What I would tell you is that any kind of a demand increase or supply reduction, especially coming out of Canada, is likely to result in price tension. The fact that nobody is expanding right now bodes well for the future, is the way we think of it. I think the smaller competitors probably are less likely to put capital back into their mills, unlike the larger competitors like us that understand you need to keep these mills in good tip-top shape, put your capital back into them, and keep them super competitive. That is the answer to long-term success in sawmilling. Everybody is going to be a little bit different in that regard, Buck. I'd like to shift gears maybe to the timber side of the portfolio. There's some interesting transactions that are starting to finally percolate through the system right now. One of your competitors with a major acquisition announced, the Carolinas and Virginia, looked like a kind of a top-tier price, but obviously some high-quality timber. Maybe there's another portfolio out there being marketed. I'm not sure. What are you seeing in terms of M&A activity? Obviously, it appears there's just this massive disconnect between public market perceptions of what timber is worth versus what the private market is bidding in right now. Maybe walk us through kind of what you're seeing on the private side, since we don't have quite as much transparency about what those other players are looking at for the long-term value. Do you want that one, Wayne? Yeah. What we've seen probably over the last couple of years from timberland M&A is certainly much more muted than it's been. I think we're pricing, certainly we've seen strong pricing on timberland values. I think in the current environment, a lot of people are, I think, waiting to see how natural climate solution opportunities are going to play out. We don't see as many transactions coming to market. The ones that do, the high-quality transactions, are getting very strong pricing. Yeah, I think, as Eric mentioned, from a capital allocation standpoint, we think we only look at timberlands that really exceed our cost of capital. Because of that, we haven't been very active the last couple of years. We think it's better to do share repurchases. Certainly the market has been muted from an activity standpoint. Now, on the kind of the disconnect between public and private markets, yeah, I think that's been challenging. I mean, certainly we've taken advantage of that. Like last year, for example, we sold 34,000 acres for over $58 million. We sold three average-year-old trees, $1,700 an acre, probably high value. In return, we turned around and we found a deal to acquire 16,000 acres at $1,900 an acre. There are certain instances where we find strong deals there and really take advantage of that disconnect. Yeah, certainly that's in existence. Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic. Would you strategically look to accelerate any additional non-core dispositions and/or you've got plenty of balance sheet capacity to start leaning into even more share repurchases? Are there trade-offs you would consider in terms of shrinking the portfolio to do more stock buybacks? Yeah. I mean, look, we think Timberlands is a great asset. And we're not looking to dispose of a large portfolio of our portfolio. But we're also portfolio managers. So where there are instances where we can take advantage, like we did last year on this $58 million transaction, certainly we're going to do that. And when we did that, we purchased Timberlands. We also did share repurchases last year. We've done share repurchases this year. So look, if it's at the right price, certainly we'll strongly consider it. On climate solutions, I mean, kind of walk through these. I mean, it's obviously a lot of controversy, question marks whether this administration will continue to provide for certain of the IRA subsidies or things, whether it's 45Q or various initiatives. Maybe kind of one by one, we can walk through the carbon credit business. How do you think this kind of plays out? And can any value be ascribed to these things in this environment? Yeah. Certainly we think there's a lot of opportunity in natural climate solutions. Currently, we don't feel that's being incorporated into the value of our stock. I think there's a lot of strong opportunities there for us. The number one opportunity that we're seeing is on the solar side. We have currently 38,000 acres that are under solar option contracts with solar developers. The option period is usually four to five years. We're currently receiving option payments. Once a solar developer will complete their due diligence, they would convert that option into a long-term lease. In certain instances, we have set up as a land sale. That is our kind of number one opportunity on the natural climate solutions. With that 38,000 acres on a net present value basis, it's just under $475 million, which is just a little over $12,000 an acre. You think about the multiples that we're getting on potential solar transactions. It's 10-15 times what we would get from just managing it as kind of normal timberland operations. We have 38,000 acres currently under option. We think that'll grow this year to in excess of 45,000 acres. We think we have the potential for somewhere near 75,000 acres that have the right characteristics for solar. It's flat. Obviously, you have ample sunshine and then large contiguous areas. Solar developers like larger projects and ones that they don't have to piece together. We have long, strong attributes for solar. I think, Buck, to your question on where the current administration is from a kind of renewable energy standpoint, yeah, I think there is some discussion, and we're closely monitoring that. I know solar developers are closely monitoring where the administration is going with these incentives. We've been talking to our solar developers, and they remain optimistic about these projects. I mean, I would highlight that we've already closed two solar transactions, and that was even pre-IRA subsidies. These