Hello once again, and welcome to everyone who has joined the meeting. My name is Gabriela Seceleanu, Corporate Governance and Investor Relations Director for TTS. I'm going to start off the conference, and I'm going to suggest the following structure: I'm going to start with a very brief presentation of the first half of the year, with the main highlights. They are detailed, of course, in the report. Then I'm going to answer. We are going to answer the substantial number of questions that we have received via email, and at the end, we are going to respond to your questions, as long as they are new or different from the questions that we have. We will have answered already. So in terms of the first half of 2023, there are two things that must be mentioned.
First off, the results and then the investment. We stated numerous times that 2023 is a very important year for TTS, for its development and for investment. Financially speaking, we registered a growth on all lines, individual level, consolidated level. Very important, we have to mention the increase of turnover by 60% at individual level, and it led to an increase, a doubling, basically, or more than a doubling of the net profit as compared to the first half of the previous year. These results that are completed by the results from 2022 brought TTS in a very solid situation and position in terms of financials, that allowed us to launch the most ambitious investment program in the past years, both at individual level as well as at group level.
At group level, we have planned investments of over EUR 80 million, EUR 81.3 million, of which EUR 48.1 million relate to port operation activity and EUR 30 million relate to the river transport segment. The fact that the investments are mostly focused in terms of port operation is caused by 2 reasons. First reason, as you know, and we highlighted many times, for example, when we took over Decirom, a port operator, we are constantly connected with the M&A market. When these opportunities emerge, we act quickly, and as a result, this year we succeeded in taking over Decirom, for example. Of course, another factor, a second factor that is very important relates to the development of the market in Constanța.
As for the current situation, as we all know, the market is growing in Constanța, and this makes our assets, the assets that we base our activity in Constanța, we estimate, will be insufficient in order to tackle the new market conditions. So the two great investments, significant investments relate to Decirom, and we talked about Decirom several times. And we are, according to schedule, we launched the capital increase that we discussed in June and July by RON 25 million, and we add Decirom's contribution to this by means of loans, most probably, and we are going to fund their individual investment program. And the second very important investment relates to the two cranes, floating cranes, that will help us increase our operating speed in the port, and this also has implications in terms of transport as well.
In terms of operations, two things I would like to highlight. The first one relates to the fact that it's the first semester in which port operation showed progress and reported to the other segments. And this complements our vision of integrator logistical group that has all the elements related to the logistical chain, which ensures a competitive advantage that is important on the market. In terms of volumes of goods in the first half of the year, indeed, the volume is slightly decreasing of approximately 2% as compared to the first half of the previous year, but we recorded the second consecutive growth quarter. So we had a growth of 3.9% in the second quarter as compared to the previous one.
This small contraction is caused by the decrease of volumes, the significant decrease of volumes, especially in terms of minerals, and this affected also the volumes transported. So the decrease of said volume is something that you all know, it's quite old news. It's generated by the effects of the Ukraine war. On the other hand, agricultural goods recorded a strong increase, a strong growth, almost 60%, as compared to the first semester of the previous year. And let's talk a bit about the development and evolution on the market. It was an exceptional first half of the year. We registered an increase of over 39% as compared to BET, BET, which increased only by 7% in the same period.
So this is a sign that the market appreciated what we communicated, especially during the first half of the year, and very important from our perspective, as of May, we have two market makers. In addition to BRK , our traditional market maker, we are joined by Raiffeisen, and we believe that we have two, big market makers, has led to a substantial increase as of May. It's a continuous increase of liquidity on the market, which is of interest for us, even if we eliminate the effect of, July. Where we had the, the residual liquidity after Hidroelectrica, and our shares benefited from, said situation, and the private placements, carried out by Swiss, that, also, triggered a wave of, speculative transactions that, of course, influenced the situation.
This is the general overview of the first half of the year, so I'm going to move on to the questions that we received already. If TTS will have, will have a role in the Ukrainian project that was announced in at government level? Yes, we are involved. This comes from the need to increase the traffic in the port and as any governmental project, wants from administrative concrete measures to be achieved. Of course, it is talked about increasing traffic on the Sulina Channel. We are involved in Constanța. We are trying to increase, but there are certain situations that can be solved if the measures, the administrative ones, which will be taken, will come into effect. Basically, the traffic is not quite linear, so there is about the revision in Galați.
