Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Altri's first quarter 2026 results conference call. Today, we'll review our financial performance, market conditions, operational highlights, and outlook, followed by a Q&A session.

Joining us this morning are Mr. José Pina, Altri's Chief Executive Officer, and Mr.

Miguel Silva, the Group's Chief Financial Officer. I will now pass the floor to Mr.

José Pina.

Thank you, Rui. Good morning, and thank you for joining Altri's conference call.

We're pleased to welcome our investors and analysts today as we present our results and share our perspective on the current market environment and the key challenges we face. Turning now to our main highlights for the first quarter of 2026, as we start with the pulp market environment, it is important to note, following a very challenging year for the global pulp sector in 2025, we are beginning to see some more constructive dynamics emerging in early 2026.

Supply and demand conditions appear more balanced, and tariffs announced by the United States have so far been largely absorbed along the value chain. In addition, stronger demand from China provided support to recent BHKP price increases, while dissolving pulp continues to improve its competitiveness versus fossil-based synthetic fibers, thus reinforcing the long-term attractiveness of our product mix.

That said, the first quarter was clearly impacted by extraordinary nonrecurring operational challenges. Severe storms in Portugal affected logistics, energy costs, and overall operations, which, combined with lower net pulp prices and the depreciation of the US dollar, weighed significantly on our results.

As a consequence, EBITDA in the quarter reached €5.4 million, corresponding to a margin of 3.4% compared with 14.5% in the same period last year. Importantly, these impacts were temporary.

Operations have now been largely normalized, and as we move into the second quarter, we expect a meaningful improvement in profitability, supported by better pricing dynamics and continued focus on cost efficiency. Our strategy to diversify earnings and expand into higher-value sustainable businesses continues to advance according to plan.

At Caima, the acetic acid and furfural project is progressing well and is expected to be concluded in June 2026 as planned. This project represents an important step in maximizing the value of our biomass energy streams and strengthening our positioning within the bio-based chemical space.

At Biotek, the migration of BHKP production to dissolving pulp remains on track, with full migration expected by the end of 2026. This transition is key to enhancing product mix resilience and capturing structural demand in specialty fiber applications.

In parallel, we have initiated investment in a pre-industrial filament unit aimed at scaling up AeoniQ, our shared company in Switzerland. This allows to increase production capacity, accelerate customer qualification processes, and further positioning Altri in the fast-growing market for sustainable textile fibers.

This unit will be installed in Caima. Taken together, these initiatives clearly illustrate our long-term growth strategy, disciplined execution, diversification beyond traditional pulp and higher-value products, as well as continued focus on sustainable value-added solutions.

Moving on to the following slide on market highlights for the first quarter, global pulp demand had a slow start of the year, reflecting the still cautious macroeconomic environment. Overall demand declined by close to 4% year-on-year in the first quarter, with softer consumption across most pulp grades.

That said, the structural trends remain unchanged and continue to support our strategic positioning. Hardwood pulp continues to gain share versus softwood, with hardwood demand declining significantly less than softwood in the quarter.

This trend reinforces the long-term attractiveness of Altri's asset base, which is fully focused on hardwood pulp. From a regional perspective, China once again outperformed the global market.

While global hardwood demand declined by 2.4% year-on-year, demand in China remained broadly stable, highlighting the resilience of this key market and its importance for global balance. North America also showed positive dynamics, while Europe remained more subdued.

Turning now specifically to the dissolving pulp market, dissolving pulp continues to recover following a very challenging 2025. As we move into early 2026, the impact of the US tariffs is increasingly being absorbed across the value chain, allowing market fundamentals to gradually reassert themselves.

At the same time, dissolving pulp is becoming more competitive versus fossil-based synthetic fibers. This is an important structural development as it supports demand in textile applications and reinforces the long-term sustainability case for cellulose fibers.

From a regional perspective, China remains by far the largest and most important market for dissolving pulp. In the first 2 months of 2026, demand in China grew by around 4.5% year-on-year, contributing to overall global demand growth of close to 1%.

Asia as a whole continues to drive market recovery, more than offsetting weaker dynamics in Europe. Just to reinforce, utilization rates at our customers, particularly in viscose in China, remain well above 90%.

Overall, while the recovery is still gradual, the direction is clearly positive and fully aligned with our strategic focus on dissolving pulp and supports our ongoing conversion and growth initiatives at Biotek. Let me now briefly comment on inventory levels.

