Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Betolar's first half webcast. My name is Tuija Kalpala. I'm the President and CEO of Betolar, and here today with me is Soila Söderström, our Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Interim CFO.
Good morning.
So let's talk about the agenda today. So we'll talk about the main events, what has happened in the first half of the year, events after the period, business review, financial review, and then a little bit about the patents and innovation. And at the end, there's questions and answers as well. So please, you can submit your questions through the link that was provided. Main events. So as we have discussed earlier during our Q1 results, we have a new focus on sidestream mining and metals. And this really means that, in the beginning, when the company was founded, we talked quite a lot about sidestreams.
This means that this is still the core focus of the company, but we're just little bit more focusing now on side stream, as well as, as the new area is the mining and metals. So we are developing new innovative solutions for mining and metal industries, and this means that we have some completely new things. At the same time, we're also using the know-how that we have from the construction side that we have developed over the years, the geopolymer. So we are using that kind of know-how that we have, implementing that also now on the mining and metals side. We have several development projects, ongoing partnership agreements with several mining companies, and just one to note is this Outokumpu that we have publicly announced earlier this year.
During H1, we also had changes in the management team, and we had change negotiations in April and June. In the beginning of the year, we had six people in the management team. Right now, officially, it's reduced to number three persons in the management team. But in the reality right now, it's myself and Soila in the management team, and next week, our CFO, new CFO is joining the company, Mikko Virkkala. So totally, we will be three. So we have been downsizing the size in order to be more agile organization. And right now, what we're doing is we are changing the organization and operating model more towards like customer-centric and more project type of an organization, where the customer and project excellence is really the core.
I have to say that this has been actually working quite well for us during this, these several months that it's very been agile and easy now to operate forward and push forward this new way of working. Of course, this change negotiations unfortunately, we had to end 13 positions in Finland, so that's also a downside that we had to go through now this period. Good news is that our sales increased, net sales increased, and our cost level was lower. And this is due to the fact that we started already end of last year this cost-saving program, and it really shows now, and it's paying off. Focus on these high-volume mining projects really shows the increase in the number of the research projects, as we have been really focusing on that side.
However, also when looking at the numbers, we see that there is a decrease on the pilot customers, so this means that really we have been focusing more on the mining side. It of course means that we have been doing less pilot on the construction and with this, geopolymer type of pilots that we have in the past done quite many patents and innovations. Several new patents were granted during the period and also after the period. I will come back to that a little bit later on the presentation. Also, good news, we were granted several innovation awards in Finland and also internationally, so there was some recognition also for our hard work towards these geopolymers and towards our innovations.
Lastly, good news on this side, regarding hollow-core slabs. Previously, we have been talking quite a lot about this development, especially with Consolis Parma. So good news is that these hollow-core slabs, they were approved by the Finnish Concrete Association, which means that now the CE marking is possible to have for these hollow-core slabs. So this is, this is also a big, big news for us. Events after the period, we have announced this cooperation with Norge Mineraler. This is very interesting case for us, so we have signed memorandum of understanding with them. This is to develop sustainable mining solution in their mine in Norway, and I will talk about this, in more detail a bit later. New patents.
There were several new patents that were granted to us, which is further showing this innovation side that we have and this technology and R&D that is very strong on the background. Also, interesting news, couple of weeks ago, we acquired a new patent regarding the treatment of waste combustion ashes, and this was from the Metalsynergy. Very interesting thing, which I will also talk about a bit later in detail. So then let's talk about little bit more about Betolar transforming the world of mining and metals, and what this means. So as I mentioned before, so this is very interesting and new opportunity for us. We all know that, unfortunately, on the construction side, the market situation is quite challenging, and that's affecting also Betolar.
However, we have seen that there's a very interesting pool now from the mining and metal side, and there's a need to find solutions for more sustainable way of working to increase efficiency and also to utilize the tailings better. There are different kind of side streams that are available from the mining side. So now this is the way that we can utilize our know-how that we have and the technologies that we have from the construction side now towards this new area, and also we have new innovations in this area that we can also use towards our customer cases. So then, business and the impact, and with this, I will start explaining this picture from the right side.
Impact economy: thinking about, like, these cities and this, the kind of end game. We know that one of the mega trends today is urbanization, and for this urbanization, there's a need to build more. Today, about 50% of the people live in urban areas. It's expected that by 2050, 75% of the population will leave the urban areas. This means that there's a growing demand for construction materials like cement. Today, looking at how much cement is causing these greenhouse gas emissions, it counts about 7%-8% of the world greenhouse gas emissions come from this cement production, because it's a very energy-intensive process to produce cement.
