Hello everyone and welcome to the Q3 presentation of Arctic Fish. My name is Stein Ove Tveiten. I'm the CEO of Arctic Fish, and with me today, I have Nils Kjartan Þórðarson, which is the CFO of Arctic Fish. I will guide you through the key points in our presentation, starting with the highlights for the period. We consider the quarter having a solid biological performance with high growth and high survival rate. Overall, we are very pleased with the quarter and also the fact that we have now ended up with a total of 3.9 million smolt is very satisfying for us and is above our previously stated target.
When it comes to the farming operation, we ended up at NOK 9.8 per kilo, which is slightly lower than the same quarter last year. Overall, a good quarter when it comes to the EBIT performance. We had our price achievement at NOK 58.9 per kilo, and we had a harvesting volumes close to 2,000 tons, which is slightly below the same quarter last year. For the harvested volumes in total in 2022, we estimate 9,400 tons in total. For 2023, we estimate 14,100 tons. Our production cost ended up at NOK 49.1 per kilo, which is some increase from the same period last year.
When it comes to our operational KPIs, we had a volume of 7,200 tons in total, so far in 2022. That is a 15% decrease from last year. The quarter itself, as mentioned, 2,000 tons, which is down 900 tons from the same quarter last year. On the other hand, the revenue has been increasing. We have had a 13% increase from the same accumulated period last year, accumulated to NOK 486 million in total. For the quarter itself, NOK 161 million, compared to the NOK 160 million last year.
When it comes to the EBIT per kilo accumulated these three first quarters this year, NOK 19.9 per kilo compared to NOK 8.2 for the same period last year. The quarter isolated, NOK 9.8 slightly down compared to the NOK 10.6 the same quarter last year. By that, I hand it over to you, Kjartan, to say something about our operational performance and group financials.
Thank you, Stein. Regarding this quarter's operational performance, it is at 9.8 NOK per kilo. This is a drop from the last quarter, mainly due to the lower market prices and higher production costs. When we are looking at the third quarter of 2021 and comparing with this year's third quarter, we see the higher market prices, but also the trend of higher production costs. When digging into the production costs, we see an increase over the year in feed costs and other cost inflation on other items. It has never been this high, the production cost for us since 2021. It is at 49.1 NOK per kilo. Going forward, we see that the costs will stabilize and go lower with increased biological performance, economies of scale, and then full control of our own harvesting capacity.
When looking at the P&L, we sold salmon for NOK 116 million in the quarter, which resulted in a NOK 17.2 million operational EBIT. Overall, the year is impacted by the production incident in Dýrafjörður, and our operational EBIT is, for the year-to-date numbers, close to NOK 8 million. Further, the revenues year to date are NOK 485 million, which is the most revenues we have created over any first three quarters of any fiscal year in our preceding years. When looking at our balance sheet, we continue to invest in our growth, mainly in the CapEx projects that Stein will talk about later. We've also increased our biological assets, increased them by NOK 71.8 million in the quarter, and then an increase of NOK 124.1 million in our CapEx projects.
Our equity ratio is 53% and has been decreasing due to our increased level of bank debt that we have taken to finance our CapEx projects. When digging into our debt, our net interest-bearing debt has increased to NOK 585 million, mainly due to our investments in the fixed assets and changes in the working capital. This leaves us with unused drawdown of loan amounts of NOK 160 million on our existing loan agreement, but we have already added on NOK 175 million in a new construction facility for the harvesting project. When looking at our CapEx projects, we have so far this year invested NOK 333 million in the growth projects, which Stein will also talk about later.
We also intend to invest further in the fourth quarter in these growth projects for an amount of NOK 232 million. When it comes to the financing, we have secured all necessary financing to an amount up to NOK 325 million additions to our existing loan agreement. This is sufficient to carry us forward with the growth projects that we have already started. We have also received all necessary waivers for the leverage ratios while we are in these growth investments.
