Gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the ElvalHalcor conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first half 2024 trading update. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Angelos Giazitzoglou, Deputy Group Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Angelos Giazitzoglou, you may now proceed.
Hello, and thank you for joining us in our webcast for the financial results for the first semester of 2024. As always, we will give you an overview of our performance and at the end, we will hold the Q&A session. The presentation will be later uploaded on our website. Let me start by pointing out some key figures. Beginning with sales, we kept the pace from the first quarter, and we achieved an increase by 2.5% to 297,000 tons from the respective period of 2023. Although nothing has changed significantly in markets, our performance in second quarter is recorded positive. Leveraging our performance in volumes, along with optimization in product mix, we achieved a robust adjusted EBITDA of EUR 114 million. Our goal to reduce further our net debt remained critical in second quarter. Why was that critical?
Because we still operate in an environment with interest rates in elevated levels. In EUR 741 million, we dropped it by almost EUR 145 million year-on-year. In CapEx, we capitalize on our already concluded investment plan that ended in 2023. More to discuss later on with more detailed slide. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio to 3.3 is improved, but we need to keep up with our efforts to increase even more our profitability. If you see where we stood in 2022, you easily appreciate our achievement. Let's have a quick look at some macroeconomic data to understand the environment we operate in and see how they affect us. During second quarter, we saw metal prices to take an uptrend.
Having that in mind, we deployed all our resources in better managing our working capital to mitigate the risks in our net debt. Expectations for recovery created by this increase were not verified. Natural gas prices in second quarter, even slightly, recorded an increase, but still remaining lower than the same period of 2023. We note a small decrease in inflation. However, interest rates are still in elevated levels. Next slide is about cost. What we saw on the previous slide about energy prices is depicted here in our cost breakdown. A significant decline in energy participation from 18%- 13%. Inflation affected all other parts of the chart. Moving on to volumes. We saw on slide two that in the first semester of 2024, our volumes were increased year-on-year by 2.5%.
In the aluminum segment, even though nothing has changed in demand significantly during second quarter, we achieved to increase our sales for a second quarter in a row. Can sheet market has been the most positive among the flat-rolled products, and also in second quarter, we recorded a better performance in flexible packaging. In the copper segment, volumes are stable in both quarters, with demand remaining weak in all markets and mainly in construction and industrial applications. Let's see how we did in profitability and especially in adjusted EBITDA. Starting from the aluminum segment, it is obvious that in second quarter, the performance is improved compared to the first one. Due to that were the increased quantities and better product mix. We said in our first webcast for 2024 that foil products encountered significant pressure in prices.
In second quarter, we were able to turn to more profitable products, succeeding better results. In the copper segment, we also see an improvement in second quarter compared to first, exceeding the respective period of 2023. Capitalizing on opportunities in markets, our subsidiary, Sofia Med, succeeded in gaining market shares, improving even more the product mix, mostly in industrial products. Now, on this slide, adjusted EBITDA per ton depicts what we have discussed till now about the improvement in profitability between the two quarters. Starting from the aluminum segment, although we are lower than 2023, we increased profitability per ton from EUR 204 in the first quarter to EUR 270. I want to reiterate that, the optimization of our product mix, along with, a reversal of the negative trends in certain sectors, such as flexible packaging, led to this result.
The picture of the copper segment despite the weak demand is even better. Stronger profitability second quarter with same volume, volumes as the first, and the adjusted EBITDA per ton is now improved by 9% than the same period of 2023. Moving to markets we see no significant changes in shares in both segments i n the aluminum segment, the most dominant market remains packaging, and especially beverages where we demonstrate an increase from the respective period of 2023. In the copper segment, markets are remaining sluggish and no significant changes appeared in our sales. Industrial applications are those that decreasing their share. Moving to geographical distribution ElvalHalcor is an export-oriented company with more than 90% of our sales abroad. For the first semester of 2024, both segments maintain their strong export orientation, with Europe being our core market.
In the aluminum segment, our share increased from 8%-11%. In the copper segment we increased our share in the European market. We have already discussed volumes and profitability per quarter now let's see the consolidated figures for the first semester of the year. In 2024, we increased our volumes to 297,000 tons, 2.5% more compared to the same period last year and very close to 2022. In adjusted EBITDA, we are behind 2023 by 13.1% in EUR 114 million. I want to remind once again the adverse condition in our markets in both segments. Our revenue amounting to EUR 1.7 billion, 3.8% lower than 2023. At this point, allow me to say that revenue is a dimension very sensitive to metal prices.
What really matters to us is how revenue is transformed to profits. Our EBITDA for 2024 is EUR 115 million better than 2023 by 14.4%. In terms of metal results, the negative EUR 30 million is now positive EUR 7 million. Let's see some more financial figures. EBIT and EBT at the first semester are higher compared to 2023. We will see more on the next slide with the bridge for the EBT. Our financial result is better than 2023 due to the significant decrease in our net debt. Adjusted EBIT is lower than 2023, EUR 21 million. However, in the second quarter, we were able to decrease the gap from the previous year. Now, let's see what brought us from EUR 39 million profit before taxes in the first semester of 2023 to EUR 60 million in 2024.
