Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for well, waiting. Welcome to Aeris Earnings Conference call for the second quarter of 2023. Here with us are Alexandre Negrão, CEO, and Bruno Lolli, Director of Planning and Investor Relations. This event is being recorded, and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during Aeris presentation. After that, there will be a Q&A session when further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please send a message using the chat on the right side of the screen. Before proceeding, let me mention that statements made in this call regarding the business outlook of the company, operational and financial protections and goals, are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Aeris management. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance.
They involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Microeconomic conditions, industry conditions, and other factors could also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Alexandre Negrão. Mr. Negrão, you may begin your presentation. Thank you, Lais. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Starting with slide 2, the highlights for the second quarter of 2023. We start with the demand in Brazil, talking about the day of pardon that was given by ANEEL. On this day, we could see that there was an amnesty of 1.2 GW of wind energy and regularization of 1.9 GW, with an extension, possible extension, and 9.8 GW amnesty in solar.
I mentioned that because with this high figure of 9.8, there may be room in the transmission lines, which could cause an anticipation of wind projects. Today, wind projects remain with a robust demand around 18 giga, and we have 6 giga under construction. This shows us that the demand in Brazil remains robust in the next 5 or 6 years. However, we can also see that there may be a decrease in the year of 2024 and 2025. This is due to interest rates that are still high. A season of rainfall that's been strong in the last 2 years, so the spot price is quite low. The economy, although it shows positive signs, it's still not operating at full capacity. With that, all that causes a high cost, cost of implementation.
That's why we believe that 2024, 25 will be slightly lower. Talking about the second highlight, when we talk about IRA, we can see that the appetite for international expansion remains in our radar. We see customers with this appetite for us to access the international market, either via exports or local production. In addition, we noticed that in the results of the second quarter, in our projections, that our service area, especially international, is becoming more significant. The wind market in general is aging, and each year, the area of service will have its demand increased. There's more need for service parts, because the bigger turbines require more frequent servicing. We are now starting to review our service projections in the company.
We've always foreseen that service would never go over 2%-3% of revenue, but we now believe that this figure could exceed 10% in 2024. We are very confident in investing a lot in our service space. As for the third point regarding quality and new contracts. What we may say is that now, out of all the problems found by our customers and reported by them, none of them is related to Aeris. Aeris does not have any blade problems reported in the field by customers. We've heard some noises due to issues with our customers, but I would like to highlight that none of these issues is related to customers. This is due to the fact that customers are within Aeris.
I mean, we have a strong partnership with our customers. They have a strong presence in our plant. That ensures that our product has the quality, which is essential to continue with our business. In terms of backlog, we are today focused on renewing agreements, extending agreements, newcomers or new customers coming. We believe that in the short term, when I say short term, in the year 2023, we should have 2 GW added to the backlog, and in 2024, an increase of backlog around 4 GW. We believe that this year and next year will add another 6 GW in backlog for the business. These were the highlights for the second quarter of 2023. Now, moving on to slide number 3. Talking about operational figures. The company had a loss in the second quarter, amounting to BRL 90 million.
Year to date, we have a loss of BRL 41 million. The net revenue in the second quarter amounted to BRL 854 million, in the first half of the year, BRL 1.7 million. Investments. This second quarter was very similar to the first quarter, around BRL 32 million, with a total of BRL 60 million in the first half of the year. The EBITDA is at BRL 91 million, close to the first quarter, for the first six months of the year, BRL 186 million, with a ROIC for the year of 13.7%. Now, I turn the floor over to our investor relations officer, Bruno Lolli.
Good morning, Alexandre. Thank you very much. I'll start on slide number 4.
There was a bit change regarding the previous presentations with the detail, a composition of invested capital that's separated between fixed assets and WCR average. As of 2020, we started increasing capital allocation, especially in fixed assets. This is an expansion of the manufacturing capacity, and that's important when we look forward. At the end of 2022, the expected growth in capacity has decreased considerably because we'll won't have a lot of investment in fixed capacity to grow our production capacity in the next terms. The increase in net working capital is related to exchange variation and production. Since a large amount of our inventories are directly related to the exchange rate, the we've seen in the Real, since at the beginning of the pandemic until today, needs, requires more capital, working capital.
