Thank you all for taking time to be a part of this Quarter Four presentation for Icelandic Salmon. The Icelandic salmon industry have been through a challenging period for our industry in a build-up phase. There have been incidents related to production, heavy campaigns from our opponents, with bad publicity about our activity, both national and international, and uncertainty around the new legal framework for the industry. We are glad and appreciate the fact that we have a good and open dialogue with the authorities in Iceland. We share a common opinion with many Icelanders of developing a growing and sustainable aquaculture industry and jobs in Iceland. The country is well placed to make an important difference to feed a growing world population with healthy food from the ocean. I will touch into this later in the presentation.
I want to start this presentation with a few words about our company. So, Icelandic Salmon is a listed company in the Euronext Growth Market in Oslo and on the Nasdaq First North List in Reykjavík. The company is the sole owner and the parent company of Arnarlax ehf. All operational activities of the group are performed by Arnarlax ehf. Arnarlax Sustainable Icelandic Salmon is our common brand for all our operational activities and our products from Icelandic Salmon. The company have today four smolt facilities with a current capacity of 7-8 million smolts, depending on the size of the smolt. We operate farming in sea on seven sites in three fjords in the southern West Fjords of Iceland. All our harvested volume is ASC certified, and we have a total maximum allowed biomass of 23,700 tons.
We have our harvesting plant in Bíldudalur, which is also BRC certified with the production and have a capacity of 30,000 tons per year. We do all our sales by our internal sales team, both domestically and out in the global markets. Quarter four 2023 was volume-wise all-time high, with 7,219 tons harvested, compared to 6,000 tons in quarter four 2022. We harvested all the autumn 2021 generation in the early in the quarter and started then on the spring 2022 generation later in the quarter. The spring 2022 generation shows very promising results when it comes to KPIs, such as growth, feed conversion ratio, and mortality. The company had revenues in quarter four 2023 at EUR 51 million, same as quarter four 2022.
And the EBIT for the quarter was EUR 2 million, and this gave an EBIT per kilo of EUR 0.28. The cost level per kilo was high due to a one-off related to biological challenges in the beginning of the quarter. This one-off amounted to EUR 5 million, and if we look at the EBIT per kilo without the one-off, that ended at EUR 1 per kilo. The one-off is related to high lice levels that caused mortality. This was an extraordinary situation, and mitigating measures to avoid this to happen again is activated. The harvest volume for the year was also all-time high and ended at 17,919 tons, compared to 16,100 tons in 2022.
The volume for the full year 2023 is 900 tons above our last guidance on the Quarter Three presentation, and the volume was increased due to good growth on the spring 2022 generation, and also to reduce the risk after the delicing of the same fish. The total revenues for the year was EUR 165 million, and then the EBIT for the year ended at EUR 20 million. Full year 2023 gave an EBIT per kilo of EUR 1.13, and without the one-offs throughout the year, it was EBIT of EUR 1.52 per kilo. Our sales team have done a great job, but there was a drop in market prices in the quarter four compared to quarter three 2023. But our price achievements towards the market price was good.
Then let me give you an update on our operations. During the fourth quarter, we were reminded that we are working with nature. We experienced extraordinary high lice levels on our sites, and in Tálknafjörður so high that it resulted in significant mortality and culling of fish. We are in a position where we had to delice all our sites twice and also mitigate the situation by increasing the harvesting due to fish welfare. Due to good performance on the 2022 generation, the average weight of the harvest was normal. This situation will affect the harvest volumes in 2024. We have well evaluated the situation with our neighbor companies and the authorities to implement mitigating measures to limit the risk that this situation will happen again. This involves partly access to non-medical delicing capacity, among other measures.
We have also some positive development in our operational performance to report. There is still good demand for sustainable Icelandic salmon in the market, our spring 2022 generation that we are now harvesting shows, as I said, very promising results when it comes to both growth, feed conversion ratio, and mortality. This shows the strong potential for strong biological performance in the fjords we are operating. If we then go to the sales and marketing update, we still see a strong interest for Icelandic salmon in the market. The product is known for its high quality, the sustainability features, and quite a few of our customers claim that the best-tasting salmon is the one from Iceland.
