Good morning, welcome to the presentation of Bakkafrost's report for the second quarter 2023, and the first half of 2023. My name is Høgni Jakobsen. I'm the CFO of Bakkafrost. This morning, we are webcasting from our headquarters here in the Faroe Islands. The agenda today is first a summary of the second quarter, and then we're looking to market and sales before the financials for this quarter. Then Regin Jakobsen, our CEO, will take you through the more detailed information about the segment performance in this quarter, and then take a look at the outlook. To sum up, this quarter, the revenues were DKK 1.67 billion. Slightly short of the revenue that we had in the second quarter last year.
Operational EBIT was DKK 353 million, compared to DKK 587 million last year. However, last year in Q2, that was our strongest quarter ever in Bakkafrost's history. The main driver for the lower Operational EBIT in this quarter was the low harvest volumes that we had in the Faroes and also lower harvest weights. We harvested 8,658 tons in the Faroes, which is approximately 4,500 tons lower than in the second quarter last year. In Scotland, we harvested more volumes in this quarter than last year, 7,346 tons. Feed sales were slightly lower in this quarter, 30,231 tons.
Overall, in our FOF, fishmeal, oil, and feed segment, there's been a very high activity in this quarter, and we have record high sourcing of marine raw material. We have sourced 148,000 tons in this quarter, compared to 97,000 tons in the second quarter of last year. Year to date, as of today, we have received around 380,000 tons of marine raw material in our FOF segment, which is more than any full year total for Bakkafrost ever. As a result, the fishmeal and fish oil production in this quarter was high, all-time high for, for a quarter.
Cash flow was positive in this quarter with DKK 376 million. All segments had positive EBIT, except for the VAP segment, which had an operational EBIT of minus DKK 26 million. However, an improvement from the minus DKK 108 that we had in the second quarter last year. Negative margins in the VAP segment is common when we have high salmon prices. In May, we paid out dividends corresponding to DKK 10 per share, which amounted to DKK 591 million. Just a short note on segments. On our Capital Markets Day in June, we announced that we plan to restructure our reporting, and moving from having 4 segments to 7 segments in our financial reporting. The plan was to have that ready by this quarter.
Unfortunately, that work has not been completed, which is why this report follows the structure that we have been using so far. Once the resegmentation is completed, hopefully for the next quarterly report, the Q3 report, we will provide both actual and historical figures in the new seven-segment structure that we announced on the CMD. Market and sales. If we look at the global markets, the average price for four to five kilo superior salmon in the quarter was NOK 108.5 per kilo, which is slightly higher than the record strong second quarter of last year. However, this is a Norwegian krone, and the Norwegian krone has lost strength towards the euro and also the Danish kroner, which is our reporting currency.
In EUR, the average salmon price for the quarter was around 15% lower than the same quarter last year. Overall, the supply increased in June, especially of smaller fish, while there has been less availability and strong demand for large fish in the spot market. This has led to an increasing differentiation or difference in the price for smaller fish and large fish in the quarter. Prices in Norwegian krone have dropped significantly in the third quarter, just as we saw also last year, but it's staying slightly ahead of the price development that we had last year. In this quarter, global sales to Europe was down 2%, but very large differences in the different countries, European countries.
For instance, Germany and Sweden had significant drops in sales. Global sales to the US was down 2%. The US market has otherwise been a very strong market for a very long time, but it was down 2% in this quarter. Global sales to the Russian market increased by 69%, mainly supplied from Chile. Sales to Greater China also increased with 57% in this quarter, driven by a strong demand, also for large fish, and mainly supplied from Norway and Chile. The Japanese and Asian markets were weaker in this quarter, primarily affected by higher airfreight costs. On the supply side, global supplies was quite stable in the quarter. Only a 0.3% increase if we include inventory movements.
Supply from Norway, the Norwegians have harvested 3.1% more than the same quarter last year. It was low harvest in May, higher than expected harvest in June from Norway. Average weights in Norway dropped around 3% to 4.26 kilos, whereas feed sales in Norway increased during the second quarter by 8%. In UK and Scotland, the harvest increased 4.7%. Also here with a slight 1% drop in average harvest weights. Harvest from the Faroes dropped 13.7%, 1% increase in harvest weights, 10% increase in feed sales. The low harvest volumes that we also have been contributing to is to build biomass in the Faroes.