This is time-consuming, this process, and we are doing all we can do, and the investment in the cranes, in their operation, it's planned for the end of September, will lead to an increase in the operated volume, and there is another option to use the railway. The second question, and maybe this is the most, not important, but the most broad. Talking about the dividend policy, is there a plan to have predictability regarding EBITDA, EBIT, or is it based on the present conjuncture? We have an approved dividend policy. There is a commitment to grant a dividend at least the same, the same as the previous year, and it's at 45%, and it's a, it's a target, and it's being followed every year.
When we suggest the dividend in the GMS at the beginning of the year, we want to have a financial equilibrium. We want to have the basis for growth of the company. This is very important to have that balance. It's a long-term vision. And as we proved in 2023, only at the individual level of TTS, we have investments of RON 226 million.
So, of the overall group level. The second factor, we must keep a level of the reserves to be able to tackle certain risks we have, the war in Ukraine, and it's very impossible to evaluate those risks. So we must be ready for that. In 2022, for example, we gave that dividend, and there was a consolidation of the reserves, and a part of the reserves, a consolidation of the position of the reserves at the TTS level. Looking at the parameters, this is a very wide discussion. Precisely, we are talking about the individual profit of TTS. There is another one, the consolidated profit. This is another parameter. We talked about it in our conferences. There is much to say about connecting the dividend to the consolidated profit.
So, of course, this one, the consolidated, is more volatile. There are more parameters when compared to the profit of an individual entity, and it's a lot less predictable. There are legal concerns that make it a bit more difficult to take that decision. It's not a legal entity. No group can provide dividend because the law doesn't state that. The group is an economic organization that provides an image about the size of the business, about the solidity of the business. But when considering the dividend, this is the reason why it's not considered. We have a study. We can provide it to you. From 2018, in 26 of the countries in the EU, the individual profit is the basis for dividends, not the consolidated one. So we're not outside of the universe from this perspective.
On the other side, we cannot talk about distributing the profit from the consolidated profit, because each entity has its own business model, and we cannot put all the entities together in the group. So now you need to understand, we understand the need to bring them closer, the two indicators. We are now looking at correlating the dividend policies, so that in some entities, not in all entities, it's size-based, to introduce dividend policies in line with the TTS policy. So a sort of integrated governance system. So, as to provide information, how the profits from entities, individual entities, goes year by year in tranches in TTS. An example, in 2023, Canopus distributed dividends. But from a legal perspective, their contribution will be only included in 2024. There isn't a correlation, it's a delay, always, in this process.
So it reflects the activity one year after being performed. The third question?
The third question relates to if we can give more details regarding the mineral segment in relation to the Ukrainian war, and in the same context, the question is: How will business on transport and operation of grains will develop in the light of the same topic mentioned?
Now, in terms of minerals, we reported last year, and in our successive reports, you may find the fact that, the significant reduction was caused by the conflict in Ukraine. They were direct and indirect effects that mainly affected Tulcea and Galați. Which are, of course, among our traditional clients. The decrease, the performance of contracts is as scheduled, and we are now starting. We already announced the Liberty Galați contract.
There is a recovery in terms of the respective markets of certain flows. So we observe a recovery trend on the medium term, and we have to see how it will be translated into reality. If we analyze agricultural goods, they are the most volatile, if you want, in terms of volume, because they don't have the same character as minerals, namely supply, fueling, and coal, so they don't have to continuously supply the relevant installations. If volatility becomes stronger and stronger, this depends on the international prices on the international market. Frequently, we have situations when entities don't want to sell. They would rather keep the merchandise, the goods in their storage and wait for higher prices. So that's why we should have delays, and something should happen in terms of a market emergence of goods.