Due to the low carbon footprint with the boat transport to the U.S. market, which reduced the carbon footprint with 95% compared to air freight, we have been focusing on that market. We have seen a slight decrease in the demand over the last two quarters, and this resulted in that 16% of our volumes were sold to the U.S. market in quarter four, in quarter four. We are strong believers that we have a good product for the American consumers and a good logistic solution to transport the fish into that market, and we will continue the work towards the U.S. market. For full year 2023, 80% of our products were sold to the U.S. market, and 82% were transported by ship and 18% by air.
The sales to U.S. is also affected by relative high prices in Europe and especially Asia. U.S. and Asia is our main markets for six-plus fish, and in quarter four, 21% over six-plus kilo fish was sold to the Asian market. In the Asian market, Iceland has a free trade agreement with China. Initially, that means 10% tax benefit into that market compared to many other salmon-producing nations. In competition with other salmon-producing nations in Europe, we see that this tax benefit at least covers our extra logistic cost due to the transfer flight into Europe. We are continuously working closely with premium customers in North America, Asia, and Europe to promote our high-quality, sustainable Icelandic salmon, and at the moment, all our contracted volume is related to premium customers.
The contract share for quarter four was 16% and gave a positive contribution into the price achievement. I'm also very happy to introduce that we have a new CSO in our company. Linda Gunnlaugsdóttir started in the beginning of January. Linda has a long experience in several branches, the latest years from logistic companies, sales of seafood, and we are very happy to have Linda as a member of Team Arnarlax, and see it as very beneficial for the company to have her competence when it comes to leadership, sales of fish, and logistics. I will then give the word to our CFO, Jónas Heiðar Birgisson. So welcome, Jonas.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Björn, for the introduction. It's a pleasure to share an overview of Icelandic Salmon financial position as we close out 2023. After a period of high reduction of biological asset at fair value and continuing investment, the total assets on the group's balance sheet decreased by EUR 19 million within the quarter. In line with that, the group liability decreased by 8% during the quarter, where the balance on our accounts payable reduced significantly against increase of our loan line of EUR 7 million. The highlight of this quarter for financial position is the implementation of a new sustainability-linked financial agreement. The new loan agreement places the group in even stronger financial position than before, and compared to our beginning of the year, the group stand even stronger towards its liability and growth focus.
As stated in the third quarter presentation, the new loan agreement with DNB and Danske Bank has a tenure of three years with two one-year extension option. Our equity ratio remains in a strong position, and the group remains compliant with all covenants, ensuring that the operations are within the group's sets of financial guidelines. Our focus remains on maintaining financial stability and advancing to our sustainability goals. The new financial agreement is a part of the group path towards a sustainability performance, and we keep our focus on continued improvement in that area. Our net interest-bearing debt, including leasing, decreased slightly, but I will go over that here in the next slide. This slide shows the changes in the net interest-bearing debts during the quarter.
Net interest-bearing debt totaled up to EUR 52 million at the beginning of the quarter, and the group delivered a positive EBITDA of EUR 4 million. Our EBITDA was affected by the genesis of biological mortality during the period, as Björn explained here earlier, affecting our EBITDA of EUR 5 million. The group paid EUR 2 million in the quarter in taxes, and changes in working capital was EUR 5.8 million and was driven by reduction of biological assets, mainly in harvest at the end of the year. We also had material changes in our account payables, ending the quarter with lower liability, and investments during the quarter amounted to EUR 6.7 million, where the focus continued on investments in seawater equipment and improvements in smolt facilities.
That focus has been a priority in our growth strategy during the year, and the group total investments for the year in total were EUR 28.5 million. At the end of the year, total net interest-bearing debt, including leasing, ended at EUR 51 million. Now, before I hand the word back to Björn Hembre, I want to mention that our consolidated annual report will be issued on our homepage on nineteenth of April. So thank you for your attention, and I'll give the word back to you, Björn.
Thank you, Jónas. I forgot in the beginning of the presentation to inform that just after the presentation, there will be a Q&A session, and you can send questions to us on the email address, questions@arnarlax.is. Then I want to give you an update on our license situation. We still hold our application for farming license in Ísafjarðardjúp, and Arnarlax is in position to receive a license of 10,000 ton. It is an uncertainty the share of fertile fish of this license, but we expect to get this license in near future and are in good dialogue with the authorities about it. There are a process going on now that should lead to this conclusion in a short time.
