Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and very much welcome to this Q3 presentation of AKVA Group. The agenda for this morning is that I will do the highlights and the outlook. I will certainly also comment on what's going on with regards to the resource tax from the AKVA Group perspective. Ronny Meinkøhn, the CFO, will do financial performance, and then we will do the Q&A session. Please post any questions you might have during the presentation, and our moderator will read it during the Q&A. I go straight to the highlights for the Q3. We had a high activity with revenue of NOK 840 million in the quarter. EBIT was impacted by a NOK 98 million provisions for restructuring and the cost-saving program.
We had acceptable profitability within Sea based and Digital, but still challenging profit margins in Land based. The new resource rent tax will most likely have a negative impact on the activity level on the short and the medium term, most notable for the post-smolt business in Norway. I come back to that detail. We also did a write-down of the loan to AquaCon, impacting our financial items by NOK 28 million in the quarter. The context here is that the project start is postponed by the company. The company had to move to a new location, and they are now in the midst of the permit process to obtain new permits for the new location. That means that it will take time.
AKVA's view is that we fundamentally believe in this project and the fundamentals, but to be correct and prudent, we are now writing down the loan. I will also give an update on our innovation agenda during the presentation. Revenue came in at NOK 840 million, which is representing a step up. EBITDA at NOK 25 million. That's after we have charged NOK 58 million for the restructuring and cost saving program. EBIT came in at - NOK 59 million for the quarter after we have charged NOK 98 million. Those are the official numbers. However, for illustration purposes, we have we are showing here what the numbers would look like, the underlying operation, excluding the one-off restructuring cost. Here you can see EBITDA came in at NOK 83 million and EBIT at NOK 39 million.
Underneath here, as I mentioned, the profitability level is very much acceptable within Sea based and the Digital area. However, unacceptable within the Land based area, and the CFO will provide more details on that later in the presentation. Year-to-date, NOK 2.6 billion turnover, which is also representing a step up. EBITDA came in NOK 131 after the NOK 58 charged also here, and EBIT year-to-date -NOK 42 after charging the NOK 98 million. Also here for illustration purposes, EBITDA year-to-date at NOK 189 and EBIT at +NOK 56 after without the restructuring cost.
I like to comment a little bit around our cost-saving program and the restructuring program at a certain high level, and then the CFO will do more details. At high level, we have a cost-saving target of NOK 100 million, and that is comparable with the basis of the OpEx cost level of the first half. This will have effect as of January 1st with around 70%. Run rate as of January 1st will be including 70% of the NOK 100 million, and the remaining 30% will be throughout the year 2023. Unfortunately, in a company like AKVA Group, which is very people dependent, our biggest resource is, of course, our employee and employees, but that's also our biggest cost item.
To do such a cost-saving program, we have to reduce number of employees. That's what we are doing with 130 people: 42 within Sea based, 2 within Digital, and 86 within Land based. Altogether, 130. The cost of doing this restructuring is NOK 98 million, and you can see the split into the business areas here. I have to say that the full restructuring program and the related cost is accounted for in the third quarter. Let's dig a little bit more into the Land based since that is kind of the gravity point of the program. Number one, the financial performance in Land based is certainly below expectation and not acceptable. That's the starting point.
We have made quite a few decisions here. One of them is that a new state-of-the-art, we call it blueprint organization, will be established here at the headquarters at Klepp and some recruitment campaigns have been initiated. What we see is that we have better access to talents in general, both within engineering and projects resources, et cetera. We find talents carrying some relevant aquaculture experience in this region, the Stavanger Jæren region, which is a rather big region with 250,000 people, which we have access to with proximity to our location. The flip side of this is that you will see a gradual downscaling of our organization in Denmark, but that's also linked to high turnover of personnel.
This new organization will be located in the main marketplace for post-smolt, which is Norway, and with the same location as AKVA Management, Sea-Based, and the Digital organization we have. We expect an even better collaboration because of that. We have also decided to do what we call a right-sizing and restructuring of our organization at Sømna to focus on core products like fish tanks and fish handling. There is a cost saving of minimum NOK 62 million, where 50% of it will be realized before the end of the fourth quarter and the rest during 2023. At high level market development, the salmon price for the time being is at a reasonable level given seasonality with high volumes and the forward price is still at a very good level.