Maybe it will be obvious in the next quarter at the normal level. I don't know. It depends on the market conditions. If all entities decide based on market conditions to sell, then the volumes will increase. So these fluctuations are higher in what concerns agricultural goods as compared to minerals or other goods. We are covered by means of our geographical coverage. We stated this several times in the past. Not all markets are the same. In a certain year, Romania doesn't show great performance, such as this year, for example, when the crops are great, but then there's Serbia, who has a different situation and so on. We're going to discuss later on. It seems that the Ukraine crop is great, but we also have there the risk of war, so it's very difficult to estimate.
So the agricultural goods are much more volatile as compared to minerals. Moving on to the next question: What is the reason for which in the second quarter, the revenues were decreasing as compared to the first quarter? So the first reason is that in the first quarter, we had abnormally, abnormally large revenues. So that's why. In contrast, the second quarter seems to be weaker, but it's not necessarily... It's not necessarily that the second quarter is a weak one, but the first quarter was a huge one. It surprised us as well. It was a record. And there's another reason that affects our revenues. This relates to the price of fuel, and it makes our hedging clauses effective in buffer to be less present in terms of the revenues. So revenues are decreasing because the price of fuel is also decreasing.
The next question, also related to the second quarter, and now we are moving towards expenses. It relates to expenses with salaries. In the second quarter, they increased to RON 49 million from RON 40 million in the first quarter. This is written in the question. So RON 49 million from RON 40 million. So, 9 million increase quarter to quarter. So the question is: What are the reasons for this increase, and what do we estimate to happen in the future? Yes, so they were salary increases at group level. At six months, they were as per the budgeted limit, so they were 50% of the increases presented in the budget, which somehow answers in a way, I believe, the second question, because at budget level, we have a robust increase in salaries for the second half of the year.
Now, these increases are very important for us. We don't view them as an expense, if you want. We view them as an investment because we have to be on the market. The market is excessively competitive. It's very difficult to find good people, good staffers who are qualified or overqualified, and we are constantly undergoing efforts in order to maintain our presence on the market, because otherwise, things will not be great for us. So of course, the pressure in terms of salaries is increasing. It's not a secret for anyone. On the one hand, we have inflation, on the other hand, we have competitive markets, not Romania. I'm talking about the Western markets, who in our case, they are quite effective in drawing and attracting staff from Romania.
Volatility is at an all-time high, so this is, the context of the increases in terms of salary expenses in the second quarter. The next question, that, we have answered in a way in the past. So we are asked to give details on how currently, the activity of the group is carried out in light of the fact that, Russia attacked Reni and Izmail port. And of course, the question in detail, if we can confirm that the transport and operation, refer to similar quantities, if we have any pressure to increase costs or insurance in this regard, what we can state? So yes, there were attacks. They, also impacted the Reni and Izmail port facilities, but from our perspective, we were not affected whatsoever. We didn't have any influence. It's as if those attacks did not happen.
The next question: In light of the fact that two months have passed from the third quarter, do we estimate that the estimation is correct, that the third quarter at level of revenues and profit could be between the results from Q1 and Q2? So our policy states that we cannot give out intermediary estimations between our reporting periods, because it would be in a way we would favor or disfavor those who are monitoring our development quite closely. But in the report, we give out an estimation of developments in the following period. This has happened before, and this is happening in the report right now. What we can clearly state is that we continue to work at maximum capacity in terms of transport and in Constanța as well.
Question number five, I think I already answered this. So recently in the press, there were information that EU, USA and Romania were working to double as of October, agricultural quantities transported from Ukraine or operated by via Romania. Do you believe that this target is feasible? We already answered this question previously. If the next question, if we have signals from our business partners, in what concerns Ukrainian goods, that the work volume could significantly increase in the second part of the year? We stated in the report as well, so the crops in Ukraine are great. We have strong partners. They have growing execution programs. Limitations relate in terms of Constanța and transport, we already talked about that beforehand, and of course, the revision in Galați, it's going to take a while, or it can create organizational issues, but that's it.
