Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Betolar's first half 2025 result webcast. Firstly, a disclaimer about the forward statements, as you can see on the screen. We move forward. My name is Tuija Kalpala. I'm the President and CEO of Betolar, and I'm here today with my colleagues and Mikko Wirkkala, the CFO. As the agenda today, I will be briefly talking about the main events in Q2. Mikko will talk about the financial performance, and at the end, we have the question and answers. Please do send questions through the chat box on the website. The main events and after the period happening in Q2 2025. The big thing during, I would say, in the first half of the year was really this metal extraction innovation and the technology that we had.
We were able to verify in several different external tests 99% yield of these strategic and critical metals extraction with our technology. With this, also the remaining of this technology or this process where we extract the metals, the remaining is green cement. This is a very high-performing green cement. Here on the slide, it's the point number two. This low-carbon green cement that we're able to produce, we have tested it also in our own laboratories during the quarter. All the tests show that it's extremely high-performance green cement. In some parts, it even exceeds the performance of Portland cement. During the period, we also had several new customers. These are the public reference customers. One of them is Canadian Royalties in Canada. For them, we're developing a cementless rockfill solution in Canada. The other one is Anglo American.
That was the first order for Betolar's new metal extraction technology. We're super happy about this. This commercial partnership is really supporting Anglo American's drive towards circularity. Also our management team, GROWTH, Jyri Talja was appointed as the Chief Growth Officer in April. Some of the highlights of the period. Looking at the market, the market, what we saw, very strong interest in low-carbon and waste-free solutions, especially within the mining sector. Especially there, we saw that there was a quite high demand for tailings management solutions. With many discussions with the mining companies, we understood that one of the biggest challenges that they're having is related to the tailings management. We have a solution for that. Especially, there is a high interest for that because we can extract the remaining metals from tailings, also from other side streams, for example, from tailings.
The remaining is this green cement that can be used by the mining companies themselves in their own operations. When looking at the construction market, what we see is it continues to show, unfortunately, very limited momentum. We had some activities there. We have some customers and ongoing pilots and so on, but it's not as strong as we would hope for. When looking at the sales in Q2 and looking at the first half of the year, we see an increase in our results year on year. Especially comparing to the same period last year, so looking at the first half, our sales increased over 50%, which we are very happy about. We made strategic progress in expanding into Canadian and Australian markets, and we secured the first orders for mining solutions in both regions, in Canada and Australia.
Also, in India, we were able to grow our GGPFS sales. We have a subsidiary in India, and we have been present there for several years. Finally, we see also an increase in that sales in that region. Innovation side and the R&D work was really focused on this metal extraction process and the green cement. We were able to file eight new patent applications regarding this metal extraction. The R&D work was also focused around, for example, this cementless shotcrete application that we have. Looking at more of the business areas, looking at the mining and metals, we had several new customers for cementless rockfill and paste backfill solutions in Finland, Canada, and Australia. We received the first offer for the metal extraction and green cement production.
We are very happy about this because this shows that there is a real interest in the marketplace for our technology, and we have customers and companies who are believing in this technology. Customer pilots we had for the low-carbon CEM III and cement-free shotcrete, as well as for the cementless rockfill during this period. On the industrial side stream side, we continued building the side stream business forward. We built international logistics capabilities also in Finland for the future needs that we have. This GGPFS sales in India was growing as expected, and that was supported by the strong customer and partner base that we have, that we have been building for several years in India. SidePrime Analysis service, of course, continued. We served several of existing and new customers with this service, so SidePrime service.
We have a laboratory in Kannonkoski, Finland, so that's where we are doing these analyses. Looking at customers' side streams and helping them to understand how we could utilize it further and commercialize these unutilized side streams. On the construction side, we launched a new service called Optimize. We did receive a first order from a Nordic company for concrete mix optimization. What this Optimize service is, it's really related to looking at these cement recipes and looking at how we can lower the CO2 emissions and also looking at how we can improve the cost savings and the cost to the customer. We also received an order from Canada for Geoprime paving stone production.