In Iceland, there was very little harvest in this quarter, due to biological issues, but a very significant increase in feed sales of 20%. Chile increased their harvest volumes by 6.8%. North America has dropped around 16%, combined North American and, yeah, Canada, to a large extent, driven by the exit from Discovery Islands. Into the financial group PNL. As mentioned in the summary, we had a slight drop of revenue compared to the second quarter of last year. 1% drop, and delivered DKK 1,670 million in revenues. Operational EBIT dropped 40% to DKK 353 million. We had 34% lower harvest volumes, as mentioned before.
If we look at the PNL, there is a large negative development on fair value adjustments in this quarter, -DKK 432 million compared to +DKK 576 million in the same quarter last year. The biggest drivers for these adjustments are a lower forward price, which contributes to more than DKK 400 million in effect on the fair value, so -DKK 405 million, to be exact. We also have changes in production cost and a new revenue tax, which also affects the fair value adjustment, and changes to the total biomass and the size distribution. As a result, profit after tax in this quarter was -DKK 123 million.
A note on the new revenue tax, which is in effect as of first of August here in the Faroes. The difference between the Nasdaq price and the average production cost is what is used to determine which tax rate is applied in the revenue tax. The greater the difference, the higher the tax rate. The tax rates go from 0.5% to 20% of the Nasdaq value of the fish. So far, the average production cost that has been used in this calculation has been 39.15 Danish kroner per kilo. This has now been recalculated by the authorities and set to 42.22, which means around 4.8 Norwegian krone increase in the production cost used in the calculation.
That means that the Nasdaq price needs to increase by 4.8 Norwegian krone compared to previously in previous calculations, in order to trigger a certain tax rate on the scale. If we move on to the margins. The Faroese farming segment in this quarter, we had an Operational EBIT of 43.76 Norwegian krone per kilo, which is lower than last year, and again, primarily driven by the low volume and lower harvest weights. The Scottish farming segment improved its margin by around 7 Norwegian krone per kilo and delivered 15.22 Norwegian krone per kilo. The VAP segment also improved its margins by 16.37 Norwegian krone and delivered a margin of -8.08 Norwegian krone per kilo.
EBITA in the fourth segment was 17.2%. Year to date, the Operational EBIT is DKK 918 million, and adjusted earnings per share in the quarter was DKK 3.79 and NOK 10.98 year to date. If we take a glimpse at the balance sheet and look at some of the main changes there, there's an increase of DKK 304 million for property, plant, and equipment, with the end of the quarter amounting to just short of DKK 6 billion. Inventories are high, very much driven by the high activity in the FOF segment and amounted to DKK 1.05 billion at the end of the quarter.
Cash and cash equivalents reduced by DKK 176 million to DKK 544 million, the equity ratio has dropped from 62% to 61%. Cash flow from operations were positive, with DKK 376 million, minus DKK 304 million from investments, and financing was minus DKK 99 million. In this quarter, we have increased our net interest-bearing debt by DKK 554 million. One large contribution to this increase is from the dividend payment that we made, amounting to DKK 591 million. The net interest-bearing debt was DKK 2.9 billion at the end of the quarter, and we had undrawn credit facilities of just in excess of DKK 2.3 billion. Now, Regin Jacobsen, our CEO, will go through the segment information with you.
Good morning, everyone. I will go through the segments for the quarter. In this quarter, in the second quarter of 2023, Bakkafrost harvested 16,000 tons, compared with 19.7 thousand tons last year, a drop of 19% from last year to this year. The drop was driven by a 34% lower harvest in the Faroe Islands, from 13.1 thousand tons to 8,700 tons. The drop in volume was primarily driven by lower weight, which dropped 9%, from 4.7% to 4.3%, which was an unfortunate development in this quarter and during this during the second half of the year, we expect now to increase the harvest weights back to the level where we used to be.
In the first half, this was mainly driven by the unfortunate early harvest in January in Haraldssund. If you look at the breakdown of the numbers in Faroes of the harvest in this quarter, 64% of the harvest was from the west division in Suðuroy. 21% was from the south division in Vágur and Hov, and 15% was from the north division from Kunoyarnes and Haraldssund. The smolt transfer in this quarter increased 6% to 3.6 million versus 3.3 million last year, and the size was 23% up from 326 gram last year to 400 gram for the second quarter this year. The temperatures in the Faroes farming fjords increased in May and June to a higher level, but still within the normal range the last 20 years.