Our order intake came in at NOK 650 million for the quarter, which is slightly up from a year ago, the third quarter, and there is some seasonality in our order intake, so you need to take that into account. Land-based is pretty much okay on the back of the Cooke contract, which we announced earlier, whereby Sea-based is NOK 450 million versus the NOK 563 million, which is below what we wish for, and the drag here is mainly about barges. For the core activities like cage and net and our pen operation, that's where we have the majority of our business, it is within more normal levels. Order backlog is close to NOK 1.6 billion.
Land-based at a stable level and Sea-based is showing a negative trend, very much linked to lack of barges. I like to give a little bit the AKVA Group view and the AKVA Group consideration of the new resource rent tax, which came as a shock at the end of September. The proposal for the new resource rent tax will have major implications for the supply industry to aquaculture in Norway, if we start there. On the right-hand side, we have just been swelling with pride, an illustration from Kontali, and they had this presentation two days ago. If you look at that, you see a very strong revenue growth for the combined supply sector to the aquaculture industry in Norway.
Actually, over 10 years from 2010 to 2020, it came up from NOK 20 billion combined for the entire supply industry to NOK 60 billion. That's threefold, 3x . I can share with you that AKVA in the same 10 years came up 4x on revenue and 3x on employees. That's a lot of new job creation. What is the concern? One of the concerns for the time being is that the timeline related to the resource rent tax and the process here, that is leading to uncertainty. We are not the smartest about political processes, but we understand, yes, on the one hand, it's a proposal now, and there is a hearing going on until the middle of January.
Then, it needs to be given very proper answers to all the hearings and likely that's gonna be hundreds of inputs. That calls for a very diligent feedback process. Then the question is, when can the Norwegian Parliament deal with this? Our understanding is that it can earliest be dealt with during spring and likely in June, which is probably the earliest point in time this can be voted for, whatever the outcome will be. The other scenario is that it's just gonna be postponed into the future without any clarity. For the supply industry, this is a problem because it is not like it's just a proposal and people will wait and see.
This is business leaders, the salmon companies, they are making decisions on the basis of the proposal. That is leading to a rather big CapEx freeze. I'll come back to that in a minute. What we think will happen now is that the salmon farmers, they will only buy products and services which is really, really linked to support their core activity, which is basically about producing salmon in the sea. That will be the behavior until you have new clarity. If you look at the investment side on what could be expected, okay, it's very early days, it's a bit hard to take hard conclusions out of it. If you look to the right here, it's still Kontali and their recent presentation.
You can see that annually the CapEx which is going on to support salmon production in Norway, more than 50% is on the land side. What does that mean? That is very much smolt and post-smolt sites or capacity, and also processing capacity. That is already more than half of the annual CapEx. Currently, the salmon farmers they have communicated CapEx freeze until they have more clarity. Now, this is very serious for the supply industry, as you can imagine. As far as we have noticed, the sum of all the CapEx projects being frozen to date stays at around NOK 28 billion. The other dimension is less funding for new investments into the future.
Pareto just made a presentation saying that because of the resource rent tax, there will likely be a 50% ± reduction of profit after tax. A lot of the profit after tax will go to just be able to pay the tax bill related to the wealth tax. That's the reality. People they have to understand that in this industry, the capital structure and the owner structure is very much a kind of a lock-in because the real founders, the entrepreneurs, they are still the owners of the salmon farming companies. Even in the stock-listed companies, most of them, the controlling family have at least 51% of the shares, and they are unlikely to give up that kind of control.
That is leading to a more kind of closed financing system compared with, for instance, the oil and gas industry, where you have a more open, financial ecosystem. The point I'm trying to make is that the theory is saying that with this resource tax, and if the state is willing to be your investment partner, and take 40% of the risk, that will only work if you have unlimited access to financing, which is not typically the capital structure and the owner structure of this industry. In my view, I've been following this industry since 1986. This will have a huge impact on the funds available for future funding. In conclusion, there are some concerns on larger investment decisions in the short and the medium term.
