Yes, it is possible. I think what ultimately drives it from our point of view is the profitability of a by-product. Today the most profitable material we can make out of our supply chain is fibre, and fibre conversion into paper. As we move up the supply chain, we can create more value and have better margins.
That's not to say, for example, that we can't make value-added by-products from lignin that will generate more profit than fibre. We don't have the markets and the technology to do it today, but this is what we're investing into in terms of creating a pipeline of new products. We would love to be able to make more profitable products of the fibre, but in truthfulness, we think that the pulp fibre and the paper will be around for a long time. As well, I will say that there's great opportunity to extract more value from the co-products than what we have done historically, simply because in the past we would use almost all of the co-product potential as fuel without differentiating between different types of co-products and different types of fuel.
I'll give a very specific example related to softwood. Turpentine comes out of softwood, and it's a great fuel. We would burn it if we could, but we would sell it for its fuel value if we could not burn it efficiently or safely. Well, in the last five to 10 years, the value of turpentine has gone from 25ยข a litre to over a $1.50 a litre. That's because it's being used in value-added products, including perfumes and soaps. That is quite remarkable, because if you've ever smelled turpentine coming out of a mill, it is the worst-smelling thing there is.
There is this opportunity to take these by-products that we're presently either not utilizing or more likely burning and extract the more valuable components. In some cases, the technology is mature; in other cases, it's in development. Our biggest weakness in this whole approach is in market development, in the marketing piece of it. We're not used to doing business in these spaces. They're different markets, and that's where we need to focus.