We don't think this compromises our biological performance in the Faroes with this temperature. The harvest weight was in Scotland, increased 15% to 4.6 from 4 kilo last year. Smolt transfer in the quarter increased 11% to 3.1 million from 2.8 million last year, and the size, size was 24% up to 125 gram from 101 gram last year. The new hatchery at Applecross transferred the first trial batch with 250-gram fish in the second quarter this year, and this will be a new data point for us following that first batch. The second large batch from Applecross will be transferred in the fourth quarter.
That will be a large batch of around 1.5 million fish. If you look at the farming operation in the Faroes, the EBIT dropped DKK 375 million in the quarter from to DKK 242 from DKK 670 million last year. The drop in Operational EBIT was 61%. The harvest volume was 34% down, and the measured in Euro Nasdaq price dropped 15%. There was also the element of the average size of the harvested fish, which impacted the price achievement, of course, also the cost. The Operational EBIT margin dropped from exceptional 54% last year to 27% this year.
The farming operation in Scotland increased DKK 30 million, the EBIT, in this quarter, to DKK 71 million from DKK 41 last year. The improvement in the operation in the farming division in Scotland was due to a good period from October last year, given good conditions to grow the fish to larger sizes with stronger biology. With that larger average size on harvested fish, price achievement improved significantly. The operational margin improved from 9% to 12%. The temperatures in May and June increased to a higher level, but within the same range as the last 20 years. This means, however, that the temperature in June this year, was the same as July last year, and July 2023 was on the same level as August 2022, so 1 month earlier.
Today in August, the temperature seemed to have muted somewhat, so at, at the moment, it's like a half degree above last year. Seems to be coming down. The Faroe Islands reduced the margin by DKK 19.62 per kilo in the quarter to DKK 43.76 from DKK 63.38 last year. Lower sized fish with higher cost and lower value per kilo impacted the margin negatively. The low harvest volumes were driven by low number of harvest, but also the lower mean weight, which was a result of the unfortunate development of the early harvest in January, and a continuous early harvest of fish, mainly driven by contracts. We see increased harvest weights going forward in the third quarter and forward.
In our Faroese farming operations, the sun seemed to be appearing from the sky cover the last nine months. In Scotland, we improved the margin by DKK 693 per kilo to DKK 1,522 from last year, DKK 829. The first five months of 2023 were relatively good, but towards the end of the quarter, mortality levels increased due to environmental challenges, impacted three of our sites with jellyfish. Jellyfish blooms have created some mortality on these three sites. Which are located from the south to north and also in the east in our total area. The common factor for these sites seem to be that the impacted fish have their second summer in the sea and should have been harvested in the fourth quarter.
Now, we are wrapping up harvest on these fish, which will drive down the average weight of these fish, and therefore, volumes will be impacted and the costs the same. The blue skies from Q2 in Scotland are darker in the third quarter. Cost on mortality rates will be negatively affected and can compromise planned harvest in 2023 in Scotland, with 5,000-6,000 tons, depending on the continued biological development. Growth in biomass in Faroes in the first half of 2023 was driven by four different factors. One year delay of hatchery expansion in Applecross, north of the largest malt, and early harvest in January of the site harvest, creating rolling gap during first and second quarter, and finally, contract-driven harvest fulfilling agreed deliveries. The growth of biomass creates, however, a good platform of upscaling harvest going forward.
The new capabilities with dual freshwater treatment and good biology have created a good platform for healthy biomass and driving mean weight back up where they must be to produce large, high-quality salmon and create good value for our operation. Low mortality and good growth has continued during the quarter and into the third quarter. The value-added product segment performed well in the quarter with positive margin, despite high summer prices. The negative effect is by a bit lower volumes. Value per kilo sold products increased around 27%. However, 13% per kilo had ungutted, as yield from raw material is around 50%. As a consequence of low harvest activity, the allocated shares, share of, of Faroese harvest into this quarter, to VAP was 57%.