We have had an increase in the average cycle of raw materials and also an increase in the volatility, which made us have a higher inventory levels. In the first quarter, the first semester of 2022, we had changes in products implemented by our customers, which created a disruption in production. Since the purchase of raw material has a cycle of 5-6 months, whenever we produce less than we had foreseen, we end up having inventories that are higher, and we take about 6 months reducing what we had purchased to go back to normal inventory levels. We will see later on in the presentation that we are at regular levels of inventories, because the company has reduced very close levels of production as planned. NOPAT has not accompanied the development of invested capital.
Due to our business model, it's natural for the NOPAT to have a 2-year delay when compared to capital allocation. Whenever we make investments to increase our capacity, I am allocating funds for 1 year and to 2 years to construct the building and allocate machines, and then it takes time. After the 2nd year of execution of contracts, we start with interesting returns. What happens in a different way from the, our background, is that we should have in 2022, 2023, a NOPAT position higher than what we have, is due to changes in the category of products. We move on to slide number 5 to detail that. We can see here that in 2018 and 2019, the main family of products were blades to equip wind turbines of low, less than 3 MW of power.
In 2020, 2021, we started changing to bigger blades, longer than 70 meters, and today we have a mix of blades from for turbines, for 4 to 4.5 MW, and blades above 4.5 MW. This mix also reflects the new backlog of the company. Considering the existing contracts, we won't have a significant change when we talk about the blade for wind turbines below 3 MW, weighed 10 tons and 50 meters. Now, the current blades are 70-85 meters, and they weigh 15-25 tons, even more than 25 tons. A significant factor in these changes is that Aeris started producing these larger blades very close to the date to launch the certification of such blades. There are blades in which Aeris manufacture the prototypes for the certification of products.
Lately, we've seen a rate of changes in products are much higher. When Aeris started producing smaller blades, the blades reached Aeris, we signed the agreement, and once the agreement was executed, we started, the product was more mature. Products were already in production by customers for some years, and they arrived at Aeris at a higher maturity stage, and the rate of change in products and suppliers was smaller than today. Alexandre mentioned in the previous call about the rebalance of contract, so all these changes were negotiated in these agreements during the first and the second quarter of this year. Moving on to slide number six. One more quarter in which we execute contracts that are only mature, so the capital invested is BRL 1.6 million, with a NOPAT of BRL 51.7.
We are very close to what we believe to be the right level. The buildings are correct. In terms of working capital, everything that we have in excess related to suppliers and inventories, being offset by the partnership and financial support of customers in advances. The NOPAT, however, is still lower than what we believe to be the optimum point for the industry, because these product categories still have longer manufacturing cycles and a decrease of fixed costs that's non-optimal. We continue to improve these figures since the beginning of this year, but we haven't yet reached levels of return on the manufacture of blades that are ideal for invested capital remuneration.
On slide seven, during the first half of this year, we're able to execute agreements and begin the performance of these agreements, especially outside Brazil, that will result in a significant growth of the services area of the company. In the last quarter, the result was negative because we need to hire and train many people when company signs agreements or executes agreements for growth. Soon, we'll have the results coming from new contracts. On slide seven, we can show these account, the amount of services. It went from 2.3%-6.2% in the quarter. We had a record revenue in this quarter, we now have a net revenue of BRL 854.6 million for the second quarter of 2023.
On slide number 8. Once again, we can see, see the development of the average price in BRL per MW, as well as the cost of direct materials. This slide helps to explain the pricing mechanism for contracts, that always includes a price component associated to materials, in which customers assume a lot more risks regarding the unit price of raw materials, the exchange rate, import duties, logistics costs. On the top line, that we have the, the difference between the two lines is what we call added value. It's like the revenue from a service provider that manufactures the blade. We had it in the 2nd quarter, there has been an increase in price and a more significant increase in cost. The increase in price is a result of the negotiations done in the 4 months of the year, but the cost increase is non-recurring.
