not sort of when you sort of top out on overall facility. But again, not even close to that at this point. So yeah, no concerns.

[Sandy Burns, MD & Head - High Yield Research at Stifel Nicolaus]

Okay. And then lastly, to follow-up on your previous comment, the 60,000,000 to $70,000,000 Is that more like a maintenance CapEx level you're referring to Exactly. In terms of

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Sorry, I used the term MOB, maintenance of business.

[Sandy Burns, MD & Head - High Yield Research at Stifel Nicolaus]

Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Good luck with everything.

[Operator]

And our next question comes from Matthew McKellar with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Matthew McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First, could you just talk through what you would expect to catalyze pulp prices gaining some momentum as we kind of get into the latter part of the year? Have you already seen enough production to come out of the markets to put it in a more balanced position? Or what are you looking for there? Thanks.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Absolutely. Thanks for your question. Yes, we believe that there's positive momentum coming into the later part of the year as it comes to bulk prices. This is on the back of restocking after the low summer season process that we go through year after year. So as demand picks up, we do see that inventories will come down and there would be a need for restocking.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Now in the particular case of softwood, we do see the market being tight in terms of supply. In previous years, there's been several mill closures and capacity that have come down. We've seen some announcements of also additional closures in recent times, particularly in Finland, or curtailments that will take some volumes out of the market as well. So when you add everything up, we do believe that once demand comes picking up from the low summer season, we would start feeling the pressure of the tight supply and that would drive prices up for the second, for the latest part of the year, let's say end of Q3 and coming into Q4. For hardwood, it's a bit different because obviously there is some excess capacity, but at the same time, as always, after the low summer season kicks in, and we see some of the restarting happening, it would naturally go up again.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Not materially, not significantly, we're not expecting a hockey stick on hardwood. We expect probably a better recovery on softwood than we see on hardwood in the later part of the year.

[Matthew McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Thanks for that detail. I'd like to ask just quickly about this carbon capture plant at Peace River as well. Is there anything that you could share at this point, recognizing, you know, the project is pretty early stages, around how meaningful the project could be financially to Mercer or how we should think about a potential capital commitment there, if any? Thank you.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, we're very excited about how that project is progressing. And despite the fact that we're still a couple years away from it becoming a reality, the fact is that we have completed FEL1 with very good results. We're in the middle of FEL2. We will go into feed already by the beginning of next year.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So it's progressing in a very favorable way. Now the impact that this project may have on the mill is very significant. Because when we look at the potential revenue stream that can come out of that, it would be tied to about 500,000 tons of CO two that we can capture. And given where the prices of CO two credits are, we can easily come up with a number that is close or north of $100,000,000 per year of revenue. And given how this project works, the cost associated with that revenue is very low.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So it's highly profitable venture for the mill, And obviously it would be a very significant upgrade to the financials of the asset itself. It basically becomes a biorefinery with a with a a prime product, if you see, if you put it that way, that is that are those carbon credits. And remember that that that market when when we negotiate those carbon credits, those contracts are ten year contracts. So that means that the mill would have a guaranteed revenue for ten years of a $100,000,000 per year. So that is why we see this as something that is strategically important for Peace River and for Mercer as a whole, because it it it opens the door of what we can do with carbon capture in other mills as well.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Now to the second part of your question around the capital requirement for it, it is obviously an expensive project. But when I say expensive, it's probably north of 500,000,000. However, the beauty of this is that it is one of these, these type of projects are incredibly supported by the government and by the States of Alberta. So we expect no less than 60% of it to be covered by grants. And then the remaining 40% or 35% that we're seeing would be up to us.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And in this particular case, this is a joint venture that we're doing with a company called Svante. And that's a fifty fifty venture. So basically, half of that would be on us. When you bring it down, it's a much smaller, it's probably less than a 100,000,000, what would be our share of the pie. So it becomes a bite sized project with a very, very quick payback given the revenue stream that comes out of it.

[Matthew McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Thanks for all that detail. And if I could just fit in one more on wood products. Could you please remind us if Torrigo is configured to produce lumber for The U. S.