Those are the limitations. Question number 7: Do we envisage an update of the BVC? Two things we would like to mention here. So the budget of revenues and expenses. In terms of revenues, let's analyze the revenues first off. We are in a situation in which the lack of predictability on the markets is so high, and this is, of course, caused by the war in Ukraine, so this makes any estimation extremely difficult. The second aspect that is important in the context of this year, is that the integration- the accounting integration of Decirom, so the consolidation and financial statement will occur at the 9-month threshold, because this was one of the requirements of the transaction. So the data for the first half of the year do not include Decirom, neither in terms of volume or nor in terms of financial contributions.
If you do analyze the report, that's where we have the investments detailed in terms of Decirom. We presented an overview in terms of financials and volumes, in relation to the whole operation segment in 2022, because that's the year for the period for which we have data. But we are waiting for the consolidation that will occur at the nine-month threshold, and then we'll move on. The last question we received on the email: How do we estimate the impact of the commissioning of the Brăila bridge, the activity of the companies in the group? Navrom Bac, yes, she is active in Galați and Isaccea. There is a hedging, a geographical hedging there. And yes, Galați, of course, it will be impacted, but it remains to be seen to what extent. Up to now, the business operation was not affected.
These were the questions that we received via email, and now we will start answering the questions. Mr. Szarka wants to intervene.
Hello. My name is Szarka István. I have a question related to the transport prices, because I know in the teleconference after the first quarter, you mentioned that these costs were going down, they were starting to normalize when compared to the peak from last year, from the beginning of the war. How do you see this going in the third quarter after Russia blocked those Ukrainian ports? Have they increased or the prices were in the same range that were found in the first quarter? So the pricing, we're talking about in Danube, Izmail. They decreased on the spot market, quite significantly, up to the closing of the corridor. Then they began recovering and are growing to a level that we consider normal. But the prices are a lot lower than at the beginning of the war.
We have an activity in Ukraine, which is quite low. We have long-term contracts that we talked about, which are ongoing, and those things are well established and do not depend on the spot market. We can state there was an increase of the spot prices from closing the corridor, but the market is a lot more stable than it used to be last year. The first question: Can you provide information on the impact of this situation in Izmail and Reni on the company? I would also add here something else. We have some experience with the war in Yugoslavia in 1998, and we are used to a war zone. The first thing we did, we did not expect for Izmail to be bombarded. But, well, this happens.
The first thing we did when we had the first attack, was to protect our people. We had consultations with the crew. We took measures, logistical ones, to protect the people, also the assets, but the assets are assets. So this is what we have done. It took some time. When we found a stability in communicating with our crew, and then following bombardments, were as if they did not happen. So logistically, we are very well organized and talking to the specific crews, and when talking about the impact on the operations, it was close to zero. So we are going forward as nothing happened. We see the pricing increasing from the organizational standpoint than from impact on the assets. Mr.
Cătălin Dumitrescu, if tomorrow the Ukrainian ports would be open, how would this impact TTS? So if the war or peace would suddenly provide the Ukrainians the possibility to use its ports, would there be a decrease, even a short one, of the activity? So what can happen in reality? So in reality, the Ukrainian ports are destroyed. So tomorrow you cannot open a port that has been destroyed. So Odesa corridor can be reopened, though. Some grain terminals were bombarded there also. If this happens, I can tell you the following: We started transporting the grains from Ukraine last year in March.
Then in June, July, we were quite stable, and then we could increase the volumes in Constanța, in a controlled area, where the certain level today, that we had a lot with a long time before, the Odesa corridor was closed. And it was an unusual level as volumes in the conditions that the corridor was open. If this corridor will be reopened, this can be done in a month or so. We will continue our activity in the conditions prior to closing the corridor. What we built last summer, when we start investing in a project, we expected it to perform whether war or peace.
So we are not very worried if this corridor will be reopened. Mr. Nedelcu, hello. I want you to know that there is shareholders which are very satisfied with the actual dividend policy. TTS is not the only company listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange that connects the dividend to the individual profit, in the same situation being also Electrica. As a investor, I am happy with the current dividend policy. It seems clear and logical. Me also, as a small investor, the first look I want to see is the individual dividend. The consolidated one or the consolidated profit tells me how solid is that company, that business. But I'm looking at the dividend yield. Dividend yield starts being computed from the individual dividend. Mr.