Because of this urbanization, we know that, or it's expected that by 2050, it could go up to 30%. Meaning that almost 30% could come from this construction and use of cement. We desperately need new solutions, how we can make this more sustainable going forward. Why is this mining very interesting for us? This is a primary production, and if we look at the mines and sustainable mining, there's a growing need to find solution to environmental challenges and better tailings management. New methods that are more efficient, and we can recover more materials and critical metals. As said, we have at Betolar solutions for this. We have solution how we can utilize these different side streams that come out.
We have ways how we can improve also the recovery of the materials, and we have also ways that we can improve the circular economy inside the mining. So we can utilize their own products to be used in, for example, shotcrete and base backfilling, and different applications that are needed. So we can utilize the existing materials, so we don't have to take them away from the mine necessarily to another location. We can use them locally. Then, looking at the production side, the refining production. So it's a big thing now to talk about this waste-to-energy, and this is exactly something that is very exciting to us. Because we know that there is a need to find solution for industrial waste.
There's an increasing demand for sustainable and locally available industrial side streams, and really to transform this waste into valuable resources, and these are the things that we need in the urban areas going forward. As a construction material, it can be for the infrastructure and construction, different things, and interesting is this now, this new technology we just acquired from Metalsynergy, so for these waste-to-energy plants, we are now able to take the bottom ashes that typically go now, to landfills, because it's, classified as hazardous waste. We can take this, we can neutralize it, we can make it clean, so that we can utilize this, known as waste, now in building materials and infrastructure, so it's very interesting, so the point for this whole slide is really to make understand that we are actually involved in all these three areas.
So we are in mining, we are in production, and we are also at the end, helping the urban areas to have greener choices, how we can build better cities, better environment, for everyone. Then let's talk about the business and what we have done and achieved in first half of the year. So in mining and metal we have done many consulting projects, for example, in cement-less base backfill, shotcrete, this is the Outokumpu case, and then tailings management and how to improve the tailings management for the mines. We have been strengthening our portfolio for mines and metals sector, and we have developed this new method, how we can make the extraction of valuable metals and binder products even more efficient.
So we have now this new technology, how we can also help this industry with the efficiency and the recovery, and then with the tailings management, to make it so that we can use it in other applications. Big thing for us was this announcement during the summertime. This was after the period, new partnership with Norge Mineraler. This is a big thing for us and very interesting partnership. It's a big new mine in Norway, and I'll talk about it shortly. Side streams, so this industrial side stream, waste upcycling. This is something what we have now really focused on. We have built a specific team just to look at this area, and we have been building our global side stream value chain expertise.
We also have consulting projects related to this area, and we are continuing this Analcime sand and spodumene tailings, making it more commercial and commercializing that. Also as a new thing in India, so many of you may know, in India, we have an office in India, so we started this GGBFS trading there. It's a small scale, but it's still something, and it's towards our existing customers in India, and also we have been able to get some new customers also on this trading side. Interesting also, we launched AI-enabled side stream analysis service now in the first half, and it was sold to first customers. Also, we were able to expand it, and we're also using this data model towards the mining use cases. Then lastly, let's talk about little bit about the construction.
So, this is, this used to be the core, what we were doing. Now, we're a little bit more shifting towards mining metals and side streams, but yes, we still have ongoing business on the construction side, and especially with the hollow-core slabs, so as mentioned, we were able to get the chemical approval in Finland, enabling the European-wide CE mark. Also as a new thing, we got a new order from Australia, so we are now starting to pilot also in Australia, and there is a growing interest from data center builders around the world for having this alternative and greener cement alternatives.
Concrete products in Germany, first production batch is ordered by a new customer in Germany, and that's moving forward, and then, of course, we have existing customers, and we continue delivering to these existing customers. Okay, so then let's talk about this interesting case, Metalsynergy. So we acquired a patent regarding a treatment of waste combustion ashes from Metalsynergy just recently. It's a groundbreaking patent on technology that will revolutionize the way we handle waste combustion ashes and turning them from hazardous waste into valuable resources. So what are the highlights for us? What does it really mean for us that we purchased an existing patent from another company? It means that with this new patent, it allows us to neutralize and recycle waste combustion ashes, significantly reducing landfill fees and environmental impact.