Also, particularly on our interest, there is some high uncertainty on the new resource rent tax and how it will work for investments in the post-smolt facility. That's back to the orange part, what's going on on the land here. They're purposely saying no deduction in the resource rent tax for post-smolt investments. That's why it's quite some uncertainty there. What can you then expect in the long run with regards to growth? Well, it's early days. Let's agree that one. We believe that less innovation in general will be available due to less available funding. In particular, new technology like offshore, semi-closed, closed systems and maybe investments on the land side will be hampered. There will be a new normal at a point in time.
We just do not know when. Post-resource rent tax that will be this new normal. The volume potential linked to the Norwegian license system, including growth, will be fully utilized. That's the lower graph and the line you see to the right here. But there is a major difference between that scenario and what I call the resource rent tax growth scenario, which stays at 1.5% annually. It's a very stripped down growth scenario. The full growth scenario where you fund new investments, new technology, new innovations, offshore, being post-smolt, being closed systems in the fjord system. There is a potential gap there just linked to less available funding. Okay. I will try to be a bit more concrete.
What will then be the AKVA implications, the way we see it as of now regarding the proposal for the new resource tax? First of all, AKVA's current products and services within Sea based and Digital in Norway, that is very much supporting core activity, which is about producing salmon in the sea, in the open cages. We for that segment, which once again is our core activity, that is, for instance, our net business and the service stations, it's our pen business, it's feeding, it's cameras, et cetera. There we still in the coming months expect the business as usual, and maybe only minor implications related to some of the bigger investments within all core products.
That's very much barges. For the rest, we actually expect business as usual, and we don't see any change of buying pattern on what is supporting the core. With regards to the post-smolt segment in Norway, because of the lack of clarity to what the new system or the new tax regime will mean, and we see a change behavior there with regards to our customers. We were involved in seven to eight prospects. A few of them were extremely advanced, close to signing contracts. One was even awarded to us. Actually all of them, we have got feedback from our customers that they will wait and see. They put it on hold or freeze.
Some are really on hold, and some we are still entertaining and doing the engineering and the pre-project phase in order to be ready for future investment decisions. There are still activities there, but real hard investment decisions, which for us means signed new contracts within post-smolt in Norway. That's a bit hard to see without any positive clear signals for what post-smolt investments in Norway will mean from a tax perspective. That's very much the situation, trying to be brutally honest about it. Other considerations. We have decided. We had a board meeting yesterday. We have decided to maintain our market leader position by not cutting back on our innovation, and we can still do that supported by strong financing.
We also need and want to pursue other Land based opportunity within post-smolt and being ongrowing. We still working at least with one or two prospects there outside Norway. We will take relevant cost measures when needed and based on activity. That's our duty as management of the company. The technology sector, including Digital, might become more consolidated over some time. We will look for new opportunities regarding new technology. Okay. That's all what I want to share with regards to resource tax. Just a couple of minutes for a rehash on our strategic agenda. At very high level and the outlook for the next 10 years, we still-
... W ith regards to the salmon market and the salmon pricing, we think that the market fundamental is still fundamentally positive, with demand being higher than supply in the years to come. Actually, likely the new proposed resource rent tax will lead to somewhat less investments in new technology and even less supply than we maybe thought a month ago. The outlook for the salmon price, I would say, is still very positive for the years to come. With regards to Land based and our innovation agenda there, this is our innovation agenda for post-smolt and ongrowing. Regardless, short-term headwind caused by both the market and the proposed resource rent tax, we will certainly continue our innovation program. Basis here is our proven RAS technology. I can report that we have good progress with regards to our innovation projects.