Adrian Mareș, haven't you received any notification from a significant investor related to the transaction ABB from the last of July? No, we did not receive such a notification, so no investor that had a significant share was or the investor that exited was had not had a significant share. So first of all, it's his obligation to report, and then you, there is the report of the investor. Mr. Mustafa wants to intervene. Yes, I can intervene. So first off, I wanted to ask. I have three questions. First off, the increase of the salary fund also was due to a larger number of employees as a result of activity increase, or simply an increase of salary of existing staff? So the number of employees increased, but insignificantly.
So the salary increase were related to existing staff. And in relation to the next question, it was also written in the press. Constanța Port is suffocated by the goods and flows that are coming from throughout Europe. So all the pavilions are covered in every way. Most of them are should have a Romanian or at least European community flows on the Danube. We have ships that come via the Danube, and they bring they bring their own staff. So there was a huge pressure in the first part of the year, in terms of port staffers in all the ports. So we tried to preserve the number of staffers by increasing the salary at market level, so aligning actually the salary to the market level. I want to add something here.
Maybe if you remember who participated in the discussion we had related to this, we talked about the staff issue in terms of navigation staffers, and we talked about specialized staff from port operation facilities, such as crane operators. Then we said that the salaries paid in Romania are so behind in terms of historically speaking, so behind and low as compared to the markets and what's going on at European level. We are at the level that we envisaged. Because this is an issue, it's a normal issue in the Romanian society. We want to align our salaries to the level of the average European values in terms of salaries. This is something that happens in all areas. Yes, of course, I don't have an issue with the fact that the salaries increased.
It was simply in light of the activity. I was curious to see, as you mentioned, if you need staff to cover the new challenges that the company tackles and if that's why the salaries were increased. Yes, we still need staff, but there are no resources. We succeeded, so we lost employees. We managed to determine them to come back, a part of them, at least. So that's why, in general, there is no increase in terms of number of employees. We had fluctuations, namely, the staffers left, but then they came back in the company. Mr. Mustafa?... The best parameter, if you want to monitor the development of the staff cadre, you have to monitor the production capacity. When we will have new cranes, of course, we are going to increase the number of crane operators because we'll have to employ new operators.
In terms of transport, things are continuous in a way. You're not going to see a huge leap in terms of number of employees. Of course, I'm just wanting to—I want to make sure that you have enough staff in order to carry out your activities in a normal, standard way. So hopefully, you don't end up in a situation where you don't have the necessary resources, human resources, to carry out your activities. Yes. As based on how the new assets are commissioned, of course, the number of employees will increase. Second question: this year, what was the Danube water level? And in terms of the drought, what was the situation? So it's a good question. Yes, well, I asked this question on previous meetings. I ask it each season. So the Danube is like a lady, capricious.
We had 44 days of total blockage. This year, we had the crops, the corn crops on the field, of course, at a certain level, but the Danube itself decreased in terms of level, but didn't decrease. We could access it from time to time, but there were good supplies from Germany, and when water from Germany or Austria didn't come, it came from Serbia, Croatia. So there were no issues, I would say, no drought consequences. We didn't have any blockages or stop moments or the threat of a stop as compared to the previous year. Because, of course, every year the flow is different. But this year, Bulgaria also conducted drainage activities that were almost complementary to the ones that we carry out and other countries carried out. So that's why we had a good performance in this regard.
But last year, this was the issue, that there was a political meeting between Romania and Bulgaria, and it was established once again that, the Bulgarians should comply with their obligations in this regard, but they didn't at the time, so it's good that they did. Yes, so there were technical discussions as well in this regard. Yes, that's great that it was solved. Then a history aspect. Before the war, TTS had on... What, what were the values of TTS, in, the Ukraine route for grains? It's difficult to say. So Ukraine had a formidable development in terms of port investments in the past 15 years. They built silos. And of course, international companies. They all have individual silos in the Odesa area.