Turning to slide number 5, inventories at European ports have remained broadly stable and close to historical averages since the second half of 2024. As you can see, stock levels have been consistently within the range of approximately 1.4 to 1.5 million tons.

This stability is an important signal for the market. Despite the weaker demand environment at the start of the year, inventories have not built up to excessive level, indicating that supply and demand remain relatively well-balanced.

Moving from demand and inventories to pricing, let me briefly comment on BHKP pricing in Europe during the quarter in slide number 6. In the first quarter, we started to see a clearer picture of recovery in BHKP in Europe, particularly as the quarter progressed.

On average, BHKP prices in the first quarter of 2026 were up 13% year-on-year in US dollars, but only up 1% in euros, which highlights the impact of the weaker dollar versus last year. Importantly, if you look at the sequential trend, pricing momentum improved meaningfully during the quarter.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, BHKP prices rebounded by 12% in US dollars or 11% in euros, indicating improving fundamentals as we move through the period. Consistently with that, the PIX index ended March at $1,286 per ton or €1,112 per ton.

Overall, this pricing trajectory supports our expectations of improved profitability as we move into the second quarter with more normalized operations and continued cost discipline. Let me now turn to dissolving pulp pricing, which is more closely aligned to the textile value chain.

Dissolving pulp prices were more affected during 2025 by macroeconomic uncertainty, particularly in the textile sector as a consequence of the potential impacts from US tariffs on Asian value chains. As a result, pricing dynamics in dissolving pulp lagged those of commodity pulp during most of the last 6 months.

In China, which remains the reference market for dissolving pulp, average imported hardwood dissolving pulp prices declined year-on-year, moving from around $940 per ton in the first quarter of 2025 to approximately $810 per ton in the first quarter of 2026. These are net prices, as in China.

Pricing overall remained relatively stable through the second half of 2025, reflecting cautious demand and inventory adjustments along the textile chain. Importantly, we started to see a recovery in March.

Prices bottomed early in the quarter and ended March at around $835 per ton and now, more recently, already moving closer to $880 per ton, signaling improving sentiment and a gradual normalization of demand conditions. While the recovery remains gradual, this recent improvement is encouraging and is consistent with our view that dissolving pulp fundamentals are stabilizing, supported by improved competitiveness versus synthetic fibers and the long-term growth of sustainable textile applications.

Let me now turn to Altri-specific operational highlights for the first quarter in slide number 8. Production volumes in the first quarter of 2026 decreased materially compared with last year.

This was primarily due to two factors: a programmed maintenance downtime at Celbi and severe storms in Portugal, which affected operations across all mills. These events had a clear, but temporary, impact on production.

Importantly, they were largely nonrecurring in nature and, in the case of Celbi, fully planned as part of our maintenance strategy. Despite the lower production volumes, sales volumes were less affected.

This reflects our priority to maintain a regular and reliable supply for our customers despite all the implications of the storms, drawing on inventory management and operational flexibility to minimize disruption along the value chain. As conditions normalized towards the end of the year, operations returned to expected levels, and we entered the second quarter with normalized production, improved availability, and a stronger operational base to benefit from the improving market and pricing environment.

Let me now comment briefly on our sales mix in slide number 9, both by end use and by region. Production and sales volumes in 2025 remained broadly in line with 2024 despite the softer demand environment in Europe.

Some logistical constraints temporarily delayed dissolving pulp shipments, but we expect full normalization from the second quarter of 2026 onwards. Tissue remained our most important end use segment in the first quarter, representing 39% of total sales volumes.

The decline versus previous periods, usually in the high 40s, was mainly due to temporary order delays, as well as logistic complications, rather than any structural change in demand. At the same time, we continued to see textiles as a key growth area.

In the first quarter, textile-related applications represented already 14% of sales volumes, and this share is expected to continue to increase over time as dissolving pulp volumes ramp up, particularly at Biotek. From a regional perspective, Europe continues to account for most of our sales, representing 61% of total volumes.

However, Asia already represents 19%, and this share is expected to grow as our exposure to dissolving pulp and textile end uses increases. Overall, this sales mix evolution is fully aligned with our strategic diversification objectives, maintaining a strong position in traditional tissue and paper markets, while progressively increasing our exposure to higher-growth textile-related and Asian markets.

I will now pass the floor to Miguel Silva, Altri's Chief Financial Officer, who will walk you through the main financial highlights of the period.