Our strategy remains, though, to sell around 40% of the harvested volume of salmon as VAP products on contract. The contracts are fixed with 6-12 months period with fixed prices. VAP contract strategy is impacted negatively by the changes of the Faroese revenue tax made effective from the 1st of August. The Faroese government has, however, indicated that adjustments could be made to the revenue tax in order to reduce the negative impact on contracted sales of VAP products. This remains, though, to be seen. Bakkafrost might revise the VAP strategy depending on this outcome. The FOF segment has delivered a record-high operation in the first half of the year. The inventories are full, and of course, a lot of the finished products are therefore still at inventory at cost price.
The EBITDA increased 8% from DKK 119 million last year to DKK 128 million this year, and the margin was 17% versus 23% last year. External fish meal sold tripled from 5,200 to 21,000 ton in this quarter. Total feed sales, however, dropped 3% from 31,200 to 30,200 in this quarter. Raw material sourcing doubled in the quarter to record level 156,000 ton from 78,000 last year. Year to date, sourcing of raw material is above any previous full year volume since 1966. Our inventories, both of fish meal and oil, are record high at both in volume, yeah, in volume. A share of them will be sold externally, as sourcing is significantly higher than needed for internal use.
Our sale of fish feed in 2022 was 128,000 and is expected to increase up to around 130,000 ton this year. Raw material sourcing is difficult to forecast. In general, the scientific recommendation for catches is a good indicator. The ICES recommendation for blue whiting catches in the North Atlantic increased 81% in 2023 versus last year. The timing is good for sourcing possibility as supply and global market for marine raw materials have been challenged very much because of the low catches and reduced quotas after the El Niño canceled Peru's key fishing season. The exceptional development with fish oil has continued in the quarter and into the 3rd quarter, boosting the gap between marine oil and vegetable oil and to all-time high. This will certainly have some consequences in the market.
Looking at the forward-looking supply situation in the market, we see a supply which was flat coming out of the second quarter compared to last year. According to the latest estimates from Kontali, we expect this together with good with the food inflation that we have seen the last 2 years, to be a driver for a tight market. However, we see that the high salmon prices and the difficulties in the market are causing some challenges for the end consumer with these high salmon prices. Salmon spot prices, measured in EUR, were 15% down in this quarter compared with last year. However, 1% up in NOK, but that's due to the FX effect.
In general, consumption, consumers are paying in euros and US dollars, therefore, the drop of 15% is more relevant than the 1% increase. The supply in the second half of this year is expected to increase 2%-4% and will affect the prices in the market. Next year, the supply growth is expected to be around 3%, and there will be a similar development between the first and the second half of the year next year also. There's no doubt that the extreme increase in food prices has had an impact on demand. Value of purchase seem to stay relatively stable, but volumes drop per customer. However, more consumers are getting used to high food prices.
The new normal is driven by higher costs for all food producers, which also need to get their bills paid. The global harvest was flat the first half of this year, and is expected to be muted for the period in front of us. Therefore, there will be a tight market. There will be a seasonal drop in prices for the second half of the year and a seasonal increase of prices for the first half of next year. Our forecast for this year is 93,000 ton, but with darker skies over Scotland, 5,000-6,000 ton are at risk, and therefore, the total volume could, total volume could be 87,000-88,000 ton for the group, with Scotland dropping to around 24,000....
In the third quarter, Faroe Islands is expected to harvest around 17,000-18,000 tons, sizes are better than in the first half of 2023. The opposite is the case in Scotland, where sizes have dropped in order to harvest the fish at risk. We follow the situation closely, Scotland, and evaluate a range of risk mitigation measures. The contracts we have signed are at 26%, not 23, of the volume for the second half of 2023. The FOF segments will increase in the third quarter. The sales will increase of feed in the third quarter, and is expected to reach 130,000 tons for the full year. The positive development with sourcing raw material for fish meal and oil has continued into the third quarter.
I have a few slides on the development we see which we announced on the Capital Market Day. Just to rephrase or to recap a bit on our focus, we focus on growing sustainably. We want to improve our performance, both in the Faroe Islands and in Scotland. The business case in Scotland is to lift the quality of the operation closer to Faroe Islands and similar proven technologies to drive the change. Faroe Islands has already had a strong development over the last 15 years, there are still room for improvement. Smolt weights will increase, both in Faroes, especially in Scotland. Feed conversion ratio is in focus in both regions, especially in Scotland.