This one, we are very proud of our number one reference project, which is Tytlandsvik. They have a production capacity of 4,500 tons of post-smolt based on our RAS technology. They have excellent biological results, and I think this is representing a real proof of concept for our RAS technology. Within Sea based, this is our innovation agenda here. We have full focus on precision farming for our Sea based solutions. It's very much about marine infrastructure, which is the core of our products offering, together with precision feeding and supported by Digital. Specifically, we really believe in deep farming, and we have talked about that earlier as well. Our current Digital solutions, AKVA Observe, that's about automated feeding based on artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Today, currently we have more than 50 installed solutions, and that is based on a monthly recurring revenue model, subscription model. AKVA Fishtalk, we have more than 60% market share, and that's about fish ERP and planning and control. AKVA connect, that's our steering system. That's bringing hardware and software together. Also there, we have changed to a recurring revenue model. Our new Digital team has been in place for 18 months. We are making great commercial progress, and we really believe that this business, given the good progress we have, given the investments we are doing, we think that will really scale over the next two to three years. Coming down to the conclusion, we issued a medium-term target last quarter.
We still stick to that with where we are, guiding our revenue of NOK 4 billion in 2024. I just have to say that in order for us to get to the NOK 4 billion, we are assuming and banking that there will be a normalization again in the post-smolt market in Norway, meaning that it will still be attractive to invest in post-smolt in Norway. We are dependent on that in order to reach the NOK 4 billion. Other than that, operational excellence and cost savings program, we are making progress there. We have a target to deliver 8% EBIT in 2024. We are maintaining our funding and spending within our innovation programs, being Sea based, Land based, and Digital. That brings me very much to the end.
I'd like to hand over to Ronny Meinkøhn, our CFO. Please, Ronny.
Thank you, Knut, and good morning to everyone. I will give you some more details on the financial performance during the quarter and also on the financial position to the company. Before I dig into the details of the financial performance, I think it's useful to give you some more insight to the cost savings and also on the cost provisions we made in this third quarter. The main part of the cost-saving target of NOK 100 million, that's related to the headcount reduction of 130 employees. And the NOK 77 million in cost savings, that's all related to reduced salary costs. We have also identified certain cost savings within the category other operating expenses, which amounts to NOK 16 million. There are no big tickets into this NOK 16 million.
That's more some of the parts coming from all our operating companies. The main part, that is also from Land based, NOK 12 million. Last, we have NOK 7 million in reduced depreciations and amortizations, so we have done an impairment of right of use assets, the IFRS 16, and also other fixed asset in the Land based business area, and that's all related to the restructuring. The impairment of the right of use assets, that's related to office lease agreements, both in Norway and in Denmark. In total, the provisions is NOK 98 million with EBIT impact, and since we have an impairment there of NOK 40 million, the EBIT impact is 58 million in Q3.
Another 40%, NOK 39 million, that's related to cost provisions related to redundancy costs, the direct effect of the headcount reduction. Furthermore, we have NOK 4 million in write-down of inventory. That's related to our company at Sømna, where restructuring is taking place. Last, we have another NOK 14 million to cover for any need for external consultancy, legal advice during the restructuring process. We also have a fair amount of contingency in this NOK 14 million. All the tasks, all the actions have now been initiated the past few months to achieve approximately 70% of this cost-saving target by the end of Q4 this year.
The remaining 30%, NOK 30 million, that's related to the Land based organization and the reorganization taking place between our office in Denmark and in Norway and will be implemented gradually during next year. On the consolidated income statement for the quarter, we are satisfied with the high activity level. Revenue came in at NOK 840 million, which is NOK 102 million above Q3 last year. Year to date, we have revenue close to NOK 2.6 billion, which is approximately NOK 300 million above last year. The profitability is of course impacted by the high amount of goodwill provisions, restructuring and due to the cost-saving programs with an EBIT impact of NOK 98 million and the impact on EBITDA of NOK 58 million.
Excluding these extraordinary costs, EBIT was positive of NOK 39 million in the quarter, and year to date, we have a negative EBIT of NOK 42 million. Adjusted for the NOK 98 million, that gives a positive EBIT of NOK 56 million. Please also note that during the first half year, we experienced significant costs related to high inflations of NOK 67 million. In addition, we also had some very specific one-time provisions on certain Sea based and Land based projects amounting to a total of NOK 65 million. The impact from the cost inflations in Q3 is significantly lower than the first half year.