Thank you, José, and good morning, everyone. In slide 10 and starting with our financial highlights for the first quarter of 2026, revenues declined year-on-year, reflecting lower net pulp prices and the weaker US dollar versus the euro, which had a negative effect on reported revenues.

Another main effect affecting net pulp prices was the increase in discounts implemented in January of 2026. In addition to pricing and FX, the quarter was also impacted by punctual increases in logistics and energy costs, largely related to the severe storms in Portugal that José referred to earlier.

As a result of these combined factors, EBITDA reached €5.4 million in the first quarter, representing a historically low level for the Group. It is important to stress, however, that this performance was mainly driven by temporary and largely nonrecurring factors, including operational disruptions and market conditions at the start of the year.

As we move into the second quarter, we are already seeing a much more supportive environment, with higher net pulp prices, normalized operations, and lower extraordinary costs, which gives us confidence in a sequential improvement in profitability. Turning to slide 11, it summarizes the evolution of our EBITDA margin over the last 5 quarters.

As a consequence of the factors we have just discussed, namely lower net pulp prices, the weaker US dollar versus the euro, the extraordinary logistics and energy costs linked to the severe storms, together with lower production due to the planned downtime, our EBITDA margin was under significant pressure in the first quarter of 2026. You can see that margins were relatively solid through most of 2025, with 14.5% in the first quarter, 16.7% in the second quarter of '25, and 15% in the fourth quarter of '25, while third quarter reflected a softer point in the cycle at 7.1%.

In the first quarter of '26, the margin declined to 3.4%, reflecting the combination of market headwinds and operational disruptions concentrated in the quarter. As we move through the second quarter, we expect the margin to recover sequentially, supported by better pricing, normalized production, and the reduction in exceptional costs.

Moving down to the income statement in slide 12, the low EBITDA level in the quarter naturally translated into an operating loss and a net loss in this first quarter of '26. EBITDA margin remained under pressure in 2025 due to the already mentioned lower prices and the weaker US dollar.

In the fourth quarter, margins began to recover as market conditions and FX stabilized. As shown on the left-hand side, we reported an EBIT of -€6 million in the first quarter of '26 compared with €13 million in the fourth quarter of '25 and €8 million in the first quarter of 2025.

This reflects the same combination of factors we discussed earlier: lower net pulp prices, the weaker US dollar versus the euro, and the extraordinary logistics and energy costs linked to the severe storms, together with the impact of planned downtime on lower production. On the right-hand side, net profit was -€7 million in the first quarter of 2026 versus €9 million in the fourth quarter of '25 and €8 million in the first quarter of 2025.

In other words, the sharp decline in operating profitability during the quarter was the key driver of the bottom-line outcome. Turning now to costs on slide 13, as highlighted on this slide, operating costs were abnormally higher in the first quarter, mainly driven by logistics and energy costs, both of which were temporarily impacted by the storms in Portugal.

We expect these effects to normalize in the second quarter of 2026. Nevertheless, we have started to see some inflation pressures in some cost items for the rest of 2026.

On wood costs, average prices in 2026 remained broadly in line with the 2025 average. That said, we may see some inflation during the year, mainly due to the recent storms in Portugal.

These events temporarily constrained local availability and required us to source additional volumes sometimes from alternative or more distant suppliers. At this stage, we see this as temporary rather than structural.

Moving to electricity and natural gas, the severe weather conditions in Portugal affected all mills, leading to several days of downtime and production restrictions. This had a direct impact on energy consumption and production efficiency during the quarter.

At the same time, the quarter also included programmed downtime at Celbi, and we faced additional costs linked to power grid instability. Finally, energy prices, particularly gas, saw some upward pressure since March, following geopolitical developments in Iran.

On chemicals, prices have remained broadly stable since 2024, although, as expected, they are correlated with energy prices. During the second quarter of 2026, we have started to see some inflationary pressures, namely on caustic soda, but it remains manageable and within our expectations.

Turning now to net debt on slide 14, as shown on this bridge, net debt increased during this first quarter, reflecting the fact that investment levels exceeded operating cash flow in the period. Net debt moved to €329 million at the end of December 2025 to €348 million at the end of March 2026, an increase of around €19 million.

The CapEx level of €15 million and some other commitments exceeded the operating cash flow generation of €5 million. In summary, the increase in net debt in the first quarter is primarily investment-driven, remains well-controlled, and is fully consistent with our capital allocation strategy.