Talking about the next steps for metal extraction, this is a very interesting topic, and we wanted to talk a little bit about what are we doing next and where our focus is on this metal extraction. Really looking at how we can develop this solution further for our customers and also securing access to raw materials. We have seen that there's a great potential of these unutilized slags and other industrial side streams, not only in Finland, but globally. For example, looking at closed mines and other materials that are available. Our goal right now is to secure long-term contracts for feasible raw materials that we can utilize in this metal extraction process. On the technology side, we have done large-scale pilot tests that have been conducted by third-party facilities to demonstrate and verify that the technology really works and we can get the 99% yield of the metals.
Right now, what we are looking at is multiple alternatives for this metal extraction process, and we are evaluating these, including the potential for in-house foundry operations. Really looking at if there's something that we could also do ourselves. On the customer side, we have several discussions ongoing with several mining and metal companies. We see that there is a really strong interest towards the process and the technology. Especially looking at the tailings management solution is something that a lot of the customers are interested in, how the mines can solve this issue with the tailings. Of course, also it's interesting to see the yield of the strategic and critical metals and how with our solution we can take these metals out from the waste material. The case Anglo American. We recently announced our first order for the metal extraction technology.
This is with the Anglo American Sakatti Multimetallic Project in Sodankylä, Finland. This collaboration really supports Anglo American's goal for low-waste mine through circular economy solutions. With this partnership, we will be producing green cement for the tailings paste backfill at the future Sakatti mining operations. It's really looking at how we can utilize their tailings and make it as a green cement to use in their own operations. Also, further looking at other tailored solutions for the Sakatti mine to minimize their CO2 emissions and help to implement practical steps towards carbon neutral mining. Over to Mikko Wirkkala, our CFO, who will give an overview of our financials.
Thank you, Tuija. My name is Mikko Wirkkala and I will walk you through the financial performance for the first half of the year. Let's start from the second quarter financial highlights. Our net sales grew by 22% from last year and ended up at EUR 253,000. The sales were mainly driven by our customers in the mining and metal sector, but also due to the fact that we increased our slag sales in India, as Tuija mentioned earlier. If we have a look at our EBITDA, our EBITDA increased even more, and that was a 34% increase from last year. Here we can see the effect of the actions we took in our cost base last year. The third highlight from the second quarter is our order intake, and that was EUR 430,000.
This was also driven by the same factors as mentioned in the net sales, so customers mainly in the mining and metal sector, as well as the slag sales we have seen happening in India. Next, if we move to the first half numbers, we can also see the full set of numbers here. The first half net sales ended up at EUR 417,000, and that was a 51% increase from last year. Also, if you compare our first half numbers to the entire 2024 numbers, you can see that we are on a good track to reach our guidance. If I draw your attention to our EBITDA, that is still negative, minus EUR 2.1 million, but that is EUR 1.5 million better compared to last year. Here we very clearly see the cumulative effect of the cost-saving actions we took last year.
Operationally, if we look at our order intake for the first half of the year, it was EUR 520,000. We secured five new engineering projects during the first half of the year. Again, the emphasis is on the mining and metal sector. The average number of personnel for the first half of the year was 35, and this compared to 51 last year is also showing the leaner operations we are having this year. Next, if we have a look at our financial position, our cash balance was EUR 8.7 million, combining the cash and short-term investments. On top of that, we still have EUR 2.1 million remaining from the Business Finance Grant and also other grants. Combining these two items, our liquidity and underwriting grants amount to EUR 10.9 million at the end of the second quarter.
The guidance for our full-year net sales, as I mentioned already, is that we are on a good track reaching that one, and we expect our net sales to increase compared to the previous year. This was in a nutshell the financial highlights from our first half of the year. Let's move next to the Q&A session. I would like to welcome my colleague Soila Söderström on stage and Tuija as well.
Okay, thank you. To your questions, we have both Mikko and Tuija here to answer them. The first one, could you describe what kind of business model, especially commercial side, you are targeting in metal extraction? Is it similar to Betolar in general or something else?