Price increases are recurring, but not price-- cost increases are non-recurring. That's results from higher than average number of blades with longer production cycles and more rework. Because it was built in the 2Q, they had more historical costs embedded. We expect that as of the 2H of the year, the balance of blades that bring more rework than average will be reduced, and therefore, will have an added value per MW higher than that realized in the 2Q. Moving on to slide number 9, we can see that reflected in the EBITDA margin of the period. On the left chart, we see the last 12 months, EBITDA, BRL 331.8 million, which is a record high for the company.
On the right side, we see the, that EBITDA exceeding BRL 90 million per quarter, although the margin has been decreasing in the last 2 quarters. In addition to the previous costs increase, we had a situation of, with one of our customers with an availability of modes. We have tooling effect in which customers invest, and due to this lower availability, the company was not able to dilute its costs as usual. This explains partially the reduction of margin in the second quarter. Slide number 10. Investments of BRL 32 million in the quarter are a continuation of investments made in the first quarter, related to the adaptation of production lines to increase the capacity of the finishing buildings.
Sometime in the next periods, we'll capture these new investments fully with the reduction of the finishing cycles, which will contribute to reduce the stocking of work-in-process. Slide 11. We can see here that during the second half of 2022, the company had changes, significant changes in products, that extended the manufacturing cycle of products considerably. The work-in-process inventory has grown a lot, we were able to reduce that in the first half of 2023. This reduction was less intense in the second quarter because the company is preparing the work-in-process for a growth of volume projected for the second half of this year. You can see an important reduction in raw materials.
When we compare the year-end position, the reduction of inventory levels, consolidated terms, was more than BRL 230 million, which frees cash for operations and puts less pressure on the debt of the company. On slide 12, we was presented in the last conference call, during this semester, that we produced less due to changes. We had a strong support from customers in terms of advances. Advances started to be returned more intensely since the beginning of this year, and this continues in the second quarter. The good news is that we're close to the end, so we don't have any advances to be reduced until the end of the year. This balance will be very close to the current balance, and there's still the potential to reduce inventory levels until the end of the year. Slide 13. The flow for debt amortization.
The cash position of BRL 846 billion in the second quarter is comfortable to meet our liabilities. We could reduce our leverage in the second quarter, given the growth of accumulated EBITDA, as well as by the reduction of the net debt. The remaining liabilities for the end of 2023, BRL 25.9 million, was majorly related to interest payments that were made and as a subsequent event that's not shown in this chart, because it's on June 30, we had a fundraising, which was planned around BRL 100 million. We had fundraised of BRL 93 million with BNDES. Funds were credited in the end of July, and that's a single payment and with interest paid on a year basis. On slide 14, we show potential orders covered by long-term contracts.
There has been a reduction in this quarter that comes from two factors. It's natural to have a reduction quarter-on-quarter. The other factor was a combination of changes in contracts with two customers. We had one contract extended that was supposed to end in the mid of 2024 until the first half of 2025, and at the same time, we had the exercise of early exit clause by customers. These contract was priced considering this possibility. The original term allowed Aeris or the customer to exit the agreement earlier, provided that the notice happen within 2023, and the customer gave notice of this early exit. This contract that was supposed to end in the first half of 2025, will now end one year earlier in the middle of 2024.
That reduced 1 GW in the potential orders of the company. The financial position, considering the average prices at the current exchange rate, is around BRL 5.5 billion of potential net revenue. Moving on to slide number 15. Here, we already show in the 5 production line, the changes in these two contracts. As Alexandre mentioned, both current customers as well as potential new customers, are negotiating so that in the coverage of the installed capacity of the company is fulfilled from the second half of 2024 until 2025, and as soon as the contracts are signed, we'll communicate that to the market. This ends the presentation for the second quarter of 2023, and Lais has the floor again. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now start the Q&A session.