Importantly, we continue to maintain a solid balance sheet and a very comfortable liquidity position. I will now pass it back to José Pina.

Thank you, Miguel. Turning now to returns on capital employed on slide number 15, as this slide illustrates, we are currently going through a challenging cyclical period for the global pulp industry, which has resulted in a modest ROCE.

This level is clearly below our historical double-digit average, which stands at around 15%, and also well below the strong returns delivered in previous upcycle years, such as 2022 and 2024. It is important to stress that this performance is cyclical, not structural.

Altri's assets remain high quality, competitive, and cash-generating across the cycle, and our capital discipline has not changed. Let me now turn to ESG and sustainability, which remains the core pillar of Altri's long-term strategy, in slide 16.

First, on sustainable logistics, Altri was awarded the annual Sustainable Transport Certificate 2025 by Medway. This recognition reflects our increasing use of rail transport, which directly contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions measured in tons of CO2 equivalent.

Second, on partnerships, Altri Florestal formalized a strategic partnership with Eucaliptos, a company of the [Cassedefol Egestião? Group] during the SIAM event in Morocco.

This partnership is focused on technical and scientific cooperation in forestry, while also supporting the identification of additional sustainable sources of fiber. Finally, on net-zero, Altri is actively implementing its transition roadmap, fully aligned with international best practices and long-term decarbonization strategy.

During 2026, the Group committed to Science Based Targets initiative with the objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and a 2-year timeframe to formally submit our targets. From slides 17 to 20, we have some highlights of the growth and diversification projects we have underway.

The first of these projects to be finalized is the acetic acid and furfural production unit at Caima that should start operating in 2026. To conclude, turning to slide 21 and 22, let me briefly summarize our perspectives and strategic execution.

We entered 2026 with a more supportive demand environment following a highly volatile 2025. We are seeing a recovery in demand from China in the hardwood segment, where Altri has significant exposure, as well as early signs of a more sustainable recovery in dissolving pulp.

This improvement in demand is increasingly being reflected in pricing trends, in particular BHKP prices in Europe increased for 5 consecutive months between January and May. As usual, this positive price momentum reaches our accounts with a lag of around 2 months.

Dissolving pulp prices have also shown a favorable evolution, especially from March onwards. On the cost side, we expect a normalization of the nonrecurring impacts played previously in the first quarter, particularly in logistics and energy.

Taken together, the combination of improving prices and a more efficient cost base supports our expectations of a meaningful recovery in profitability in the second quarter of 2026 compared to the first. Fourth, in parallel, we continue to execute on our strategic diversification project.

The conversion of Biotek to dissolving pulp is progressing as planned, remains on track for completion by the end of current year, with multiple customer qualifications expected to be gradually overcome during the year. At Caima, the acetic acid and furfural valorization project is expected to start operations in June, followed by gradual ramp-up towards near full capacity by year-end.

At the same time, we continue to invest in AeoniQ with the installation of a pre-industrial unit in Caima, supporting the acceleration of production scale-up and customer qualification in the sustainable textile fiber segment. To conclude, with a recent near-term environment challenging, we are now seeing early signs of improvement in demand and pricing, alongside a normalization of costs.

At the same time, we continue to execute with discipline on our strategic priorities, strengthening our positioning for the next phase of the cycle. Altri remains financially solid, operationally resilient, and focused on creating sustainable long-term value for all stakeholders.

Thank you for your attention. We look forward to your questions.

Yes. Hello.

Good afternoon. My first question probably it's on European trends.

I'm a little bit struggling to justify the current prices trend, especially considering the Chinese pricing backdrop or, as you were mentioning in one of your slides, the drop in demand on the quarter and also the very complicated situation of the softwood regime in Europe. I would like your thoughts regarding what is driving this pricing divergence between Europe and China, especially in this context of somehow high risk on the softwood arena.

Thank you, Manuel. What I would say when you look at pricing, effectively progression on prices in Europe has been faster than in China, although the process originally started in China.

I think in China, the recent ban of integrated suppliers clearly have had an impact in terms of resisting some of the price changes. Nevertheless, demand in China remains supportive.

Demand in Europe is a little bit more subdued. As Europe is a relatively stable market.

Overall, what I would point is the market remains balanced in Europe, and I think that has been the primary driver, especially of these prices. Also the pricing structure, as China works on net pricing, Europe works on contracts.