Ten years ago, we transported grains, so it, it happened even in container regime, of course, but we had minerals. At a level of approximately. Do you remember? What, what was it? It was a huge level, and today, unfortunately, this level is not reflected. So we started from zero when the war started. Yes, yes, it all started from zero, and everything was built step by step. Some built in the idea of obtaining profits on the spot, others built, I mean, with the idea of building something long-term, and that's how we act in general, for the long term. Thank you very much.
We have some other questions from Liviu Ancuta. Considering that TTS has retained earnings considerable from previous years, do you want a dividend policy at a subsidiary level? Are you considering distributing in 2034 dividends from the profit carried forward?
Yes. Yes, of course. As we have announced at a previous discussion, this year, we will convene a GMS to approve a share issuance that will be covered by the retained earnings from the other years. This profit that was retained is actually a reserve of the company, comes from the previous years, has not been distributed, so it's part of our reserve policy. So when I mentioned the risks, and of course, as the CEO, Mr. CEO said-
We will have free shares. We don't know when and how, but this is in our, in our plan, in our vision, such a measure. Mr. Caius decided to talk. Caius, please turn on your microphone. Sorry. Hello. I was writing on the chat. I thought I heard that currently, you are functioning at 100% capacity on the transport, but also port operations. I want to ensure that I understood correctly, and if so, how do you see the upside on the volumes, if there is such a thing? Or we will look at the volatility or the evolution of the EBIT on the pricing and not on the evolution of the volumes. Congratulations for the results and for your presentation, I forgot to mention.
Domnule, we were working at full capacity for almost a year, but there are some nuances. We are. The assets that we have and, and are available, are being used continuously, of course, except the barges, which have a different regimen. Where do we have these reserves of growth? From using more efficiently these assets. One of the things that the government via the administration, of course, it intends to shorten the stationing times at the entry and exit points in the country, in Sulina, where we are talking about X weeks. It's the same situation for the barge river. So looking at the revision in Galați, it's two days stationing time. So it's also the exit and entry from the EU, when talking about Ukraine. So there is this revision.
It's an inspection. It's the Nădlac or Giurgiu customs. It's a control of the crew of the ship of the vessel. There is a commission from the authorities. So there is a lot of traffic. In Romania, of course, there are facilities, IT facilities, but the speed of increasing traffic, it's higher than the efforts of the authorities. So it takes some. It takes at least one day. Once this period of time is being shortened, this process, of course, we have maximum two days, ongoing and incoming. So from the mathematics point of view, you can see that from four to two days, how much we can improve our processes. The waiting times at the unload, at the loading in Izmail, is very high in Constanța.
Our barges are working with certain types of goods, half and half. Half it waits and half it works. Some activities that are not productive. We have a program here of increasing the speed of operating in Constanța via administrative measures. So it's an organizational perspective. So we have 2 cranes coming. In 8-9 weeks, they will be in Constanța. This increases our capacity of operation, but this means efforts of including them in our fleet. Our colleagues from the shipyard are trying to speed up this maintenance process of the barges. So that we can use also the barges. So we are talking about new barges. In November, we hope we to have one in the country. So we tried to identify each part of the process where we could increase efficiency.
The Decirom, also, we didn't talk a lot. We are starting to slowly organize, the company.
as per its possibilities and increasing the speed of operation. So there are management measures, there is a saying, an efficient allocation of resources, and this is what we're trying to do. This is what we're doing. Thank you very much for your answer. Please, if we are talking about the authorities, what do you consider the target increase of the volume on the two corridors? Do you have an estimate? Thank you very much. So figures, percentages, have to be correct. We don't have any aim right now to-- Of course, there is a possibility of increasing if we're talking about operation. For example, August was a month that had one week of poor weather.
It was windy, you couldn't do a lot of operations, so these are details that don't depend on us, and it's very difficult to estimate. If we're talking about river transport, the volumes are a component of a success recipe, because as Mr. Teke has stated before, we started... So this month we are starting to cover certain volumes. Five days, I believe. So imagine if we have to traverse 1,500 kilometers, to over 1,000 kilometers, and then come back with the goods from our destination. It's obviously that it's a difficult endeavor as compared to the Izmail Galați route. So these things affect the figures, but in terms of percentages and so on, this depends on our destination, on the route itself. It depends on the goods. It's an average of an average.
