Hello everyone, and welcome to Cambi's second quarter results presentation. As always, please read the disclaimer included in the presentation and published report, especially on the outlook section. With me, as usual, I have Maarten Kanters, Managing Director of Cambi Invest, and together we'll take you through the highlights of the second quarter. First, let us recap what Cambi is all about and how market conditions have developed in the first half year. We have established Cambi as the global market leader in our niche. It's built on our core technology called Thermal Hydrolysis, or THP. It's the combination of better environments, increased renewable energy output, reliable performance, and solid financial business case that makes our solution attractive for utilities and communities worldwide.
The industry is on the cusp of unprecedented change, managing the increased volume of wastewater because of urbanization, aging infrastructure, stricter regulation, and the drive to net zero. With Cambi, the utilities will lower their carbon footprint irrespective of handling route of the final products, providing a future safe solution for plants built to run for the next decades. It's also enabling existing plants to increase capacity with limited required footprint due to the higher throughput in existing digesters, and in most cases, it gives the lowest lifecycle costs. In some markets, especially in Europe, the current geopolitical situation has increased the focus on being energy independent. Cambi can play a role in this by increasing biogas production by up to 40% and at the same time gives the sterilized product free of harmful pathogens and circulate important nutrients back to land.
Our already strong drivers have become ever clearer during the first half of this year. Moving on to market activities and how we see that with these drivers improving. There is a fundamental strength of our business reflected in the pipeline of projects. We've talked about before the more than 300 active leads and more than 3,000 identified plants with sound business case for our solution. Order growth is strong, and the tender value is up 27% in the first half year as more sites are looking to invest in sustainable and cost-effective solutions. The increase that we have seen is partly due to our pricing policy, enabling us to increase our prices to at least match our cost increase in the last year.
We secured 3 new equipment contracts during the quarter, one of which is in a new country, Morocco. In addition, we were awarded 2 contracts that at quarter close were not signed. One of these is the previously mentioned contract with Veolia, which is currently in collaboration phase starting in the second quarter. Let's take a look at the new orders. In Athens, Greece, we signed a contract for our second system delivery to a repeat customer. With additional system in operation, it will treat the remaining biological sludge, lowering the energy demand and increasing the biogas production at the plants. We have several repeat customers in many markets, and these are, as we talked about before, some of our best ambassadors in increasing awareness of our capabilities.
Our first contract in Morocco and second in Africa is also to an industrial client, it's a world leader in phosphate fertilizer. Start of operation on this contract is scheduled for 2023, so it's a faster delivery than what we normally see in equipment sales. Our first contracts on the continent, the pilot for Sasol in South Africa, was successful and the customer has published papers of the results. We currently have a signed contract with the customer, which may lead to a larger scale plant in the future. NRA is a project we have followed for some time, where it was later split in several packages. We targeted one of these and were awarded towards the end of the second quarter. The project is under execution and progressing as planned, with start of operation scheduled in 2025.
I'm very, very pleased with how we built a stronger backlog in the period and managed client expectations in a complex operating environment. By closely monitoring changes in the market and taking a proactive approach towards clients at tender and contract negotiation stage, we have, as already mentioned, been able to increase our prices to at least be in line with cost increases seen in the last year. We continue to experience delays in supply chain, and although the pace is starting to pick up on site, some customers are still not ready to accept delivery of our scope, which is delaying the execution and delivery of backlog orders. I do want to take the opportunity to thank my colleagues across the group for the good progress and maintaining our strong HSEQ record despite these external challenges. After quarter close, we have signed 2 contracts, both with an extended scope.
In Fredrikstad, Norway, we signed a collaboration phase contract similar to the one we have with Veas. This phase of the contract is expected to take approximately 6 months, after which the main contract will be signed and reflected in order intake and backlog. In Copenhagen, Denmark, the project includes extended equipment scope and building with a handover expected in 2024. For these larger scope projects, the gross margin expectation is lower than what we normally see for core equipment sales. For larger scope projects, the margin would typically be in the 30%-40% gross margin range. Taking a look at the outlook, the conditions in the industry are very favorable, as I've already touched on.
We make sludge management more sustainable and address some of the biggest challenges our industry faces, achieving net zero emissions, increasing efficiency, and keeping costs down. Today, Cambi is a global business with plants in more than 80 locations, and we're proud to say that many large cities of the world are trusting Cambi as a core technology to make their sludge management safer, more sustainable, and cheaper. The prospects of the wastewater industry is extremely strong, but so too is the pressure to become more sustainable. That requires partnerships across the industry, but particularly between utilities, consultants, and technology providers such as Cambi, whose job is to take a problem and create a solution. Cambi has always focused on leading the technology change in our niche with innovations that we have made sludge management more sustainable and cheaper.