So now we're able to get more materials that can be utilized in construction and infrastructure. And then thinking about the sustainability aspect of this purchase aligns with our commitment also to this circular economy, promoting resource efficiency and reducing the use of virgin natural resources. Really, the core and the DNA, what Betolar is. This is what we want to do, is really to enable this circular economy and find new waste that we can turn into materials that can be utilized further. Also, the last thing is very important, why we purchased this patent, is that this can be integrated into various Betolar solutions, enhancing especially our metal recovery and waste purification processes. So we can also now build on this, and we can utilize this, especially on the mining and metal side.
Then this Norge Mineraler case that was announced during the summer. So we announced this partnership for sustainable mining in Norway with Norge Mineraler, which is exploring a world-class deposit of EU critical raw materials in southwest Norway. The goal with this partnership is to find solution to minimize these carbon emissions, reduce waste, and create profitable solution to side stream management in their mining operation. And Norge Mineraler, they have said that their goal is to be zero waste mine, and this is where our expertise is helping them, that we can really help them with the tailings management and also thinking about other things for the mines. We talk about the efficiency of the recovery of different metals, also the safety, as well as then utilizing these different side streams....
So immediate focus is really on better tailings management practices by commercializing the mine tailings in production of geopolymer-based concrete. Norja Mineraler's plan is that they really wanna make all these tailings that they have at the mine, and make it as geopolymer-based concrete. And this is where we have the expertise from several years. This is what we do. This is the core what we know, the know-how we have at Betolar. There's, of course, a future collaboration potential in this recovery of valuable fractions, as well as this in-process carbon dioxide recovery and permanent carbon dioxide capture. This is also these new things that we have been looking at at Betolar. Outokumpu case. We have talked about this in the past, but still want to highlight and talk about this. This is very important.
One of our priority projects right now at Betolar is really to create and develop this cement-free shotcrete to Outokumpu. This partnership continues. We started earlier this year, so this year our aim is to develop cement-free product for Outokumpu, and then continue next year is to achieve a low-carbon alternative two thousand twenty-five, which is completely cement-free, which is a geopolymer-based alternative. This is a work that continues every day, and it's one of our priority projects that we are really, really looking forward to do this together with Outokumpu. Then, Soila, let's then talk about the financials.
Yes. Thank you, Tuija. All right, so first of all, the financial indicators that I'm gonna go through is the net sales. The first half of the year was 276 thousand EUR. As you can see, we doubled our net sales compared to the comparison period. And this was driven by the non-recurring engineering fees from our consulting projects, and of course, from the licensing fees and chemical fees from our existing customers. And then our gross margin was 217 thousand EUR, and that is, of course, good for a company, and that was mainly due to the honorary fees. And then let's go to the operating loss.
We managed to reduce the operating loss for over EUR 2 million. That's a big thing, and we can see that the cost reductions that we have made are finally paying off. To our cash and cash equivalents, during the in the end of the period was approximately EUR 10 billion, and I will talk about that later, the cash impact items that we have now in the next slide. To the operational indicators. We introduced two new operational indicators during this year. First is the order intake that raised to approximately EUR 500,000. That's a good thing. You can see that that is almost at the same level as the 2023 last year.
And the second one was the number of honorary projects. That was five during the first half of the year. And then we have previously followed the number of new customer pilots. And of course, that we are now shifting towards the mining and metals customers, and this indicator is more about the concrete product side. So that has increased during the period. So there were only two new customer pilots there. And then the average number of personnel at the end of the period was fifty-one. And as Tuija mentioned, we have gone through the change negotiations, and that number has now been reduced. And then to the cash impact items.
As you can see, as the revenue is slowly picking up, we have to be really careful about our cash position, and that is very critical in this situation, so first of all, in twenty twenty-three Q3, we started our cost-saving program that is targeted for EUR 5 million cost savings that will be concluded during this year Q3, by the end of September, and to continue these saving measures, and of course due to our new focus and the shift towards mining and metals, so we wanted to restructure the organization. We introduced new business models and ways of working, and of course we aimed at reducing fixed costs, so as a result of these negotiations, 13 positions were terminated in Finland.