The discount levels that were operated from the beginning of the year effectively prompted the producers to be more active in terms of price management, and was clearly the case. When you look on a net-net basis, even though Europe has been ahead, if I look at the inventories at port levels in Europe, they remain pretty much in line with historical trends.

Effectively, there's been even a slight reduction more recently in March. I think Europe is in a fairly stable place.

The announcement of $50 increase for May, we have at this point full confidence that it's going to go through, although, as it gets reflected in PIX later on. The other aspect regarding the dynamics between softwood and hardwood, we know there's been fiber-to-fiber substitution in the past that has been at points reversed.

I would say the more recent trend and because of the weakness in the softwood market is perhaps a demonstration that some of that substitution is potentially definitive and would not have the same dynamics perhaps as in the past. I would continue to expect to see fiber-to-fiber substitution going forward and supporting hardwood prices and in this case, eucalypt as well.

Okay.

Understood. Then, a second question.

Q1 results has been severely conditioned by the extreme weather conditions in Portugal, as you mentioned. It would be great if you can give a sense of idea of what has been the impact, I don't know, in terms of revenues or profitability levels to address, let's say, the underlying trends of the business in the current backdrop.

Thank you, Manuel. Regarding the significant storms we've had in late January and actually in all through parts of February, sometimes perhaps outside of the country, the full impact has not been fully understood.

We've had a series of storms, not just Kristin, but after Kristin there was at least two additional storms, very much in the same area. We've had winds in excess of 200 km/h, which is highly unusual.

The prior situation or close to similar conditions have been back in 2018 with Leslie. Obviously, this had, as we explained, significant impact, not just in terms of the stability of operations.

We've had continuous shutdowns until operations stabilized. We were able to do controlled stops in all our units ahead of the storm or the day before the storm in expectation of the severity of the storm as it came through.

Then, beyond our facilities, I would say the two most significant impacts were on, first of all, obviously energy because it required significant more consumption, particularly natural gas, when you have unstable operations. Biotek was shut down for close to 2 weeks.

Celbi, with a particular incident where one of the cranes that is installed for the new lime kiln, which will be operational by the end of the third quarter, actually collapsed even though the damage was minimized. There was a series of events.

Beyond that, you had logistics. Apart from communications, for 3, 4 days there were significant restrictions in communications in the area.

We resorted to, obviously, satellite, and that helped us overcome some of the constraints. On logistics, in particular, we had the main port, Figueira da Foz, shutting down essentially for a month.

It had already had some complications back in December, which delayed some of the shipments, but then because of the storm, essentially was shut down for about a month. You had rail shutdowns, the main line to Biotek, for example, was shut down because of damage in the line that's still being restored, and we don't expect that to be restored possibly for a few more months.

All in all, you start building all of these complications: reduced production levels, very, very tightly controlled sales because we wanted to maintain service levels for our customers, higher energy costs, high logistics costs, and then on fiber, the fact that we had to resort to additional sources and more expensive sources of raw material of wood. As you can imagine, I think the public figures, there's been well over 30,000 hectares impacted in terms of forestry.

That's now being resolved, but it will go through taking some time. We would estimate at least that numbers in terms of full impact possibly closer to the range of about €10 million.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Just to say, Manuel, that most of those situations, with a few exceptions, has now normalized, and this is reflects of the comments we made regarding how we're looking at Q2 and on.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions.

I will start with the dynamics of the pulp industry and following upon on this topic. We are seeing prices going up, but it's true that we have also seen some resistance in China over the last month or something like that.

It seems like the last price increase that has been announced for China has not been passed through, and there are difficulties in the market to see that. It is also true that next year will be a year of significant new capacities coming to the market in Indonesia.

Already by the end of this year, it is also expected that some Chinese players accelerate again new capacities to the market. My question here is, I understand that you are more positive for Q2 because prices are going up, cash costs are going down.

How long do you think we could see an improvement in the market in terms of pricing, considering all these dynamics in terms of the supply evolution and the risks that exist on the demand front considering the current macro backdrop? Are you concerned about prices heading into the end of the year?

Do you think the price increase announced in China will be passed through? There is room for prices to go even above those levels until the end of the year?

Just trying to get here a bit of your view about the potential for pulp prices to continue going up. This will be my first question.

My second question will be related with the conflict in Iran. You already mentioned that there are some risks on the cash cost front because of logistics and energy costs, even though you are partially hedged.