We still have some impact within the Land based business area, estimated to NOK 5 million in the quarter, and that's related to old contracts where we don't have any price mechanism in place to reflect the cost increases. We only see a very small impact in the Sea Based business from cost inflation, so the major part of the Sea Based order backlog that relates to the period prior to the war is now mostly delivered, and we also managed to reprice new sales according to the new cost level. Very high financial costs in the quarter impacted by the write-down of the loan to AquaCon of NOK 28 million. In addition, we also have a reduction in the market value of our investment in Nordic Aqua Partners of NOK 6 million.
In August, we informed about a record high second quarter revenue of NOK 907 million, and this NOK 840 million revenue in Q3 is also a record high third quarter revenue and was 14% above Q3 last year. The book-to-bill ratio the last twelve months is now 95% with an order intake of close to NOK 3.3 billion and a revenue of just about NOK 3.4 billion. Compared to Q3 last year, we see increased activity in all business segment and the situation in Russia, that's unchanged. We don't have any activity in the Russian market, and we are satisfied that we have managed to replace the revenue we had in the Russian market with increased activity in other regions.
Overall, increased activity in all markets in Q3 compared to last year, except from Europe, Middle East, due to the situation in Russia. On the other hand, we see a very strong and still increasing activity in our company in Turkey, which to a large extent compensate for the loss of the Russian market. Sea Based revenue represented 81% of the total revenue in the quarter. That's an increase of 13% compared to last year. We also see strong increase in both Land Based of 17% and also within Digital of 26% in the quarter. The solid financial performance in the quarter, that's mainly due to the provisions for restructuring and the cost-saving programs. Excluding the restructuring costs, EBITDA came in at NOK 83 million.
That's 9.9% compared to NOK 79 million last year. EBIT, also excluding restructuring costs, came in at NOK 39 million compared to NOK 32 million in Q3 last year. We see acceptable profitability both within Sea Based and Land Based, but we still have challenging profit margins within our Land Based business area, and I will comment a bit more on this later in my presentation. Regarding the cost-saving programs, we don't expect any significant positive impact from the programs in Q4 this year, but close to 70% of the cost-saving target will be achieved by the end of Q4, meaning that the profitability should improve already in Q1 next year. We are very pleased with the development in available cash during the quarter.
Available cash increased by NOK 156 million compared to Q2 and ended at NOK 793 million, including the available credit facilities we have with DNB. This increase in available cash that's mainly all related to a significant reduction in net working capital, which ended at the low 5.9% in Q3. That's a significant reduction of NOK 253 million compared to Q2. First, if you look at the details of this huge reduction in net working capital, first we have a reduction in accounts receivables of NOK 142 million in the quarter. Secondly, we also see an increase in accounts payables of NOK 44 million.
We see that we have a potential to improve our payment terms towards suppliers, and we will also continue with this work going forward. Finally, we also see a reduction in inventory levels of NOK 25 million in the quarter. That's, of course, a very positive development since we increased our inventories by more than NOK 90 million during the first half year. Still, we expect the supply situation to still be challenging and also expect the level of inventories to fluctuate going forward. Due to the extraordinary situation with significant one-time provisions in Q2 and now also the restructuring costs in Q3, we had a very positive dialogue with our bank, DNB, during Q3 regarding the leverage ratio and the NIBD EBITDA covenant.
The feedback from the bank was that we are allowed to adjust the EBITDA we used in this calculation and adjust the EBITDA by NOK 138 million in extraordinary costs from Q3 this year to and including Q3 2023. Including this adjustment, the covenant ended at 2.71 compared to the unadjusted 4.45 in Q2. We are very, very pleased with the outcome of the discussions with DNB and are also satisfied with the current headroom we have on this covenant. Looking at the development in net interest-bearing debt in the quarter, it was reduced by NOK 199 million. The big ticket in this is the reduction in net working capital of NOK 253 million.