We have rolled out new products in the last 12 months that further improves the energy efficiency of our system. As we move into the second half of the year, I'm excited about the prospects and confident in our ability to deliver growth and an order intake in 2022-2023 of NOK 1 billion. For the period leading up to the end of 2024, an order intake of NOK 1.7 billion. With that, I'll hand it over to you, Maarten.
Thank you, Eirik. In the second quarter, Cambi has acquired 2 complementary THP technologies. This acquisition increases our existing patent portfolio with 2 complementing ready developed products. It's one continuous system, the Exelys, and a batch system, the Biotilis, where the batch system is most similar to what Cambi is offering today with our THPs. The Exelys system is a very interesting addition to our portfolio because of the small footprint, the low amount of steel it uses. It is a standardized product that can be easily placed on a site. The fact that it is a continuous system means that it doesn't offer a complete pathogen kill and has a slightly higher energy consumption. It is particularly interesting in application for smaller plants and possibly also for non-sludge substrates.
It allows us to look at other markets with this technology, and that's something that we're doing at the moment because we have closed the transaction and we are now internalizing the know-how and looking to see how we can deploy these new technologies elsewhere. I wanna move over to DBO projects. The project development in the U.S. and in the U.K. has been going according to plan so far. The emerging markets, we are seeing a slightly different situation. There we are experiencing some delays outside of Cambi's control, and these are very different causes. Just to give an example, there have been flooding events in South Africa. This has caused our customer to have to focus on restoring basic infrastructure before they can talk about PPP projects on sludge treatment again.
In other countries, we see that their municipal decision processes are taking more time than they had initially indicated. Those are the challenges we're facing in some of the emerging markets. Again, the progress in our core focus markets, UK and the USA, are promising. Going forward, we anticipate to enter into exclusive negotiations on at least one DBO project before the end of this year. In addition, we are also stepping up our efforts to promote our as a service offering. This should reduce the threshold for customers to adopt the THP solution. I will come back with more news on this in the fall.
If we move over to the recycling side of the business, Grønn Vekst has delivered a result that is comparable to last year, where the sources of revenues have shifted slightly. We've seen more sludge coming in, while at the same time, after 2 years of quite high garden waste volumes, we see a slight reduction of this year. It could be a bounce back after a COVID period where people spend more time gardening. Also the soil volumes have slightly fallen behind last year, but we managed to partially offset this shortfall by increasing the prices. Grønn Vekst is working in various directions to deliver profitable growth for the coming years. For example, looking at pricing and operational strategy reviews that have been initiated a year ago and they are now starting to pay off.
They also see that there are plans to set up soil production in new regions, Bergen and Stavanger area, are becoming reality now. In addition, the soil bag factory that we're setting up in Kristiansand will be a key component of this. Let me give you a little bit more detail on that soil bag facility on what that is. I'll take a step back and start with sort of why is peat-free, why is that a good thing? Why do we need to do that? Because in many soils today, and nearly all of the soils that you can buy in a garden center, you'll find peat. But when peat is mined for gardening, the reserves of stored carbon are unlocked. This peat is a peatland, a carbon sink. There's 3 things that happen.
When a peatland is drained before mining, it immediately starts to emit greenhouse gases. After mining, the remaining peat also continues to release carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. When the carbon in the peat is spread on gardens or on fields, it quickly turns into carbon dioxide as well. It really tremendously increases greenhouse gas levels. Establishing peatlands does take years, and they are depleting at the moment. This also means that the unique biodiversity of peat bogs is lost. Glenmax has been aware of this for a long time already. They started off with the first peat-free soils already in 2006. At the time, the market wasn't really ready for a peat-free product.
They picked up the development work again in 2015, 2016, and they have been testing and trialing different alternatives to peat to create a similar structure and fertilizer content in the soil by using compost, biochar, manures, bark, and other residues from forestry and construction, for example, focusing on products or materials that are locally available and ideally recycled. As a result of this R&D work, Glenmax is now in a position to introduce a complete peat-free soil range, in next season, and that includes products for sowing, potting, and planting. It's really different types of soil with different characteristics so that you can grow plants completely peat-free. The feedback from garden centers has been very promising, and the products that they have seen so far in the market have been quite low quality.
The response from the garden centers is really positive, and also there is an increased demand, especially from educated gardeners in this field. This is kind of a pull from customers, from professional farmers, from garden centers to get a good peat-free alternative on the market. This market is quite an interesting one, relative to what Glenmax is already doing. The total market for soil bags, and that includes peat-containing and peat-free bags, is estimated between 300-400,000 tons, or 15-20 million bags a year. The peat-free size of that is very low at the moment, and Glenmax is already providing a large amount of those peat-free bags together with a production partner that has been producing and bagging these products for them.
Now, by setting up their own soil bag factory in Kristiansand, it will allow Glenmax to produce their own, under their own supervision, their own products, sell those to different channels, different gardening centers, and the capacity of this line will be able to provide nearly 10% of the total market. This will of course need some ramp-up time for the customers to get used to it, but we really see signals that the market interest is there. Until we have it fully loaded with peat-free soils, we can also use the bagging facility to pack other products. If we see that the demand exceeds 2 million bags a year, it's also very flexible in the way that we can set up additional capacity to expand the production ability.