Very good question. Typically, what we've had, we've had the licensing model with a lot of the concrete products. Now with the metal extraction, we are looking at different kinds of models, and of course, it depends on the customer needs. With the metal extraction, we may be entering in different kinds of ways, different kinds of business models, depending on how we're doing it. In some cases, as I mentioned, we are looking at in-house operations. We're looking at doing something ourselves with the foundry.
In some cases, where investments are needed in an existing metal process, that's then a different kind of model. It depends on, of course, the company who is willing to invest. Is it going to be their own investment, or is it kind of like a jointly operated, jointly invested? It depends quite a lot on the actual outcome of the negotiations and the customer needs. We don't have just one way how we're doing it. We're doing it based on the customer needs.
Thank you. Okay, about the employees. Is the current number of employees the level we should expect going forward, or are you hiring more people? We're all the time assessing the situation with the employees and the resources, what we need, based on these orders that we get and projects that we have ongoing.
We will see how things will move forward, and it's based on that. We have been hiring a few new people. We have some recruitments ongoing, mostly I would say related to sales roles for this kind of mining operations and mining and metal sales in general.
All right. A question for Mikko. Liquidity and underwriting grants decreased quite significantly from Q1. Was there something special or worth highlighting in this?
Basically, we had pretty normal operations, and of course, that's fluctuating a bit depending on the time. No special items in there to highlight.
Okay, thank you. A question about Anglo American. That's an interesting deal that we got. Did the deal with Anglo American have any impact in Q2 net sales? How big a deal this is in euros?
Unfortunately, we're not disclosing that information at this point.
I can confirm that still there were no effects on the second quarter net sales.
Thank you. Okay, will new personal resources or investments be needed to accelerate customer projects in metal extraction and green cement? What kind of delivery capacity will this require from Betolar?
Yeah. As I mentioned, we are all the time assessing the need of resources based on the ongoing projects. If we have a need, we will then, of course, hire more people that have the relevant experience. Right now, I think with the current setup and current employees and their expertise and know-how, we are on a very good track going forward. What about investments? The question about investment needed. Yeah, we will come back to that question when the time is right.
Thank you. What timeline could the Anglo American project move into a commercial or production phase in the mine itself?
The Sakatti project is still a project. They are aiming at starting the operations in 2030.
There are still some years to go for actual mining operations, but in the meanwhile, we are now partnering with them. It's a commercial deal looking at how we can utilize their mine tailings to make green cement and so on.
Okay. What about market feedback you have received when you have started to sell the new innovation in metal extraction?
It's been very good. There is a lot of interest in the marketplace for the metal extraction. For both, for the green cement from the tailings to green cement and utilizing the green cement in the mining operations, but also mining companies are also interested in how they can increase the yield. There are a lot of challenges with these materials, these unutilized side streams that cannot be used at the moment because of the metal content in it.
It's, of course, attracting a lot of interest on how we could, with our technology, solve these issues.
Thank you. The last question. If you are successful with the first case with Anglo American, what would be the way forward with them? The next question, would you have to sell and pilot mine by mine, or could there be more scalable ways within large corporations?
Yes, with the Sakatti, as mentioned, with the Anglo American Sakatti project, right now we're studying how we can utilize the minings to make this green cement for them that they can then utilize in their mining operations. Many of these underground mines do use quite a lot of cement. The idea is that we would have the green cement to replace the cement use so that they can reduce the CO2 emissions and really have a circular economy approach to the mining operations.
This is a similar thing that we can do with other mines as well globally, not only in Finland, but elsewhere. The same idea is, of course, scalable to other mines as we can then utilize or test their materials and then see how it works. We have mentioned earlier that we have so far tested about 10 different metals with the process or the technology, and we have been able to achieve 99% from all of them. We also continue now looking at more side streams, more tailings, and verifying with other metals as well. There is a development also in-house, but there is also development that we're doing then to our customers to see how we can improve the operations.
Yes, very good. Thank you. Thank you for your interest, our audience there online and here.
The next event we have is the Q3 business review that will be released on 28th October. See you there. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.