Thank you, Kjartan, for that. We take some points regarding our key features, starting with some words out on the sites from Egill.
Hello, everyone. I'm Egill Ólason, Operational Manager, Seawater, Arctic Fish. I'm speaking to you here from Dýrafjörður. Here behind me, you can see Eyrarhlíð, our first site with salmon. I'm gonna speak to you a little bit about our production at the sea site in quarter three. This quarter we have been focusing mostly on output of smolt, of course, with the focus on good growth. This quarter we have finalized the output in one of our new sites in Hvesta, which went really good. When you will be watching this, we have most likely finalized all our output this year with a record high output of 3.9 million smolts, which is a new record for Arctic Fish. When it comes to fish health, we believe that we are in a really good state.
Our mortality numbers are much lower, and we have gained a lot biomass regarding to that. I believe that predictability is everything. Because of that, we have been putting a lot of focus on making our plans and trying to have them airtight. Among other things regarding that is, of course, Bolungarvík, the harvesting, and then in the coming year or so, we will have the smolt station, where we can plan output of bigger and better smolts. Just to highlight it here in the end, this is a record year for us in Arctic Fish with output of 3.9 million smolts , and we are very proud of that.
Thank you, Egill. Very good to hear. If we then take the next slide in the presentation regarding our sustainability profile, our main focus is obviously, as you see, the ASC certification. We are 100% certified, meaning that all fish sold and sites have been ASC certified, and also that it has been ASC certified back to 2016. The company was the first salmon farmer from Iceland to receive an ASC certification. By that, I also then go over to the next slide regarding our license update. It has not happened much in the quarter. We are today at 27,100 tons in total.
21,800 tons MAB is salmon, and then we have the trout license of 5,300 tons. We also have the pending application in Ísafjörður of 10,100 tons, which is pending. It is some progress on it. It is hard to say for sure when it's being finalized, but we still expect it to be done in close future. We expect then when this is finalized to have a total license capacity MAB of 31,900 tons in total, which gives us the room to meet our growth plans that has been addressed.
What also can be mentioned is that we have now handed over our application on our smolt facility extension of a existing 1,000 tons license, where we are applying for a new license of 2,400 tons in total. This also then will gives us the possibility to increase the production even more with the ongoing construction in Norðurbotn. We are also very pleased with our updated license in Patreksfjörður and Tálknafjörður. In the update, we have received then a new area or a increased area for farming, meaning that we will be able to add one more site into this license and into this area. This gives us also the flexibility and the possibility to utilize the license there even better.
By that, I hand it over again to you, Kjartan. Some words regarding market and sales.
Thank you, Stein. When looking at the market prices, the third quarter is traditionally a quarter where the market prices dropped due to the increased global supply and global harvesting volume. This quarter is the same in that sense, and we saw the market prices drop and our price achievement was 58.9 NOK per kilo. It's important to look at it too, as an ex-works price, meaning that we are selling a majority of our sales, nearly all of our sales are sold at the factory door in Bolungarvík. Looking forward, we have a positive outlook on the salmon prices going forward, especially compared to 2021. Then back to you, Stein, to sum it all up.
Thank you, Kjartan, for that. If we then heading into our growth projects, starting up with Ragna, who will tell some about the progress in Norðurfjörður.
My name is Ragna Helgadóttir, and I'm the Construction Manager for Arctic Fish, and I am in charge of this project here in Tálknafjörður where we are expanding our smolt facilities. This building is a crucial step in reaching our company's goal of farming around 25,000 tons of salmon, and this extension here will help us get our annual production of smolt up to 1,000 tons, which is equivalent to around 5 million of 200 grams smolt. We are both increasing our annual capacity as well as producing larger smolt before we put it out to sea. I think the main challenge was last winter. We had a very harsh winter, which slowed down the project, but then we were very lucky with the summer.