Yield per smolt, average harvest weight, and survival rates are interlinked and one of our important KPIs to improve in both regions. In Faroe Islands, 3 hatchery expansions are finalized, just a few weeks ago, and will gradually increase production of large smolt to lift volumes and size further in Faroe Islands. The new hatchery in Faroes will most likely be built around 2024-2025, the new additional hatchery, and start delivery in 2026-2027. In Scotland, the hatchery expansion already in place is at Applecross. Applecross 4 is starting to full operation now, and the remaining part of Applecross, referred to as Applecross 5 and Applecross 6, will be finalized during 2024, giving a production capacity of 7 million smolt at 500 gram or, or 14 million at 250 gram, if we choose to do so.
The next expansion at Fairlie will hopefully be in operation in 2026. To recap on the overall plan, this is a DKK 6.3 billion CapEx plan, which we presented on our Capital Markets Day in June, as a case to grow the production to 165,000 tons combined in 2028, and the actual capacity across the whole value chain to 200,000 tons. The updated plan is to focus on site optimization and new technology. Cost efficiency is key, and optimizing return on investment is crucial. Therefore, we will continuously re-evaluate all investment cases, depending on the market conditions and general financial environment. In general, Bakkafrost is continuously committed to around 50%-60% of upcoming 12 months investments.
We can postpone or cancel not contracted plans if the expansion conditions or outcome changes. Therefore, the plan is, of course, at all times to be reconsidered, but this is our main plan, and in around two years from now, we will update the next plan. We have been doing this five years investments plan since 2013, and this has been a good way to drive our company forward. This was this was our second quarter presentation, and now we are open to take questions if there are any. Yes. Go ahead, Aukner.
Christian Nordby.
Christian Nordby, go ahead, please.
Yes, good morning, guys. I have a question regarding Scotland, where you see that there are darker clouds ahead. Can you comment on the situation, how you see, based on the information you have today, the second half versus second half of last year? Is it worse, or is it in line, or is it somewhat better? How does the dual treatment system you have there help you this year versus last year? You mentioned it's been jellyfish. How's the gill health been as well?
Yeah. Yes, thank you for the question, Christian. As, as you said, darker skies over Scotland, we had hoped that our good capacity of fresh water dual treatment systems would help us through this circumstances. It seems to protect our fish, but when you have very heavy jellyfish attacks, which have been the case in the last 2 months from especially on 3 sites with fish which have been standing 2 years in the sea, it seems like eventually, after a long time, they do not cope so well. Therefore, despite we have good capacity of protection, we lose more fish than we would like to, and therefore, we have to harvest.
The mortalities in July this year were higher than in July last year. The mortalities in the first and second week of August this year were higher than last year. We have good capacity to treat with dual fresh water system, which seems to protect the gills well. As said, these 3 sites are all with fish in the second summer in the sea. We have so far no sites with fish, only 1 summer in the sea impacted. That's at least one of the common factors. There are, at the moment, several impacts or several measures that we are looking to, to take, to make sure that we don't repeat the same situation next year.
For this year, however, we have to harvest, these three sites early, and that will, that will reduce the volume. Aukner? Alexander?
Yes. Hello. I have 3 questions. One's on the cost development in the Faroe Islands in the second half of this year and into next year, particularly given the increase in raw material cost into feed. A comment on that. The second question is on the fish meal and oil business. You have higher sales of meal and oil versus last year, and higher prices. Some of it surprised that EBITDA margins is dropping. If you could comment on that. The last question is on the low harvest weights in the Faroe Islands this quarter. I'm still not completely sure I understand why you had to take out the fish early.
Yeah. Thank you, Alexander. Commenting on the costs, there is, as you know, it takes 3 years to grow a salmon. Salmon price, so, sorry, feed prices in the market have generally increased very rapidly over the last 18 months. I think that, generally, you can say that feed prices have increased around 50% over the last 18 months. We have still not seen the full impact of this cost increase. On top of that, we, we still have also other cost inflation from salaries, which are increasing more than the normal, and other costs as well. There is still a development, of, increased costs in farming operation all over.
