The company’s wood products division says its shipments of standard panels were up 12.2% to 1.67 million m3 (2019: 1.49 million m3), with shipments in Q4, 2020 up 26.2%.
For coated panels, shipments were up 13.8% to 1.15 million m3 (2019: 1.01 million m3), with Q4 shipments up 35.1%.
In total, shipments of all panels in 2020 totalled 2.82 million m3 (2019: 2.5 million m3) – a growth of 12.9%.
The division’s adjusted and recurring EBITDA for 2020 was up 38.3% to R$788.2m (2019: R$569.8m).
“The Wood Division began the year 2020 with a performance that exceeded expectations, but with the Covid-19 scenario, even with a better directing of volumes towards the external market, it became necessary to suspend operations, which led to a strong impact on results, especially in the second quarter of the year,” Duratex said in Q4 report.
“However, efficient cost management, allied to a fast repositioning in the market and high client service quality, compensated the falls reported and led the Division to close out 2020 with an Adjusted and Recurred EBITDA 38.3% better than the reported for 2019.”
Duratex said the increase can be justified by the company’s robust recovery and product positioning strategy, which, justified by the strengthening of client relations, led to significant gains in market share across all product lines, especially treated products.
In the external market, despite the strong impact of Covid-19 on Latin American countries, which represent the company’s main markets, the increase in sales to diversified markets and the export strengthening strategy, led to an increase of approximately 60% and 30% in volumes shipped both on a quarterly and annual comparison.
IBA (Brazilian Tree Industry) data shows demand in the wood panels market increased by 23.4% when compared to the same quarter in the previous year, 27.5% in MDF and 18% in MDP.
Volumes grew 23.4% in the internal market and 22.6% in the external market. For the year, the market grew 6.5% versus 2019, of which 2.8% was in MDP and 9.3% in MDF. Exports increased 5.9% versus the year 2019.