Furthermore, we paid NOK 13 million in interest during the quarter and also received a refund in corporate taxes of NOK 15 million. CapEx amounted to NOK 25 million, and we also had an increase in this IFRS 16 liability of NOK 22 million. Year to date, we see a reduction in net interest-bearing debt of NOK 40 million. More details on CapEx. We had NOK 25 million in the quarter, of which we classify 18 as growth investments to support our organic growth strategy. And 17 out of the 18, that's related to our three innovation agendas, sea based, land based, and Digital. Year to date, we see CapEx of NOK 124 million, and close to NOK 75 million is 75% that's related to growth initiatives.
The development in ROACE that was a big hit in Q3 due to the restructuring costs and the ROACE ended negative of 1.3% in Q3. Of course, there is a long way to go, but we still believe in the ROACE target of a minimum 15% by the end of 2024. However, as mentioned by Knut, there is a very important assumption to this, and that is that the resource rent tax will not exclude investments in post-smolt facilities. Because the post-smolt market in Norway is, of course, an important part of our organic growth strategy. The dividend we talked about during our Q2 presentation that we decided not to pay any dividend in the second half, and there are no changes to that decision.
Now some more details on the various business segments, and I will start off with the sea based technology. Overall, for the business segment, there was an increase in revenue of 13% compared to Q3 last year. However, there was a reduction in order intake of 20% in the same period. EBITDA ended at 11.5% compared to 11.6% last year. If you adjust for the amount of restructuring costs allocated to this business segment, NOK 11 million, EBITDA was acceptable at 13.1% in the quarter. For the Nordic region, we see increased revenue of 13%. That's mainly driven with high activity in our net sales and also in our net service business.
We see a significant reduction in order intake of 37% compared to last year, and as Knut informed you, that's mainly related to barges. No new barges were added to the order backlog in Nordic during the third quarter. In the region of Americas, we see a significant increase in revenue of 33% compared to last year. Also in this region, we have a significant reduction in order intake of 40%, and this is also related to the barges. Europe, Middle East, we continue to see the effect from the situation in Russia with a reduced revenue of 9%, but there is a very strong order intake in the quarter and that's related to 2 new barges in Spain.
If you look at the trending on the revenue and the order intake within Sea based, we see a positive development regarding revenue, which increased from NOK 2.5 billion in Q3 last year to NOK 2.75 billion in Q3 this year. That's an increase of 10%. Looking at the order intake, we don't see the same increase. We have an increase of 6% in the same period, and that's mainly due to the somewhat slow order intake in Q3 this year. The OpEx-based revenue, still Sea based, represented 33% of total Sea based revenue in the quarter. That's NOK 12 million below Q3 last year. However, if you adjust for the AKVA Marine Services business that we divested Q3 last year, there is an increase of NOK 13 million or 5% compared to last year.
On the land based technology, the order intake of NOK 167 million in the quarter, that's compared to the low NOK 34 million last year. The contract we announced with Cooke Aquaculture, the EUR 14.3 million euro contract, that is representing the main part of the order intake in the quarter. We see a revenue increase by 17% in Q3 compared to last year. A big part of this revenue is coming from our full grow-out contract with Nordic Aqua Partners in China, and we can report that this project is progressing according to plan. Looking at the poor financial performance in the quarter, for this business segment, we first have the NOK 47 million in cost provisions related to the restructuring.
In addition, we had, have another approximately NOK 20 million related to certain other elements. First, we have the impact from the cost inflation, which I already talked about, the estimated NOK 5 million. Secondly, we have also ramped up the Land based organization significantly the last year and also part of this year so to be positioned to take our share in the full grow-out market. As you all know, this market growth is delayed, resulting in overcapacity of personnel. We estimate this to have another NOK 8 million impact on the profitability in the quarter. Last, we are still not satisfied with our project execution capabilities within Land based, and this has also a negative impact on the EBIT in the quarter of estimated NOK 7 million.