For ourselves, we have also seen the highest cost increase ever over the last 18 months. There will still be a gradual cost increase over the next quarters. Coming to feed, producing internally is an advantage, especially in these times where fish oil are very scarce. This is a very exceptional situation where we have all-time high internal production that gives an advantage. As said, we, we, put the inventories at cost. That means that we have a lot of inventories which has been produced, but at cost. That's probably the the driver for the drop in EBITDA margin. It depends on what value the inventory has been set at and the high the high production.
We also have, we have full inventories both in the Faroes and have also some external inventories outside Faroe Islands of raw materials. I guess that's, that's. Do you have any other comment, Hakne, on? No. Coming to the low weights and why they are so low in Faroes, as said, in January, we emptied one of our sites. This came into the cold season where the growth is very low. Fish that should be harvested in February were already harvested in January. As we have contracts, which is both an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage, we had to continue to harvest because to fulfill our commitments. In the first half, contract year is relatively high.
In this quarter, it was 56% of the total sales, and that's relatively high. It has been very much driven by the need to deliver contracts. Going to the next site to harvest means that we had to harvest smaller fish, and with low volumes available in, in, in this period and low growth, this has been a rolling snowball in front of us during this period. We are coming into larger batches, and as normally, we would have dropped biomass by around 2,000-3,000 tons in the first half. Instead, we have built biomass this year.
It's also a combination of the fact that we are going to larger smolt and the combination where we don't have the sites available for harvest in the first half that we used to have because the system is changing because we're going from 2 years production time to 1 year production time. There's a couple of unfortunate combinations. Probably that did not give a full flavor, but that's, I think that's what I can say.
No, that was a good answer. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Alex, go ahead.
Thank you. Three from my side as well, please. The first two on Scotland. You, you mentioned in the presentation you released a batch of trial large smolts in the second quarter. It's very early days, but can you give us a little flavor for how that's been performing in the first couple of months? The second question, you, you mentioned you're evaluating risk mitigating measures and maybe even more farming equipment in Scotland. You, you talked about early harvesting, but could you expand on anything else you're considering and, and whether that would involve additional CapEx from your side above and beyond the plan outlined at the CMD? Then the final question, just to follow up on the feed division. Clearly, as you highlighted, fish oil price has been going up a lot.
Does the high sourcing environment give you any possibility to sort of source at lower prices than that and see a little less correlation to the rising price, or are you seeing exactly the same in the price you're sourcing at? Thank you.
Thank you, Alex. The trial with large smolt, what we can already say now is that this fish will only be one summer in the sea. This fish is already now at 1.3 kilos, and that means that this fish will be harvested during the first half of next year, hopefully at good sizes. That is very, very important for us because we, we think that this is one of the drivers for us to reduce the risk in Scotland. This fish, that was, stocked in the second half would normally go two years in the, in, in, in, on the sites, but that will not be the case because of the, the size of the smolt.
The next batch, which is planned to be, transferred in November, will also only have one year in the sea. I think that is, very interesting to follow. With Applecross only in place, you know, our strategy is to go to 500, but it, it probably is a better idea for us to use the capacity we have to go to 250, that we sooner rather than later can take all fish only, into one summer in the sea. That is, I guess, the first, indications that we will use this information to, to see if we can increase the survivability in Scotland, so that, we have a more healthy operation. Coming to the risk mitigation, we are looking at several, things.
A few of things which can be done, early, not very costly, but with ideas from, from Faroe Islands. I will not go into details, but they are not very capital intensive, so it is not going to impact very much on, on CapEx. It's just a minor. It is more operational if we can be more, if we can. There might be some sites that we should avoid using during the third quarter, where we have experienced losses. That is some of the things. We are, at the moment, of course, brainstorming all ideas that we can come up with, especially looking into next year.
I guess that's what I can say there. On the feed, on the prices, on, on the sourcing, we have a good position, of course, with a lot of raw material coming in, and that should have a positive impact. Using our capacity to a full capacity utilization is, of course, an advantage and should be seen. Also, with a lot of processing in Faroes and offcuts, that should also be an advantage. In general, I would say it, it should be an advantage. I don't think I can say so much more than that.
Thank you.
Nils?
Yes. another question on feed, and,
Maybe you can present, maybe you can present to yourself.