Just trying to understand if you are seeing any kind of slowdown in the demand caused by this conflict, and if you could guide us a bit on your expectations in terms of impact coming out of this conflict, it would be great. The last one, just a bit of housekeeping work, and looking to the message that you provided and the guidelines that you provided in the last earnings call, you mentioned that you were expecting by then cash costs to be up by low single-digit in the year.

You were also mentioning €50 to €60 million CapEx for this year, and net debt to be at the same level seen in 2025, which I believe was €329 million. Just trying to understand if you keep these guidelines provided in the last conference call or not.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Bruno. Let me start with the first question regarding that price dynamics.

If you mentioned multiple comments regarding, I would say, more recent resistance, in particular seen in China. I think I've commented already regarding the European situation, which we believe has been supportive and will continue to be supportive.

In China, effectively, there's been some more resistance. Regarding the last price increase, we don't see it as not having gone through.

I think partially went through, not fully as was originally intended, but that dealt with some of the dynamics related to the market and some of the new integrated capacities coming onto the market as well. When you look at it in the near term, in the next year, year and a half, effectively, in Indonesia you have the OKI 2 project that has been already delayed.

There is an expectation that perhaps it will not necessarily come onstream as expected late this year or early next year. We'll have to see to that, but the project has been delayed.

As Indonesia has implemented significant forestry limitations, restrictions. Those haven't yet fully panned through, but we believe that's going to create some constraints in terms of wood availability or fiber availability for some of those needs.

OKI 2 effectively is focused on the Asian market, we don't expect significant impact, at least directly certainly in Europe, perhaps indirectly through some of that fiber filtering through into other markets. Asia-Pacific, as with more than half of the global population and more than 50% of the increase in middle class over the next 5, 10 years will be in Asia-Pacific, Asia-Pacific will continue to be a significant engine for growth across some of these products, irrespective of substitution.

Even though there's additional capacity, I think OKI 2, if and when it comes onstream, would not let's say overly concern in terms of the supply and demand dynamics, at least on our core markets. In China, effectively, by the end of this year, there's new capacities that are likely to come onstream.

If you follow the trend prices on fiber in China, they have been on the way up. It is expected that that trend likely will continue.

There are questions related to replanting of those forests because of the return compared to what was originally achieved in construction, but nevertheless, there's more availability. All together, I think there's about 6 million hectares of eucalyptus forests or close to in China, but not all of them are being explored for production in a regular way.

The price, as I said, the price levels for fiber have been increasing, which is likely going to impact some of those new capacities. China, although has been working on more self-sufficiency, they've also been significantly pressured with inflation, and they have now a trend towards what they call involution to try and manage any excess capacity in industry that could potentially impact their own operations.

That's a phenomenon that I think, going forward, we may see some potential changes or eventually some delayed projects, although we have no doubt that China will continue to increase primarily integrated capacity. Moreover, and beyond purely just the pulp market, the BHKP market, let's not forget as we're increasingly more exposed to dissolving pulp, dissolving prices have been supportive.

There's no new capacity in dissolving markets in China. There's a series of non-integrated players.

There's no new viscose plants being built, with the exception of a couple of licenses for an Indonesian player who will be converting part of their own production into dissolving, that's all captive. We see a lot of growth in other fibers, particularly in lyocell, where, essentially, capacity has more than doubled in the last 3, 4 years, and that's likely going to be not just the largest incumbent in Asia, Sateri, but from multiple other non-integrated players, some of which are customers of ours, and obviously that's supply that we aim to cover.

Just as a side note, besides the tariffs that were implemented last year that have significantly restricted activity, still on textiles and viscose, PSF, this year we've seen, and recently we visited China, we've seen utilization rates at these plants above 90%, which is very, very significant. I don't think it's been this high for a number of years.

Part of that is also driven by the fact that polyester staple fiber has been going up, being a fossil-based fiber, it's close to double prices because of the price of oil, and those dynamics are also playing a role in terms of demand there. Turning to your second question, Bruno, on Iranian implications, in terms of our exposure, obviously, natural gas has been an area of concern.

We are significantly hedged this year, we haven't seen a significant impact there. We've seen some impact, but as I said, not a significant impact.

The greatest impact came from consumption because of the instability of operations during the first quarter as we recovered from the storm. Apart from that, I think potentially the most significant impact is going to be on logistics.

We do have more freight container logistics, particularly to Asia, and when I say Asia, also Indo-Pacific, China, India, and a few other places. Those return containers, obviously with larger or longer routes, this have an impact on overall cost.