The cost-saving target for this business area, that's just about NOK 60 million. We're close to 50% will be implemented by the end of Q4 this year. The last 50%, the last 30 million, that will be implemented gradually during next year. Also some trending on revenue and order intake for Land based. We see an increase of about 30% on revenue quarter-over-quarter using the 12 months rolling. Also looking at the order intake is we see an increase of more than 40% in the same period. However, this new resource rent tax may have a great impact on the development of this business area going forward. Last Digital. We are very satisfied with the development of our Digital business area.
Revenue increased by 26% in the quarter compared to last year. We clearly see the impact of increased activity level on the EBITDA margin, which increased from 13% to 38% in Q3 this year. This positive development is in line with our strategic ambition, and we also believe that this development will continue and provide a strong return in the long run. On the trailing, it confirms the positive momentum we have in our Digital business. Twelve months revenue increased by 40% in Q3 this year compared to last year, and the same increase in order intake with about 60%. We will for sure continue to support this to strengthen our Digital capabilities to support the future growth of this business area. Now it's back to you, Knut, to talk about the outlook.
Thank you very much, Ronnie. Okay. Just to conclude the presentation. Order backlog is sound and forms a good foundation to execute our organic growth strategy. Salmon prices are expected to remain strong, driven by reduced supply. On the other hand, uncertainty related to supply chain restrictions and cost inflation may still impact profitability in the short-term. This is mainly about Land based, also due to old contracts. The implication from the introduction of the new or the proposal of the new resource rent tax are uncertain. Most likely this will have a negative impact on the activity level in the short and medium term. This is very much related or mainly related to the question around Norwegian post-smolt projects.
Medium-term financial targets remain unchanged, and AKVA is targeting a minimum NOK 4 billion in revenue and 8% EBIT, EBITDA in 2024. With the comment that we assume that there will still be a positive momentum in Norwegian post-smolt market. The annual cost saving of NOK 100 million are being implemented and to improve profitability, and 70% of that will be with effect from by January 1st. Once again, AKVA will continue to invest with regards to our innovation agenda, both within Sea based, Digital, and Land based technology. That brings me very much to the end, and we like to open for any questions. Are there any questions posted?
Yes, we have questions posted and the first two of them is from Knut-Ivar Bakken. The first question is how much of the NOK 812 million backlog in Land based is postponed?
Just to be very clear, with regards to all the backlog, there are no postponements. We have contracts behind it and all the projects are continuing as planned and as per contract. When we are talking about some potential headwind, we are talking about new contracts, non-contracted contracts, for instance, in the Norwegian post-smolt market. Once again, within the order backlog, that is all progressing according to plan.
The second question is from Knut-Ivar Bakken. Approximately how much of the NOK 4 billion 2024 revenue target is expected to come from the Land based segment?
In our modeling or planning related to the NOK 4 billion target in 2024, we had ballpark NOK 1 billion from Land based. That's our ambition level. That's representing a pretty good step up from where we are today, NOK 550 million-NOK 600 million.
Yeah.
Our idea or ambition was just to explain a little bit about the moving parts and the potential prospects. First of all, we are doing the NOAP project in China, the first 4,000-ton. That is progressing very well from a technology standpoint, from a project execution standpoint. Also, the biology there is working good. That project will be likely concluded Q3 next year. We expect that this company will continue with a second phase, which where we will get a contract, that's our expectation, which will create new business for us into 2024. That's one example. We are still very active with one other ongoing projects. That's the project in Sweden, Re:Ocean.
We are also extremely advanced with that project, but it is, of course, still pending financing, so there is no hard project yet. I also mentioned that we have seven, eight prospects within post-smolt in Norway. Actually, we were even awarded one large contract, not finalized, it's a big contract, but awarded. That is one example of that being put on hold because they want to see the impact of the resource rent tax. Quite a few others of the prospects we have been working with intensively last six to twelve months were also very promising. That was the building blocks to get to NOK 1 billion in 2024. That's the situation.