One thing to note here is that there were non-recurring expenses of EUR 541,000 that were incurred in connection with the change in negotiations, and of course, the management changes. Before the IPO, we already have been granted a EUR 7 million loan from the Climate Fund, and we have already withdrawn EUR 4.5 million from that loan, and we still have EUR 2.5 million outstanding. In September 2023, we received a grant from Business Finland. It was EUR 2.7 million euro grant, and of course, that will be then drawn down or granted while the project continues and develops. To add to that, we received a grant from Finnpartnership.
That's for the project in Malaysia, that we are producing hollow-core slabs out there. Yes, and that was, that was the cash impact items, and then Tuija will tell more about the innovation side next.
Yes, thank you, Soila. So let's talk about the innovations we have. So we have now been increasing the number of patents that we have. So today, we have 10 approved patents, and we have another 10 innovations in the patent process. And there was quite many patents that was now granted during this period. So there's things like for liquid chemical dosing device, enabling large-scale use of side streams in road, soil, and ground construction, and this is for really infrastructure use, and then we have the same three accelerator solution. And then, of course, we purchased this Metalsynergy patent. And this is really...
I have to say, this is really thanks to our very strong R&D and our people, our researchers, who are working very hard at Betolar, and all the time thinking about new ways of doing things and new innovations, and now especially on the mining side. We have quite many very interesting and promising things that we are working on. So more to come. Innovation awards in Finland and internationally, this is really good news for us. So in April, our Geoprime hollow-core slabs won the first prize at the Acknowledge Building Materials Industry Innovation Award in Paris, France. And then continued in May, we received the 2024 Terry Treanor Innovation Award from the International Prestressed Hollowcore Association for developing the world's lowest emission hollow-core slabs. And then this continues.
One of our customers in Belgium, TuboBel Group, they also won with our technology. They won Sustainability Award at the Techni-Mat event for their cement-free Geoprime concrete pipes. This is really, really good. And then, the Finnish Chemical Society also honored us for the 2024 Circular Economy Innovation Award, and this was for the innovative circular economy chemistry business idea that is benefiting both the environment and the economy. So really, really good, good awards. So then, let's have the Q&A session. So, what I hear is that we had quite many questions on the pipeline. Unfortunately, we cannot take them all, but thank you so much for sending these questions, and, we'll now take as many as we can. Soila, please.
Yes. Thank you. So couple of questions that we had time to answer here. So first of all, what are your topmost priorities going forward?
Topmost priorities, it's quite simple. We need more sales. Sales, sales, sales, so that's very important for us, so. But really to grow, the order intake is something that we're really putting the focus on, and especially from this mining and metals side. So I would say that's the most important thing. As a startup, what we can do is really now push forward the sales side and have more sales in our pipeline. That's the most important and the most critical thing right now.
Thank you, so next question is about the order intake. So your order intake was EUR 495,000. Do you expect to deliver this during 2024, or will some of it be delivered in 2025?
Yes, so some of our order intake, so some of the projects, they don't necessarily follow the calendar year. So of course, some of these will go past the year end. So some of them will be next year. Some will be partly this year, and some will be pushed towards next year. And of course, we are hoping that we can further increase this number towards the end of the year.
Yes, and then question about Outokumpu. What is the financial potential of the Outokumpu deal?
Yeah, unfortunately, I cannot disclose the exact numbers of this deal, but what I can say is that it's very important. It's one of our priority projects right now, and how I see this is that once we do a project for one customer, and we do it, and we implement it successfully, it means that then we have potentially more cases with Outokumpu, and this is what we want. We want to be able to serve our customers the best way we can and then win their trust again for new projects that we could do. We have so many different solutions that we could offer, for example, to Outokumpu and other mines, and so we are hoping that we could be a long-term partner for many of these companies.
Thank you. Okay, then question about our patents. So, can you monetize your patents without own production?
Yes, we can. So we don't necessarily need to have our own production, so there's different ways we can monetize the patents. Of course, one way is then to sell them to someone who is willing to pay for it. And then, of course, there's different ways that we can do it together with our customers and partners. So we can monetize it in many ways. So we have several great patents for so many quite many different areas that we can utilize, and this is something that is also on our priority list. It's not the number one, because number one is to really now focus on sales.
But I would say that this is maybe the number two or number three focus area, that we really need to see also how we can monetize these patents. So this is also very critical and important area for us that we can actually not only to produce a lot of patents but also make money with these patents.
All right. I think those were the questions that we have time to answer today, so thank you.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you.