We talked extensively on previous slides that in the first semester of 2024, both segments, aluminum and copper, encounter headwinds in market demand. In addition to that, we still have all these geopolitical tensions that create uncertainty and volatility. All the above had a significant impact to consumption and to commercial prices, and virtually to profitability that dropped by EUR 15 million. A small increase in SG&A by EUR 1 million. Our efforts to decrease net debt paid off, reducing financial costs by EUR 3 million. We expect in the future to have bigger improvements in cost if central banks proceed with the interest rate cuts they have announced. Finally, we have the positive metal result of EUR 37 million. With all that we reach the amount of EUR 60 million earnings before taxes. Moving to cash flow.
Strong EBITDA at EUR 115 million with copper segment to contribute more to this first semester. In the aluminum segment, the flexible packaging is a market that we encountered excessive pressure in prices compared to 2023 i nterest payments at EUR 24 million. Allow me to point out again our unwavering effort to reduce net debt that led to lower interest costs. Despite the increase in metal prices, we managed to reduce our working capital by EUR 28 million. We paid taxes i nvestments were in targeted levels at EUR 33 million. The company leverages its profitability and the lower working capital to repay long-term debt by EUR 63 million. We paid dividend, EUR 15 million. With all that, we increased our cash position by EUR 16 million. What are the takeaways from this slide? First, in spite of the adverse environment, we achieved robust EBITDA.
Second, we managed to counter the increase in metal prices decreasing our working capital. Third, we created enough space to proceed to prepayments in part of our loans mostly those with variable rates. Next slide, working capital and net debt. I stated many times in this presentation that the effective management of working capital was and still is a challenging and critical target. Why it's critical is obvious, but why challenging? The answer lies to the interest rates, which are remaining in elevated levels, and in addition to that, to the increase we saw during second quarter in metal prices.
To reduce far more our working capital to EUR 592 million, EUR 108 million less compared to same period of 2023, is in positive direction for the performance of the company. Here, the contribution of the aluminum segment is more substantial with the copper segment suffering more from the increased metal prices. In addition, we must not forget the supply chain disruption we faced due to the geopolitical tensions. Improvement recorded also to our working capital as percentage of our sales to 18%. Moving on to net debt. On the consolidated graph you see that we decreased our net debt to EUR 741 million, EUR 144 million less than the same period of 2023. Improvement is also recorded compared to the end of 2023 by EUR 72 million.
Now, only 39% of our debt is on a variable rate. Only 9% of our loans are short-term. With all that, we also mitigate our risks from interest rates. Last slide about CapEx i n the aluminum segment, our investment plan concluded in 2023, and we are now shifting focus to optimizing investment returns. Of course, we have outflows for maintenance CapEx and small improvements. In the copper segment, we started extra investments in 2023 to unlock incremental capacity and further growth.
To sum up, before we take your questions, even though the geopolitical uncertainty remains and markets are still moving slow we achieved in the first semester to increase our sale volume. We also did that having in mind that this effort has meaning only if it is combined with the optimization of our product mix. We continue to decrease our working capital leveraging that positive result to decrease our net debt, despite the uptrend in metal prices and the interest rates which remain high. Thank you for your attention, and now we can proceed to the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no audio questions at this time. I will now pass the floor over to management for any webcast questions. Thank you.
I see that we have one written question from Piraeus Securities. Could you please discuss the key trends in third quarter for each segment, demand, pricing, cost, CapEx? Also, could you please provide some color regarding the higher sales leverage mentioned in the press release? Thank you. You know that we don't like to give guidance. What I can say is that ElvalHalcor is very well positioned to leverage broad and diversified product portfolio and capitalize on future opportunities. Now, regarding beverages. You all know that we have concluded our investment plan in the aluminum segment and we have the installation of the new cold rolling mill and a new lacquering line based on the fact that we wanted to increase our sales in that market in beverage market.
We succeed. We feel very, very proud that we have these investments from where we are now capitalizing on profits. The second question from Maria Karagiannaki. Please forgive me. The first one was from Vasilis Romanos. The second one is from Maria Karagiannaki. How do you expect the rise in energy prices over the summer to affect third quarter results with the new PPA agreement in place? Do you expect measures from the Greek government or the EU to normalize the energy market in the Balkans? Is demand in aluminum continuing to improve in third quarter in expectations of interest rates lowering in both sides of the Atlantic? Yes.
In terms of energy, we have signed a purchase agreement which is related to renewable energy assets in order to reduce our exposure to energy price volatility. This is helping us a lot in order to reduce our cost. I think that we presented that in the slide with our cost breakdown. Now, if we expect something from Greek government or EU, yes. I don't wanna say that we expect, but it will be welcome any measure that will decrease our energy cost that will give us room to increase more our profitability.
Now, about demand in aluminum for the third quarter. Till now, we I have to say that again that we don't like to give guidance, but nothing significantly changed in markets till now. What we can do as a company is to continue to meet the needs of our clients by producing innovative and high quality products. I don't see any other question.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
I don't have any other comments. Thank you very much for joining and I hope that you are happy as we are with the results of our company. Thank you very much.