We are trying to ensure the most attractive routes that we can, with as low as possible resource consumption. Our current resource consumption is high right now, and we're trying to reduce it and compact everything as much as possible so that we don't have issues in this regard. So that we can ensure routes from point A to point B, from start to destination, with as low resources as possible. So that's what we are trying to do, to continue our operations and optimize our operations. For us, it wouldn't be relevant to determine to say that in the third quarter, we want to grow by 1%, 2%, maybe we'll grow by 3% or 10%. It depends all on the increase of volumes. So there are a lot of factors that can influence. Of course, I understand.
It was very clear. Thank you a lot. Mr. Mihai Nedelcu, I understand that you are working currently close to your maximum capacity or towards your maximum. When are we going to see the results of the investments from this year and loading grades, barges, that are basically going to lead to enhancement of capacity? Additional revenues will come in the third quarter, fourth quarter or 2024. So arithmetic helps us. If in the reporting, Decirom and cranes do not exist, because they don't exist in the reporting, in the third quarter, we are going to see the effect. In terms of Decirom, we're going to have a certain amount. So Decirom will be joining in terms of volumes and financial statements, so it will be consolidated, and the cranes will start to produce effects. Now, we can analyze.
If we estimate that at the end of September, they will be operational, then in the third quarter, they will only encompass or cover two or three days. So probably the effect of the cranes will be reflected in the fourth quarter. That will be the first time when we will see the effect of the cranes in terms of increase. And in what concerns investments in Decirom, definitely in 2024. This is clear. We just started funding, we're starting construction, so it will take some time. And another aspect here related to investments in Decirom, you know how it's like when you start building in your backyard? Cars are, don't have easy access. It's difficult. Of course, we're going to try.
So Decirom will not stop in these investments, but it will suffer in terms of these investments, especially in light of the fact that one of the important investments is a storage house at depths that will increase the volume and flow of goods.
So it's very difficult to anticipate, but arithmetically speaking, we are going to see the effects reflected in 2024 in accordance in the fourth quarter. Another question, can we talk about share redemption? If, for example, when the share was 9 RON. Mr. Szarka, this with the redemption, if we look at the 9 RON price, so the moment we will decide, obviously it will be announced on all channels, and as stated, we are concerned, we are looking at the level of the reserves. So this redemption is also related to the reserves. If you don't have reserves, you cannot make redemptions. So when we will decide that, we will announce it. Mr. Andrei Pușcașu, hello and congratulations for your results.
How are the volumes transported and operated in July and August compared to the average of the first six months? Mr. Ștefănuț was clear. We cannot provide precise figures because we would contradict the company policy. And Mr. Ștefănuț said, we have contracts that have been signed. And in December, and of course, we are. Those are ongoing, and we are working with all assets at hand. There's also Caius. Caius Leich? So probably a mild, stupid question. Is there more place on the Danube? Can you increase the traffic? Because I don't understand. We have a highway with a certain capacity. There was a joke. And this happened two years ago? So there was a joke. The Danube has a lot to go in terms of traffic volumes.
We are talking about the Agigea and Cernavodă spots. In Constanța, we have their statistics, and they show that the average. So there were 200, they were from Navrom, the average. There are a lot of vessels. Now, there are 500 sea vessels that are stationed in Constanța for various reasons. We will reach 600 sea vessels, and these vessels go through the canal. There, there are days where there's lots of them, and they need to wait in Cernavodă. So there is still room for increasing volumes being transported on the Danube. There's also this in Constanța. Thank you. Is there a perspective that the activity in Constanța to become a fluid? Yes, of course, but it's hard.
It's hard because Constanța Harbor has a lot of terminals, a lot of customers, a lot of sea vessels. And there, there are points where you can strictly go through or wait for days to go through. If we're talking about the silo and waiting on a ship, it's about organizing the maneuvers. It's an issue of the railway that is undergoing rehabilitation. It's hard to know if it's accelerated enough or not, so it's a lot of elements. So it seems that we have finished the list of questions. We're concluding this video call. Thank you for participating, and we wait for you at all future conferences. Goodbye.