If you want to ask a question, please send it on the chat located on the right side of the screen. If you want to ask the question by audio, please request a link for audio on the chat. The first question comes from Carlos.
On the first half, we saw how the revenues from services had a record high. I would like more details. Still about services, how much should the services segment represent in the total revenue for the long term? What's the difference between the EBITDA margin regarding industrial segment? What's the average length of service agreement?
Good morning, Carlos and Marcia. Thank you for your questions. Services start, work a bit differently from blades. These are long-term agreements for services. There are contracts in which, they place short-term orders. Usually, there is a seasonality during the wind season.
Brazil, that occurs usually in the beginning of the year or December, January, February. There is a higher demand for services because that's when wind complexes are generating less energy. In the US, it's the opposite. In the US, there is a demand for services in the 2nd quarter because that's when wind complexes generate less energy. When we reach the 3rd to 4th quarter in the winter, US, that's when there is a lower demand for services. Like I said, we have a mother agreement with some customers in which they place orders according to demand. There are some specific customers that place orders or specific orders. When we talk about specific demands, we talk about 2-4 months of services, depending on the size of the service that we implement on the complex. The margin of services also depends on this agreement.
For example, when we make a specific service, the higher, the margins are higher. With long-term contracts that we have a minimum stability, of course, the margin is a bit lower. We work to be on an EBITDA margin between 15% and 20% in all service agreements. The next question is from Lucas Barbosa, from Santander. Lucas, there is a link. Can you hear me? Yes, Lucas, we can hear you now. Thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. We can no longer hear you. If you could start again, please. Now we hear you. I would like you to comment and give some color on how is the relationship with each customer, how much you have in contract with each of them, how is each line doing? If you could summarize each customer so that we can have an update.
Lucas, since the company has few customers, we always separate results. We don't break down by customers due to the capacity of negotiation and bargaining power. We always separate mature and non-mature lines. Currently, all the lines and execution are mature. The agreements we have with each customers are shown in the last slide, the length of contract. What we can say, and with a caveat, that I'm talking about past data than future, the dedicated capacity to each customer reflects very closely the customer's market share in Brazil. Okay, understood. Perfect. Thank you. Our next question comes from Igor Araujo, from Genial. Thank you. I would like to go talking about the industry prospects for 2024. We've seen that there are many things, the part day from ANEEL. We wonder how the demand will be in the local market for 2024.
We see potential for new orders for generators, especially installation of wind parks, with the low price of energies, high interest rates. How do you see the local market? Also looking at the international markets, we've been waiting for the export line to go up again. We know that many products are exported later, what's the demand for 2024 in term between mix from local and external markets? Thank you. Good morning, Igor. As I said in the beginning of the presentation, we feel that 2024 and 25 have a trend to be weaker than 2023. It's always difficult to compare what's been installed. At the moment, we are producing the blade, because what is recorded at ANEEL is only when the park is commissioned.
There may be a gap of 1 year or 1.5 years since the blade was produced. Let's say 6 months to 1.5 years since the blade was produced by us. It's hard to measure exactly the demand, at what point in time, it will be commissioned. We see that 2024 and 2025 can be weaker, and I believe that this year of 2023 will exceed 4 GW of installations in Brazil, and for 2024 and 2025, it will be around 3 GW, maybe a little lower than that. Speaking about the U.S. market, specifically, we have seen that the IRA was announced 1 year ago. It was not fully regulated. The Inflation Reduction Act money has not reached the companies. We don't see that become a demand.