[Matthew McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Markets and how that 65,000,000 board feet of incremental production plus maybe duties on Canadian lumber pushing higher could affect the geographical sales mix through the balance of the year? Then it sounds like you have visibility to mass timber revenue picking up in Q4. What kind of magnitude are we talking about? And how do you think about a timeline to get back to that revenue run rate we saw kind of q two, q three of last year? Thank you.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Absolutely. Yes. On Torgau, it is equipped and capable to supply The US market. As a matter of fact, that is already happening. So we have basically pine two by fours and studs coming out of Torgau into The US market.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And it actually compliments very nicely the offer that we have from SPF with FreeSouth. So that has actually come on in a very positive way. So we expect to see that capacity continue to grow as we were saying by the end of this year, we should be around 100,000 cubic meters of plain lumber being produced at Torgau. And that should escalate the capacity that we have right now installed is about two and fifty thousand cubic meters. So we still have a way to go in order to capture value from Torgau.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And if I can remind everybody, that was the thesis from we invested in Torgau, was the fact that despite of it being a pallet mill, we wanted to invest in it so that it could become a much more stronger sawmill from a lumber, plain lumber perspective. And that's what we're doing. And that's what we're proving right now that the mill is capable of doing that. Gradually we'll continue to increase as time progresses. So we're satisfied with the way that it's progressing and obviously look forward to having that full capacity of plain lumber out of Torgau.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And which a big part of it goes into The US. Now it will be an advantage when we think about the position that we are in producing out of Germany, both at Friesau and Torgau, and we compare with the position that the Canadian sawmill industry is relative to The US with the countervailing duties and the anti dumping duties going up, obviously that puts our German product in a much more competitive position relative to the Canadians. So for us, regardless of what happens with tariffs, we're obviously now much more competitive than the Canadians from that point of view. So that's something that is obviously very eager for us to continue in that direction. And to your second question on mass timber, yes, the order book is picking up steam as we go through.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

As one of the things that is probably important to explain as how this is different from what we saw last year, is the fact that last year we had some very significant projects, large projects. We had the Walmart campus, which was a very big mega project. And we had also the Google project. So there were two very large projects that commanded a big part of the revenue, and those projects are obviously very productive and were very efficient for us. So that pushed our results very nicely in last year.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

This year, as the year has come, the way it has come, those mega projects are not there. So what we've seen is an incredible amount of growth on the smaller projects. And that's what has built up the momentum this year. Just an incredible amount of growth in smaller projects. And we do expect some of those mega projects to come back in '26 and '27.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

There's very good progress with several of them, given the reputation that we built for ourselves with some of the ones that we delivered, we're highly confident that we'll get back on those mega project trends in '26, on top of the growth that we're seeing already on the smaller projects that we're picking up. So that's why we're very, very confident about the growth potential for this in 2026.

[Matthew McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks for all the color. I'll turn it back.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Cole Hawthorne with Jefferies. Your line is open.

[Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'd just like to follow-up on the pulp markets. I mean, we've seen Metz fiber take software downtime. We're seeing UPM take some software downtime in The Nordics, which hopefully reduces inventory levels and you talk about some potential recovery in the fourth quarter and into 2026.

[Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

But I'm actually wondering what the lumber duties do to some of the Canadian sawmills and ultimately the pulp mills. With the lumber duties at the moment, does this put some saw mills at risk which reduces the available fiber to some of these, of your competitor pulp mills? Are we, potentially going to see further supply disruptions in Canada now that we've got these lumber duties? Just like your thoughts around that and, you know, who's better placed, versus not. Thank you.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Perfect. Appreciate the call and the question. And yes, you're absolutely right in the diagnosis that you put forward. We share your opinion that with the countervailing duties going the way they have increased, that will put a lot of strain on sawmills in Canada. We would not be surprised if as a consequence of this increment in the countervailing duties and anti dumping duties, that more sawmills may need to close and shut down.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And with that, obviously, what that would put is a lot more pressure on fiber or access to chips in BC in particular. That obviously doesn't play well for any of the mills located in BC. We feel we're very lucky that we are located where we are located, that we have put in place a strategy two years ago, to look at sourcing from The US rather than depending on BC. As I mentioned in the call earlier, 45% of our fiber is coming from The US. We have potential to increase that if we need, and it is very competitive fiber.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So for us, we don't suffer. We're very well positioned and we won't suffer if there's further closures of sawmills and whatnot in comparison to others. I think that any other pulp mill in BC in particular, especially those that are further up North, they would suffer the consequence directly and there could be potential a pulp mill closure or further curtailment in Canada, and not only in Finland like we've seen. So yes, that all goes back to some of the reasons why we think that from a pricing perspective for softwood, the trend, no matter how you look at it is upwards. Because from a supply perspective, there's gonna be further and further constraints.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And obviously if fiber prices go up, that will also push breakeven prices for partners go up. And that kind of sets a little of the floor at which softwood can settle. So we see it today. The 700 is probably the floor price right now for softwood, just as it's a little bit below 500 for hardwood. So for our mills, again, Celgar, pretty much okay under that circumstance.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

And in Peace River, obviously we don't, since we have our own FMA, we have no problem with access to fiber. It's pretty much the country have more fiber than what we need.

[Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

And then maybe expanding on that. I mean, I agree with kind of the $700 a ton kind of cost curve support levels. And if there was an exit in Canada, it would be material for the softwood markets to impact pricing. But if I look at your business in Europe, you are second to first cost quartile in Europe. Is any kind of disclosure you can give on the relative profitability levels of your pulp operations in Europe versus Canada, just to kind of give a feel for, where you are in Europe versus Canada, what the profitability like is in Europe?

[Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

And maybe just frame the value of those European pulp mills. I mean, we had made some fiber that recently built their expanded pulp mill, but the replacement value of those two European assets would be bordering $2,000,000,000 I'm just wondering how you see the value of that European pulp mill system. If you can give any kind of color there, that'd be helpful.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Absolutely. Well, we have a very large pulp mill in Stendal. We're talking 740,000 tons of softwood capacity. And Rosenthal being probably three seventy or so. So one very large and one average size pulp mill.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

However, that average size pulp mill, Rosenfeld is an incredibly efficient pulp mill. It runs like clockwork. So when it comes to the competitiveness of it, it is up there and very, very, very high. We feel very confident about the profit stream that comes from Rosenthal even in times like these. We're well below, our breakeven point is well below where the market sits nowadays.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So those houses are very competitive. Salga, very similar to Rosenthal. It has demonstrated and last year was testament to that. The profitability of Celgar last year was just as equivalent as Rosenthal. So very, very resilient.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Still positive even with pulp prices at the levels that they are right now. So when it comes to softwood, even with the prices that we see today, our mills, all of our mills are profitable. And obviously Stendal being the largest obviously we take advantage of those economies of scale and it becomes incredibly resilient. Now hardwood is a different story because obviously we're located in Alberta and further from markets, logistic costs are more expensive to get the pulp out of there. And we're talking Aspen pulp, not eucalyptus grown in Brazil.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So obviously our competitiveness on hardwood is different than when it comes to softwood. In terms of valuation, I wouldn't be able to give you a number would be a guess at this point in time. But we're very confident about the high value of the assets that we have in both continents. Again, the value comes not only from the potential that they are offering today, but what they can also bring in the future. We talk about lignin out of Rosenthal, that could be a very significant revenue stream for the mill.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

We have a pilot plant that is running. We have plans to build the commercial plant probably starting in 2027. That's what we aim for, to have a project for commercial facility of Lignin that could generate three times as much value than what we get from energy revenues today. In Stendhal, we have a similar project looking also at gasification of black liquor and the potential that that can bring, and the fallback position being lignin on both assets. In Stendo, we have the possibility of CO2 capture, which is what we're doing in Peace River, as we mentioned.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So there's a lot of potential in the assets beyond what we're doing. And that's why we see them incredibly more valuable than just thinking of them as pure pulp assets. We see them strategically as bio refineries and we want to develop them that way.

[Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

Then finally, if you permit me, I mean, we've heard a lot in Europe around, you know, Germany infrastructure spending and improvements into 2026. I'm just wondering how you think about your pallets and lumber business, in particular exposed to any form of either infrastructure spending or kind of recovery spending if the German government does give, tax deductions like they're giving in The US for accelerated depreciation etcetera. You know, will, Mercer be a beneficiary there? And then maybe Richard, just a quick one. Are you expecting any energy rebates in your business in 4Q at all from Germany? Thank you.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Yeah. On Germany, what we can see is that, as you will mention, this push from the government, for further spending, is obviously very good news for the country as a whole. It generate a lot of push for the economy. And if we have that push for the economy, that immediately translates into benefits for industry moving goods. And if goods are being moved, then pallet prices, pallet prices should go up because pallet demand will will obviously pick up naturally.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

So, and we are very sensitive, very sensitive to any price increase in pallet prices, as I mentioned before. So we were very energized by the policies that the current government has laid out and what that would mean for the German economy recovering. Although we recognize that even though they have been announced already and that they're in place already, it doesn't have any immediate effect. So we do see a gradual improvement more into the '26 than earlier than that. We wish it was faster, I think these things will take time to simmer into all the economy and the different industries as well.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Rich, I'll pass it on to you to the second part.

[Richard Short, CFO & Secretary at Mercer International]

Hey, cool. Yeah, so no, we're not expecting any energy rebates in Germany or Europe in general. Thank

[Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group]

you.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Juan Carlos for closing remarks.

[Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director at Mercer International]

Well, you, Michelle, and thanks to you all for joining our call. Rich and I are available to talk more at any time, so don't hesitate to call one of us. Otherwise, we look forward to speaking to you again on our next earnings call in November. Bye for now.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Participants

Executives

• Richard Short, CFO & Secretary
• Juan Carlos Bueno, President, CEO & Director

Analysts

• Roger Spitz, Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Sean Steuart, Managing Director at TD Securities
• Sandy Burns, MD & Head - High Yield Research at Stifel Nicolaus
• Matthew McKellar, Vice President at RBC Capital Markets
• Cole Hathorn, SVP - Equity Research Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group