Brazil’s Suzano has reported first quarter net revenue results of R$5.7bn, which it said was supported by the “strong performance of prices and margins in both the pulp and paper businesses”.
Following the merger of Suzano Pulp & Paper and Fibria, the company reported operating cash generation of R$1.8bn, while EBITDA was R$2.8 bn.
Pulp sales volume – which Suzano said was affected by the company’s sales strategy of reducing price volatility – amounted to 1.7m tonnes, down from the first quarter of 2018.
Suzano said the results “demonstrate the company’s strong cash generation capacity, despite the more challenging market environment”.
Walter Schalka, chief executive of Suzano, said: “Our structural competitiveness in the global market and our solid financial position played a crucial role in sustaining the resilient results we delivered in the atypical business environment we experienced in the first quarter that began to emerge in late 2018 in the Asian market.
“Our goal is to create higher value in the long term, for which we have maintained a consistent commercial strategy with the aim to reduce price volatility in the market.”
Suzano posted a net loss of R$1.2bn in the quarter, which it said was explained by non-cash accounting impacts associated with the acquisition of Fibria and by the effects from the depreciation in the Brazilian real against the US dollar in the quarter.
The company also announced its guidance for production in the year, of between 9m and 9.4m tonnes of pulp.
In the first quarter of 2019, a period in which five plants underwent scheduled shutdowns, pulp production volume amounted to 2.2m tonnes.
Paper production volume came to 292,000 tonnes.