The U.S. market installed 8 GW last year. This year will be something close to that, growing to 10, 12, 13 GW starting on 2024, and staying around 15-18 GW starting on 2026 onward. What we have talked about with our customers, the strong demand, demand starting in 2025, when we talk about commissioning 15-18 GW in 2026. It means that the blades will be produced in 2024, at the end of 2024, and delivered in 2025. We believe that in 2025, actually, in 2024, we'll start seeing a return of exports from Aeris, with the figures accelerating in 2025 and 2026. Can I ask a second question? Since you mentioned the drop in the backlog, you didn't mention it, but maybe we could infer that this reflects what has happened with Siemens Gamesa.
I would like to understand your perception about the adjustment in the market after this. Do you believe that some other players, such as Vestas, could occupy this space left by Siemens, or do you believe that the market will take longer to adjust, and it could be a detractor for this new increase in backlog volume in the next years? We believe that, yes, that this void that Siemens Gamesa will leave, will be taken not only by Vestas, by WEG, Nordex, and, and we don't believe that there will be a valley of installations because of Siemens Gamesa. The contracts that Siemens Gamesa have in Brazil are being delivered. There may be some delay for reason, for various reasons, but what they sold is being delivered.
What they did not add, in terms of demand for 2024, was certainly taken by another OEM. Okay, thank you, Alexandre, and all of you. The next question comes from Lucas, from XP. Good morning, Alexandre, Lolli, Lais. I have two questions. The first relating to the size of the blade and of the turbine. You mentioned that there's been a lot of changes recent in years. We've seen success in the platforms between 4.5 MW, and some problems with higher platforms that resulted in the production problems that you mentioned. The first question is: How do you see this development of the nominal power of blades in coming years? There may be a consolidation of the platforms that are in operation in the market, or will we see an acceleration moving towards larger models?
At the same time, there are the Vestas that's selling their platform very well, 150. How do you see this issue of the size of the turbine? Also in terms of backlog, Alexandre, did you mention the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. that's generating demand. Looking at 2024, we could see a under usage of plants. The U.S. market would come from exports using the capacity you have in Brazil, or could we think about a greenfield project in the U.S. to capture more directly all the local content benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act? Thank you, Lucas. Commenting on your first question about the size of blades and turbines.
When we look at the history of wind energy, since the inception of Aeris in 2010, there has been a huge reduction in the price of energy, the price of turbine per MW installed. At the same time, bigger turbines increase capacity factor in most wind complexes in which they operate, with a lower average wind speed when compared to smaller blades. When what we saw happening at the same time, was the high optimism about the launch of these bigger turbines, Higher, bigger products generate more energy, dilute costs, and have a higher capacity factor. In practice, these bigger turbines had a much higher than expected complexity, which was contaminated also by the pandemic effect, because the logistics change causes losses for customers, and there was a lot of technical changes to products during execution.
What do we expect from now on? We can be speculating on that size, but we understand that the machines will take longer between 4.5 and 7 MW power, and our customers will try to explore current platforms for longer and reduce the changes to products to be able to reduce the amounts they spend in research and development and CapEx. The difference between uncertain and bigger turbines, it's hard to say because there may be very specific factors of each wind complex and each company that explain the performance and lack of performance thereof. Honestly, when looking back, the market was very optimistic at the launch of big turbines, and the technical complexities have been higher than expected regarding availability of plants and availability of export markets.
As for manufacturing in the U.S., 2024, considering negotiations in commerce, that it's likely that we'll have additional transition of production lines. There are some negotiations to remove lines and the exit of customers and installation of new turbines in current customers, as well as in potential new customers. The occupation of capacity in Brazil is a concern because we need to be able to use the assets that have been executed already. When we look at markets, especially the U.S. market, it's natural that at first there will be an offer or a supply of products for this market manufactured in Brazil. It makes sense, more structurally speaking, and we continue to advance positively with customers, but it makes sense to install plants outside Brazil. It's in the study phase and we've advanced in that as well as we are advancing negotiations.
We're not gonna do any perform, greenfield projects without having an initial agreement signed. Thank you. That's very clear, Lolli. Have a good day. We remind you that to ask a question, please send them on the chat box to the right of your screen or request a link to speak. The next question comes from Ramon.
