- Sales and supplies focused on Europe. Practically all of the company’s sales and supplies are destined for the European market and Mediterranean countries, where cellulose is used mainly for the manufacture of staple products such as tissue paper and hygiene products.
- Specialty pulp accounted for 35% of sales. Ence Advanced products accounted for 35% of pulp sales in the first quarter. Their weight is expected to continue to increase to over 60% in 2028, including fluff.
- Growing renewables portfolio. The company continues to drive the development of its biofertilizer and biomethane platform in Spain, with the capacity to generate 1,000 GWh per year from 2030, and its renewable industrial heat platform, which will have an annual production of 2,000 GWht by 2030.
Ence closed the first quarter of 2025 with a profit of 2.4 million euros thanks to the development of energy efficiency projects linked to the Energy Saving Certificates (CAE) and the reduction experienced in its production costs. With regard to the evolution of the price of cellulose, it is worth highlighting its recovery from 1,000 dollars gross per ton in December 2024 to 1,218 dollars gross per ton in April, which represents an increase of more than 20%.
One of the highlights of the first quarter of the year was the increase in ebitda in both the Pulp and Energy businesses. Specifically, the development of energy efficiency projects linked to the CAEs boosted Pulp’s ebitda to 28 million euros, four times more than in the previous quarter. The gross operating profit of Renovables improved by 6% to six million euros.
Total pulp sales reached 216,000 tons in the quarter, 8% less than in the previous quarter, due to the annual maintenance shutdown of the Navia biofactory in March.
As regards other data reflecting the company’s performance in the period, the reduction of 11 euros/tonne (cash cost) with respect to the previous quarter, to 510 euros/tonne, stands out.
The group’s net financial debt at the end of March amounted to 331 million (including 61 million IFRS 16 liabilities), of which 247 million corresponded to the Pulp business and 84 million to the Renewables business.
Growing role of specialty cellulose
The company is making steady progress in its transformation as a manufacturer of specialty pulp. Thus, the sales volume of Ence Advanced specialty products, with better margins than standard pulp, grew by more than 30% compared to the previous quarter. Specialty products accounted for 35% of total pulp sales in the first quarter of the year, meeting the company’s targets.
In this sense, their weight is expected to continue to increase to over 60% of the total in 2028, with the incorporation of the 125,000 tons of the first fluff line that will start up in the fourth quarter of this year in Navia.
Renewable energy project pipeline
In the Renewables business, the company has focused in the first quarter on continuing to promote the development of its biofertilizer and biomethane platform in Spain, with the capacity to generate 1,000 GWh per year from 2030, and its renewable industrial heat platform, which will have an annual production of 2,000 GWht in 2030.
With regard to biofertilizers and biomethane, it has a portfolio of 16 projects in the environmental process, in addition to another 16 initiatives under development that already have a location and feasibility study completed.
Through its subsidiary Magnon, the company is making very favorable progress in renewable industrial heat projects. Thus, the installation of two biomass boilers of 10 MWt each has begun for the supply of 85 GWht per year to a leading company in the brewing sector in Spain. This initiative is joined by three more projects in advanced negotiations, which will represent an estimated annual production of 130 GWht/year.
Decarbonization Plan in Navia and Pontevedra
Ence is making progress in achieving the objectives of its Decarbonization Plan. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, the Navia biofactory had undertaken the first phase of replacing part of the natural gas in the lime kilns with biomass. It had also launched the work to advance in the second phase, which plans to increase the substitution of natural gas for wood dust. All this will mean an improvement in its production cost of eight million per year. These actions are in addition to those already implemented in 2023 and 2024.
For its part, the Pontevedra biofactory maintains the plan developed which includes the same actions as in Navia to replace the fuel currently consumed by renewable fuels.