Sorry, sorry. Nils Thommesen from Fearnley Securities. The, on the feed and, and the formula you have, you have a higher marine content than, than other farmers. Have you considered, in this market environment, to reduce the share of marine environment, both to, to reduce the, the cost of the feed, but also to capitalize in the FO segment?
As you said, we, we use a higher ingredients of raw materials from marine origin. That has been a key driver for us to obtain higher value in the market because of higher omega-3 and marine content, and that is very important for our branding strategy. These are our local raw materials, and we think that is also driving our sustainability because it's a low CO₂ footprint. We are continuing our strategy on, on feed, on feed content.
...
Martin Dolan?
Martin Dolan, ABG Sundal Collier. I have two questions. The first one is another one on the expected cost development at the Faroes in the second half. I would expect that you should benefit from increased harvest weights and increased total harvest volumes. Should that be enough to offset that gradual increase in, in feed costs, do you think? The second question: Do you expect the same volume distribution at the Faroes next year as you have seen this year with these very low volumes in the first half, or could you get back to the historical harvest distribution?
Yeah. Thank you, Martin. First on the cost, clearly there will be a, a benefit on cost development in Faroes in the second half of the year because of larger volumes. That will be a, a benefit. It will also be benefit, benefit with larger fish. Those 2, takes the... It's in the right direction. I, I don't have the data behind me to say that this will offset the development in costs, I, I, I... Do you have any da- more flavor on that, Høgni?
Not, not directly, but volumes are a quite significant driver of costs.
Yeah
in general.
Yeah. We don't have a clearer answer than that, that volumes are important. In general, the drivers on cost from feed are very, very strong. As said, it takes three years to grow a salmon, so this is a result that is a bit. There's a time lag. There's a time lag in when you see the costs coming into the market. I would say that it is likely that cost will still increase in general for farmers for the next couple of quarters, and that's also for ourselves. On the volume distribution for next year, I think that we should be better to give quarterly volume guidance. That's why also we mentioned now the volume for the third quarter.
I think that we will give an overview on expectation per quarter when we are going to give our volume for next year. It is likely that we will have more volume in the first half of next year, but still there will be more in the second half. When I say more, I mean more than this year. We will confirm that on the next presentation when we give volume for next year, when we can give more detailed information on the quarters. I think that will be beneficial.
Okay. Thank you.
I think we can take the last question from, Wilhelm Dahl-Røed.
Wilhelm? Wilhelm, can you go ahead? Wilhelm Dahl-Røed.
Yeah, sorry. Wilhelm from, from Danske Bank here. Just a quick question on, on the incident-based mortality, at the hatcheries in, in the Faroes. Could you just elaborate a bit on, on what's, what's the reasoning behind the incident-based mortalities, and if this might be a, be a risk going forward?
Yes. Thank you. We had the two hatcheries in Glyvradal and Norðtoftir starting the operation in the new sites. The first the first incident was at Glyvradal, where there was from the construction, there was a tube of foam, construction foam, which was inside one of the one of the water tubes or water... Water tube?
Pipes.
Water pipes. After a couple of weeks, this foam tank exploded. This was some remains from the construction that had not been removed, and that killed, unfortunately, a batch of fish because of the poison coming from this foam. That was very unfortunate. This was a hidden failure, you can say, from the construction. Apart from that, Glyvradal has had a successful start. You can say, when you start a new site, there are some risks, especially in the beginning, when the handover is from the, from the construction. Of course, we are eager to, to start the operation sometimes early. In Norðtoftir, which is the second hatchery that we have started here in the Faroes during the first half of this year, we had an incident. This was a Saturday morning.
The electricity was a bit unstable in the area, so there was a switchover from external electricity to our backup systems. During this, there was a failure in some of the oxygen systems, and one of our new departments with 4 tanks did not give alarm correctly. The operators on site did not prioritize this during this period for 1 or 2 hours. When they discovered the failure, a lot of fish had already died. There is an automatic alarm system on oxygen that should turn on, and there was also some mechanical failures on this automatic alarm system, which caused a high mortality.
I would categorize both of these accidents to be related to the start-up, and, where there is a higher risk and a lot of things that can happen when you start up a new system. Unfortunately, we have seen also similar things at Applecross, which we also have, have told you about. Thank you. Thank you for all the questions, and, have a good day.