projects pencil out even without incentives. Solar is a much cheaper form of energy to develop. We all know the demand for energy is growing. I think about the need for data centers and other demand needs like that. The U.S. is continuing to move for energy independence. The energy need is really strong. Solar is part of that solution, we believe. Yeah, I think our developers remain optimistic even in this environment. We are also seeing that with even potential more deals coming. While I think transactions have kind of slowed a bit, they are certainly moving forward, and we expect to have more transactions this year. What would be the biggest hurdle for those developers to get their projects? I mean, is it an entitlement process at the local and county level, or is it an infrastructure issue about getting equipment hooked up to the grid, or is it some of both? What's the impediment? I think the biggest challenge, or why it takes so long for these projects to get a shovel in the ground, is more on the regulatory side. Working through the regulatory agencies to figure out where on the grid they can tap into and also getting the interconnection agreements with utilities. That is really the biggest kind of period of time that it takes to get these deals off the ground. What about the lithium side of the equation? I mean, how does that play out in Arkansas? What kind of support are you getting from the state government there in terms of response to doing something like that? What's the feedback been on expanding lithium? Maybe just explain what exactly it is you're doing with extracting lithium deposits. Yeah. With our timberland ownership in southeastern or southwestern Arkansas, there's kind of a region, the Smackover Formation. It's found to have one of the largest lithium deposits in the world. There's a lot of interest by companies that are developing lithium extraction, some very large companies looking to really expand their operations in Arkansas. Arkansas is a very great state to do business, and they're very supportive of the industry. That's rapidly evolving. We have probably about 5,000-7,000 acres currently that we've identified that are in this kind of prime Smackover region where there's a high concentration of lithium. Not only the beauty is that the extraction, which would be done by an independent party, and we would only earn a royalty from that. We can continue to operate the surface rights for timberland management and harvesting activity. It's really just an additive that we would get. Yeah, seeing a lot of activity there. We assigned our first lease agreement earlier this year for 900 acres. That will go through a planning exploration process. We're also underway with signing up additional leases. We expect more this year for additional acres. Yeah, I think we're excited about the opportunity. Ultimately, the size of the benefit will really depend on truly defining the size of the deposit and what ultimately would be extracted. Got it. Got it. Any questions anybody want to jump in? Question on the mineral leases. Do they work like oil and gas leases, or are they structured differently? How does that work? Yeah, I would say that's a very similar comparison. Yeah, there's a royalty rate involved. And also, depending on volume. If you don't actually mine your land, would the lease kind of venture to grade because? Yeah. Correct. Yep. Yeah. It's structured, I think, very similar to an oil and gas lease. That's why, for example, in the state of Arkansas, the royalty is being determined by the Oil and Gas Commission in the state of Arkansas. It's very similar, I guess I would say. They've recently set that rate at 2.5%. Yeah. I guess I'm having a tough time envisioning. You've got some beautiful southern pine trees on the land above it. If they're doing underground mining, that's fine. How does that essentially work? It's actually lithium is in a brine solution. Oh, it's a liquid solution. It's basically taking up the brine water? Yeah. Yeah. It sends it to a processing point. Exxon is very active in the area. It's not like hard rock with. No. No. No. No. Yeah. Yeah. Minimal disruption to surface area. Got another minute. You want to talk about Chenal Valley and the real estate side real quick and just how is that progressing relative to, obviously, it's been a little bit tougher. Is Chenal Valley kind of going against the grain in terms of spring selling season? No, I'd say it's comparable to what we've seen over the past couple of years. It is the place to live in Little Rock. It's got about a 10% market share in the Little Rock region. We see pretty healthy demand, to be honest with you. We'll sell about 130 lots this year. They are trending down to the lower end. We are starting to see a bifurcation in terms of the higher-end lots. The better lots are moving faster than the lower-end lots. Yeah, we gave guidance at the start of the year for 130 lots, 135 lots. I think that's where we'll wind up at the end. Steady as she goes. What about other just rural real estate activity? You're seeing steady demand for whether it's hunting or leasing lands. How does the rural recreational side of the business look? Yeah. I'll tell you, the demand for rural land, in my view, it's never been higher. There are just an endless array of possible uses for raw land. I don't know if it's people wanting to diversify their investment portfolio away from stocks and bonds and into a hard asset like rural land. Rural land demand continues to go up. It could be for conservation purposes. It could be for rural recreation. It could be for somebody wanting to build a vacation home. It's just incredible the demand that we're seeing. We have guidance for 1% of our acreage. I wouldn't be surprised if we exceed that for the year because pricing is really good. All right. We are out of time there. I will leave it there. Thank you, guys, so much for joining us. Thanks for your participation. Really appreciate it. Thanks to PotlatchDeltic. Thank you.
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