In the Q3 2024, Mercer International's net loss was $17.6 million ($0.26 per share) compared to a net loss of $26.0 million ($0.39 per share) in the third quarter of 2023 and a net loss of $67.6 million ($1.01 per share) in the Q2 2024, which included a non-cash impairment of $34.3 million ($0.51 per share) against goodwill related to the Torgau facility.
Total revenues for the Q3 2024 increased by approximately 7% to $502.1 million from $470.8 million in the same quarter of 2023 primarily due to higher pulp and manufactured products sales realizations partially offset by lower overall sales volumes. Particularly, in the Q3 2024, pulp sales volumes were impacted by several unrelated events, including unscheduled downtime at its Peace River mill, a slower than normal maintenance start-up at its Stendal mill and isolated mechanical incidents at its Celgar mill.
In the Q3 2024, Operating EBITDA increased by approximately 35% to $50.5 million from $37.5 million in the same quarter of 2023 primarily due to higher pulp and manufactured products sales realizations partially offset by higher costs and expenses and lower pulp sales volumes as a result of unplanned downtime.
Juan Carlos Bueno, Chief Executive Officer, stated: “In the Q3, softwood pulp markets continued to be strong and fiber costs remained stable. However, our operating results were constrained as a result of lower pulp sales volumes caused by unplanned downtime at our Peace River mill and other unexpected production events. In the Q3 2024, these events had an impact on our production of approximately 71,200 ADMTs.
Our team was able to restart the Peace River mill earlier than initially expected, limiting the related downtime in the fourth quarter to an additional 12 days. We have no remaining downtime planned at our pulp mills for the rest of 2024.”
Nine-month results
Total revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2024 modestly increased to $1,555.0 million from $1,523.4 million in the same period of 2023 as higher pulp, manufactured products and lumber sales realizations were mostly offset by lower sales realizations from our other products and lower lumber sales volumes.
In the nine months ended September 30, 2024, Operating EBITDA increased to $144.5 million from negative Operating EBITDA of $3.7 million in the same period of 2023 primarily as a result of lower per unit fiber and other production costs and higher pulp, manufactured products and lumber sales realizations partially offset by lower sales realizations from our other products and higher planned maintenance downtime at our pulp mills.
Mercer International Inc. is a global forest products company with operations in Germany, USA and Canada with consolidated annual production capacity of 2.1 million tonnes of pulp, 960 million board feet of lumber, 210 thousand cubic meters of CLT, 45 thousand cubic meters of glulam, 17 million pallets and 230,000 metric tonnes of biofuels.