We'll closely follow that. Hopefully, the geopolitical situation will stabilize in the next few months, everyone expects, but nevertheless, we'll be tracking that very closely.

Those will be, I would say, the two potential impacts that we may see. Now on the other hand, as historically, pulp prices have benefited from geopolitical disruptions, and we've seen that in terms of some of the demand from a few of our customers, they tend to create or actually hedge some of their supply chain risk, and that's been a little bit the case, although not to the levels that we've seen a few years ago.

We're not overly concerned in terms of any future significant destocking process. We're keeping our own pulp inventories relatively low, and when I say relatively low, below what we would normally carry as a precautionary measure to ensure also that we continue, on one hand, to serve customers, but beyond that, that we manage our working capital carefully.

On the cash costs, regarding your third question, the indication we gave for 2026 was in a range of middle single digits for the year on variable costs. That is still the case, despite the fact that we've had some cost pressures in the first quarter because of the storms.

I would say that's still our current objective. When we look at the remaining of the year, we believe that that's still achievable.

There are some uncertainties, in particular on the fiber costs, so that could be one unknown that we'll have to track closely, as well as on energy. Demand levels seem to be relatively strong, and we would hope some of that would also compensate overall, at least in our dilution of fixed costs.

Regarding net debt or just before that, regarding CapEx, we're still pointing towards the range of €60 million, so that's in line with the figures we've had in the last call. Regarding net debt, depending on how the remaining of the year goes, obviously with the first quarter that we saw somewhat of an increase in our overall net debt, we expect the remaining of the year things to be a bit more balanced, but nevertheless, we would still likely see a slight increase in net debt versus the end of 2025.

Hope I've covered all your questions,

Bruno. Yes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi. Good morning.

Thank you for taking my questions. First one is related with I think that you mentioned a rough estimate for nonrecurring costs on the first quarter, but I was not able to hear, if you can confirm the figure.

The second question is related with your COGS pressure or performance over the first quarter. I think that basically COGS increased by around €12 million sequentially from the fourth quarter to the first quarter.

Meanwhile, your tons sold were more or less the same. I think there's some pressure here on COGS.

If you could provide some color on it. Last question is on revenue side on the other business, which is I think the bulk is biomass.

Figures were also on the weak side. I don't know if there's any particular reason to explain it: seasonality, the storms, or any other reason.

Thank you very much.

António, may I ask you to repeat your first question? Didn't get in fully clear.

I think that you mentioned a rough estimate for nonrecurring costs on the first quarter related with storms and so on, but I didn't heard the figure, if you could clarify if I understood well.

Yes. Okay.

Thank you, António. I'll ask as well Miguel to comment a little bit on the cost side.

Regarding the figures in terms of the impact from what we've seen, and again, all considered, I mentioned energy, logistics, operation instability, obviously the difficulties we've had with sourcing fiber because of not only availability, but also we have to go to more extreme locations, and some of that instability, obviously, remained. It had an impact in terms of our overall production levels, plus we have, which is a different topic, but we've had also this program regular maintenance stoppage of Celbi.

Purely related to the storms, we estimate something closer to about €10 million. So 10

You mentioned 10?

I'm sorry?

You mentioned €10 million, yeah?

Closer to €10 million overall.

Closer to €10 million. Okay.

Sorry. Thank you very much.

Let me ask Miguel perhaps to comment on your cost question.

Yes. If I correctly understood, I think it's related to the increase of costs from the previous quarter to this quarter.

What happened in the fourth quarter is that we have some nonrecurring positive effects. Not exactly nonrecurring, they usually happen on every fourth quarter of the year.

That has a positive impact on the costs of that quarter, which are not in this first quarter. This is the only significant effect that I remember to explain this difference.

Okay. On the biomass, maybe you can provide also some information on it.

In fact as well, we have bioproducts. Our bioproducts business is very much related to also production levels, particularly in Caima with lignosulfonates.

In essence, it's seasonality and some related to some of the revenues associated with our, as I've said, tertiary biomass business.

Okay. Thank you very much.

this was already replied, first question was the reply to this, the answer to this, and just now. It was already answered.

Thank you very much again for joining the call. As we've stated, we're seeing a positive development in the current near-term scenario on the business.

We're now operating under normalized conditions, we're looking forward to the rest of the year, and obviously a positive evolution as well in terms of the industry. Thank you so much for joining, and have a good day.