Progress during the summer was very good, and we have been able to keep it up now in the autumn and the first months of the winter. Now we are just hoping that we will be lucky with the weather going forward and that we'll be able to close the house before Christmas. It is scheduled now that the project will be finished in second quarter of 2023, and we are planning to put fish into this facility next summer. This project is a crucial step in reaching Arctic Smolt's goal of farming 25,000 tons of salmon in the sea. When this facility is ready, the annual capacity of our smolt facilities will be around 1,000 tons, which is what we need to be able to reach our goal of 25,000 tons.
Thank you, Ragna, for that. Really good to hear. As I summarized, the setup on the smolt and the smolt expansion in Tálknafjörður, we are then, as you saw, in progress now to increase the tank capacity there with 7,500 tons, which then also gives us the opportunity to increase the production up to 5 million smolt, approximately at 200-250 gram on the average size. This, as you saw, is in progress, and we expect to complete the construction there in Q2 2023.
The total cost for the project estimated to 260 million NOK, and also that this will strengthen us as a leading smolt producer in Iceland and obviously support our growth in terms of harvest volumes in the future. Heading over to the harvesting construction in Bolungarvík, Daníel will take some words regarding the status on the site.
Hi, my name is Daníel Jakobsson. I'm head of business development at Arctic Fish. We are now locating here in our coming harvesting plant in Bolungarvík in the Westfjords. Here at the factory, we will be able to harvest all our fish for the coming years. The harvesting plant is designed to be able to harvest some 50,000 tons a year in an eight-hour shift. To begin with, we will be able to harvest from 50 fish a minute, which is about 25,000 tons a year in an eight-hour shift. We started this building of the harvesting plant in June this year, and we are aiming at starting operations within the first half of next year. Here is full speed and a lot of things ongoing at the moment.
We are located somehow in between all of our sites. We have at the moment fish in five fjords, and from here we are able to reach all the sites in 24 hours. The well boat is coming in in the morning and leaving in the afternoon to get new fish for the next day. We also believe that the location is good because of logistics. We have two roads out of the region from Bolungarvík to the capital area, the south road and the north road. Then there are frequent shipping from Ísafjörður with direct shipping both to Europe and hopefully in the future to the U.S. as well. In this region, there are living some 5,000 people, so this is a good project for the community.
We have a good infrastructure and would welcome new people to the region to work for us. At this factory we are assuming that we need to hire 40 people that will start in the beginning of next year. We have now done all of the contracts for the processing equipment. Most of the contractors are from Iceland, and some are even from the region here. We are really happy about that. That gives us also the opportunity to have local service on the equipment, and shows us that we in Iceland can make equipment for such a high-tech factory.
When the factory is up and running, we will have a capacity we will be able to harvest all of our products, and on this lot here also we can develop further and expand the factory and go into filleting and even VAP products. There's a lot of knowledge about the fishing industry here in the region. There is a lot of skilled people that have been working with fish for a long time, and in this region, everything is about fish.
Thank you for that, Daníel. Good to see. As you see, we are in full speed here in Bolungarvík, and we have the aim to finish this off in Q2 2023. The overall picture here is that with this facility, we have full control of our harvesting, but also we'll have the possibility to do harvesting services for other farming companies in the area and the region. The short-term potential in the harvesting facility is approximately 60,000 tons, but we also have the possibility to have a further increase on the capacity here with some additional investments.
We also see clearly possibilities beyond what we are working on today, both when it comes to the capacity itself but also, filleting, VAP production, and also, potential box production or fish oil, meal, production on site. Overall, the location has been extremely important for us. It has the right characteristics for the location itself, but also the area gives possibilities for future extensions. By that, as the outlook and summary, as previously indicated, we have a harvesting estimate of 9,400 tons in total for 2022. We estimate 2,200 tons in Q4, and then we lift our volumes for next year up to 14,100 tons in total.
By that, we have been through the main points in the presentation. Also have some appendix available for you for further information. By that, I will thank you all for listening to us today and have a great day.