Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Mercer International's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. On the call today is Juan Carlos Bueno, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mercer International; and Richard Short, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary.

I will now hand the call over to Richard Short. Please go ahead.

Richard Short
Executive VP, CFO & Secretary

Thank you, Carmen. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. I will begin by touching on the financial and operating highlights of the first quarter before turning the call to Juan Carlos, to provide further color into the markets, our operations and our strategic initiatives. Also, for those of you who've joined today's call by telephone, there is presentation material that we have attached to the Investors section of our website.

But before turning to our results, I would like to remind you that we will make forward-looking statements in this morning's conference call according to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. I'd like to call your attention to the risks related to these statements, which are more fully described in our press release and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Our operating EBITDA for the first quarter was about $8 million, an increase of $28 million when compared with the fourth quarter's results. This improvement was primarily driven by the scheduling of our planned maintenance downtime and the successful implementation of our One Goal One Hundred program. Despite