Thank you. We have a question from Mr. Alex Aukner. Do you have any other AquaCon-type loans outstanding? If so, what NOK exposure?
We have a small shareholding in the project in China, NAP. That's a fully financed project even listed on Euronext Growth. That is one example. Outside that, I think there is only one other example, and that's at ballpark NOK 5 million.
NOK 5 million.
Yeah.
That's correct.
Other than that, we have changed or we are not taking any early investment positions in those type of projects anymore. That is something we will not do. However, like the NOAP project, which was successfully fully financed when we were also awarded the execution contract, when was that? One and a half years ago.
Mm.
If we have such situations, we will still consider together with our partner, Israel Corp, to take some kind of stake. That's only when we are granted an execution contract and it's fully financed. We will not participate anymore in the early phase.
Thank you. We have some questions from Carl-Emil Johannessen. Can you say something about the reason for the lower order intake for barges? What should we assume going forward? Do you see a normal order intake in this segment, excluding barges in Q4?
The barge business has been a low margin business for us over quite some time. Actually, we have not been too successful when it comes to profitability, like for instance, we explained in the second quarter. We have been doing a lot of work now in the recent months to be more in control of those type of projects from a quality standpoint, a project execution point of view, but also from a cost competitiveness point of view. We believe we are in a better shape today. We still want to participate in that specific segment. We are just awarded 2 international barge contracts in Spain. We still want to pick up that kind of business going forward.
How will the lower order intake impact the margins in the Sea based segment? Should we expect it to be lower going forward?
I think it's fair to say that the order intake for the core activity has been reasonable.
Yeah. That's normal.
That's where we actually have been earning our money.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
So in that sense we...okay, we are in very fragile times. A lot of things are moving at the same time, but the barge business has not contributed to profitability in the last couple of years. We still have an acceptable order level for our core activity.
Yeah, I agree. The activity level going forward may be impacted by the lack of barges, but the profitability should still be reasonable okay within Sea based.
Yeah.
Another two questions from Carl Emil Johannessen about the Land based segment. We have seen a complete stop in post-smolt facilities at the moment. For how long are you backing down covering revenues in this segment? What should we assume in terms of working capital and percent of revenues going forward?
On the first one, we have around NOK 800 million, and the duration of that is over the next 12-18 months. Majority of that will be executed in or during 2023.
Mm.
A couple of hundred million will be translated into 2024. Once again, as I said, we will engage on the two ongoing projects I explained about. If things are kind of on a standstill in Norway for some time, we will intensify post-smolt possibilities outside Norway. That will be our response to the situation. Of course, if we have—we have built an organization and still even after the restructuring, we have still an organization which is deemed for some kind of step up. If we don't see that step up, we will need to take cost measures. Maybe you can answer the question on working capital.
Yeah. What was the question on the working capital?
What should we assume in terms of working capital and percent of revenues going forward?
That's related to the Land based business?
No, the overall working capital.
We are very low in this quarter, 5.9%, whether that is sustainable, that's not easy to conclude. We still should expect the inventory levels to fluctuate quite significantly because our main priority is to secure supply for our production facilities and products. This can still vary a lot going forward. We have implemented several measures to improve the invoicing processes, the payment terms with suppliers. How exactly this will impact going forward is difficult to conclude. I believe we should put a target on 10% and aim to be below the 10% level going forward.
Thank you. We have another question from Knut-Ivar Bakken. You have previously estimated the CapEx per kilo of NOK 200 for a grow-out of RAS farming. Given inflation, what is your updated estimate?
There are two type of projects we see. You have number one is a complete greenfield where you really start from scratch. The NOK 200 is way too low today given all the cost increases et cetera. I think the range of NOK 250-NOK 300 is more accurate for a real greenfield. You have a number of project which is more adding on to some infrastructure already being there, and that will vary quite a bit. Maybe ±NOK 200 is still a good number. There are two type of projects there.
Thank you. We have no further questions.
No one dropping in? Okay.
No.
Okay. Thank you very much, and thank you for listening in, and we wish you a good, a nice weekend.
Yes.
Thank you very much.