Good morning, Aeris. Congratulations on the results. My question is about the orders covered as compared to total power being sold in Brazil. In the case, is it right to say that orders covered of 6.5 GW by Aeris account for 6.1 in wind parks in constructions today?
Well, the answer is no, you cannot make this direct correlation. When we talk about 6.4 GW of covered orders, that means the contracts we have, considering the production capacity dedicated to each contract for the length of each contract, that amounts to 6.4 orders, Aeris. When we talk about where Brazil declares of wind parks under construction, we can see that at a new website. As construction begins and the blades may be ready or not, and the parks are under construction until they are fully operational and released for commercial operation. Part of the parks that are under construction in Brazil have received Aeris that are installed and being tested. Some received blades that are on the ground waiting to be installed. Some of the parks, the blades are with us, still already manufactured.
Some will be supplied by other blades, it's not such a direct correlation. In the last slide of the presentation, that's the length or the term of each agreement. That's the period in which we manufacture the blades. When they are installed, there may be a lag between Aeris manufacturing the product and the wind park being built and commissioned. The next question is from Rafael Cardoso, from Bank of America. This 6 GW in backlog, 2 in 2023 and 4 in 2024, under negotiation, refer to the contracts that are mature and will be recontracted. Is that right? Any expectation of having a backlog of 12-13 GW of 2022? Rafael, about your first question, yes and no. A part of these 6 GW, yes, is an extension of contracts we're currently.
We would not need a ramp up, and there are also new turbines under the 6 GW that would be started at Aeris in 2024 and 2025. As for the expected backlog, the answer is yes. I believe that the backlog can go back to 12-13 GW in 2024, with a higher expectation for 2024 and 2025, because then we will be speaking of much heated up U.S. market. If we believe that the U.S. market will go from current 8 GW to 14-20 GW, we believe that the backlog would be higher than 12-13 GW that we announced in 2022. The next question comes from Aston.
The reduction in advances from customers in 2022, exactly the amount reduced in inventory, but the reduction of blades in 216, the cash, does it mean that it was returning cash to the customers?
I think I mentioned during the presentation that we closed last year's position at the end of 2022, with a position that's not regular according to regular standards, both in cash, and that's related to the delay in manufacturing, often recurred, resulting from changes made by customers. That's why we had the partnership and support from customers during 2022, and it was foreseen that when invoicing the blades in 2023 that were paid in 2022, the offsetting would be made. Yes, the answer is yes.
Much of the cash re- position reduction seen from the end of 2022 until current position in 2023, is the fact that we are billing blades that were paid last year. Advances to customers was reduced by BRL 570 million. The, the cash was not reduced to that extent, because along with this process, the company already had projections that, that when producing the current production plan to reduce inventories, work-in-process, and inventory of raw materials. This ends the Q&A session. I will now turn the floor over to Alexandre Negrão, the CEO of the company, for his final remarks. Thank you, Lais. Well, as I said in the beginning of the year, since my return here, the focus has been on rebalancing agreements and improving our operational efficiency.
This is a continuous concern, and we never stop improving efficiency. Now we are focused on increasing the backlog and returning backlog levels to those of last year, mainly. In addition, we continue to assess the optimal capital structure for the company, looking at the development of our operation and considering the possibility of geographic expansion that was discussed today at this conference call. As I said, there is a robust market when looking five years from now, not only in Brazil, but in Americas in general. United States, 15-20 GW, Brazil, 4 and 5 GW, Mexico with a potential return, Chile, Argentina. We see Americas going from current 15 GW to something around 30 GW until 2030. Today, I believe that the focus would be on capturing this growth in the market.
We are paying close attention to such movements, and we remain confident that we'll be able to attain our goals. I would like to thank you all for attending this conference call, and take this opportunity to wish you a very good weekend, and a happy Father's Day to all of you. Thank you. Thank you, Alexandre. The conference call of Aeris has now ended. We thank you all for attending.