This is something that we are in Grønn Vekst quite excited about, but it requires the market to adopt peat-free soils as an environmentally friendly alternative. That's something. The awareness is growing. With that, I'd like to hand back the work to you, Eirik.
Thank you, Maarten. Let's take a look at the financials for the quarter. Revenue is down 21% compared to last year. While we see a positive development from the first quarter of more than a 50% increase in turnover, we are still affected by the market situation compared to last year. We continue to experience delays at customer sites, and the project in Lviv remains under force majeure. EBITDA is primarily a reflection of the lower revenue and higher activity, especially in sales and marketing, on conferences, seminars, picking up post-COVID. In addition, there's this change in recognition of holiday pay, which is now split over several quarters as opposed to last year when it was a reduction in payroll costs in the second quarter.
Looking at the Cambi Group segment, being the largest segment, in the consolidated numbers, the impact mentioned on the environment, environmental conditions, the project in Lviv, and then also the challenges in longer lead time and supply chain. It's the same for Cambi Group, with a turnover reduction of 29% compared to last year, and with an EBITDA of NOK -7.6 million. Cambi Invest, Maarten touched on the changes seen from last year in the product mix, for example. Despite that change, they delivered a turnover in line with last year and an EBITDA slightly above last year. Order intake and backlog, I have already touched on.
Compared to last year, order backlog is up 60%, both due to the new orders coming in, but also, as I mentioned, the delay in execution of backlog orders. The total value of awards, LOIs, and also framework agreements that we have in place that's not reflected in backlog amounts to more than NOK 460 million as of today. In summary, for the first half year, and it's also talked about, in the last quarter, the operating environment has caused delays in projects, and the total revenue is therefore down 28% compared to last year. It's also the lion's share of the reason for the lower EBITDA in the first half year. We had a positive operating cash flow in the quarter due to milestone payments on projects.
As you can see from the balance sheets, intangible assets increased following the acquisition of technologies from Veolia, different from technologies that we develop in-house that we do expense, and these will be reflected in intangible assets. The rest is primarily deferred tax assets on our balance sheets. This ends the presentation, and I propose to take your questions. Any questions? Okay. There is 1 question. What is the impact of the Ukraine-Russia crisis and related energy costs increase? Well, there's both direct and indirect consequences for Cambi. The most obvious is the project that we have in Lviv that's currently on hold under force majeure. We are in weekly contact with the City of Lviv.
Both parties want to move the project forward, but for obvious reasons, we are not able to be on site. We're looking at ways to continue the project by manufacturing outside of Lviv, but that is still discussions ongoing. Indirect consequences is a delay in supply chain that we're experiencing. Also, we see a higher focus on being less dependent on imports of energy. As I mentioned earlier, the focus and attention to biogas due to the crisis is a positive long-term development for Cambi, not only for sludge treatment, but also, as we talked about before, we're looking at other substrates where we can apply our technology to increase the biogas yield. All right. Let's see. There's other questions. Yeah.
In your Q1 presentation, you said that 1/3 of order intake by 2023 is backed by tender awards and letter of intent, while you now change your wording to 30% of expected order intake by 2023 and 45% by 2024 when including tender awards and LOI. What is the reason for a change? Do you now expect the letter of intent to come in 2024 instead of 2023? Yeah, the changes from the 1/3 to 30% is due to 2 main things. 1 is that we have received an additional award, but also, which is part of the question and expectation is that it is one project that where we see a higher risk of delay to 2024, early 2024.
It may still happen within 2022, 2023, but late based on latest discussions with the customer, we see a higher probability of it coming in in 2024. Any more flavor on the DBO project in terms of the expected exclusive negotiation by end 2022 will be appreciated. What is remaining before an exclusive negotiation? How long does this kind of negotiations typically take? I'll leave that to you, Maarten.
Yeah. Thank you. It's a bit of a difficult question to answer. It's project-specific, and we don't like to give project-specific details in this relatively early phase of the development still. I do think that in not just one project, but there are more projects where we are about to enter into exclusive negotiations that requires an acceptance or the actual decision from a customer to go into those negotiations, and that is what is pending. Their negotiations will obviously be conditional on some factors, which are, again, very project-specific. I won't go in too much detail, but I think we are. The outlook is promising that we will go into negotiations, and then it is about reaching acceptable terms for both parties in that phase.
It's difficult to say at this point how long that will take exactly because there are several factors involved. I hope that gives you a little bit of a flavor. If and when there are more details to be communicated, we will be back with that.
Okay. Then there were no more questions. Concludes the presentation and session. Thank you all for participating. If there's any questions after this call, please do not hesitate to reach out. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Have a nice day.