Our application of 4,500 tons in Arnarfjörður is still by the authorities, and if the new law goes through in Althingi this spring, this volume seem to be auctioned out. We are also currently in process to establish bigger sites for better MIB utilization, and two new sites are in application process in Arnarfjörður. This has also been a process that has taken some time, but we expect the final decision during 2024. Our smolt plant, Gileyri, got a new license recently for 1,000 ton of maximum allowed biomass, which is up from the previous 200 tons. This gives us opportunities for a slight increase in production on the in existing investments done there, but the main purpose is to have the license ready if we decide to increase the production there with further investments in the future.
As mentioned in the beginning, there has been a challenging period for some time for the industry in Iceland. We have seen outbreak of serious disease, escapes, and significant challenges with lice. Everyone agrees that such incidents should be avoided, and we as an industry is doing all we can to do so. After all, healthy and happy fish is a much greater value for us and the customers and for jobs and value creation on Iceland. Discussions are running high about our industry and its place in Iceland going forward. As I already said, we appreciate the open and honest dialogue and respect the fact that there are different opinions. In our view, the dialogue with the authorities is constructive, and we feel that we share the same objective. The world needs more sustainability-grown food for people.
We think Iceland and salmon should play a role in this. A new law, which is currently being debated, is an opportunity to build a better structure for the industry than we have today. The official hearing process for the new law was finalized January 15th. There is now a dialogue between the direct stakeholders to try to find a common ground that is acceptable for a sustainable development of the industry, both ecological and economical.... As the proposal is today, it will be to a benefit for the farmers that have low mortality, low or no escapes, and good control of the lice.
But we also see that the law proposal is quite aggressive when it comes to tax level, and our message to the authorities is that they should not weaken the competitiveness of the industry, because we are all still in a build-up phase and need to attract capital and investor for further development. Signals from the ministry is that this will be taken into account. The tax model that is proposed is a top-line tax related to salmon price. The industry is of the opinion that tax should be based on profit and at a level that is compatible for a young and growing industry.
Since it not concluded on the most essential items in the law proposal yet, we before it's sent to Althingi, we believe and hope that the final proposal will give a regulatory environment that supports our development of a sustainable salmon industry on Iceland. So now let me conclude with our outlook for quarter one and the rest of 2024. Our volume guidance for 2024 is 15,000 tonnes. That is, as I said, affected by the incidents we had early in quarter four. But this biological challenges is not expected to affect the volumes in 2025. The CapEx for 2024 is expected to be EUR 15 million, and that down from the 25.8 Jonas referred, that we had in 2023.
The investments is mainly related to operational equipment on sea, such as boat, cages, nets, and moorings, directly related to increased production, in addition to maintenance investment done on freshwater and the harvest plant. For the smolt output in 2024, we will start to use a new site, Vatnseyri, in Patreksfjörður, and this will be an important step for better MAB utilization of our license there. One of the limiting factor has been availability of sites to optimize the utilization. The environmental investigations done on this site is very promising when it comes to current and so on, and we have high expectations for the coming biological results there.
We still see a potential for growth up to 26,000 tons within our existing licenses and are positive to get there quite soon based on the results we see from the quality of the smolt we put out last year and the performance we see on the 2022 generation. I will, at the end, thank everyone that is working in Team Arnarlax for their contribution and hard work every day to bring the company forward. I will then soon. We will then soon move over to the Q&A session. And again, I will thank you all for watching this presentation from Icelandic Salmon. Thank you.
... Joining us here. My name is Hjörtur Methúsalemsson, and I'm the project manager in the business development team in Arnarlax. And I'll be managing the questions for you today. You can still send in questions at questions@arnarlax.is, and we will do our best to answer all those questions when they come in. Björn, you mentioned that the tax levels needs to be compatible. Can you make any comments on how does the tax level look?
So in the proposal as it is today and, as it's communicated, that the intention is, from the ministry, is that it should be at a compatible level and, compared to Norway and the Faroe Islands. It's also communicated that they expect a introduction period over some years when this is ramping up, so the young industry on Iceland can get some time to do the needed investments and, yeah, get up to speed, so to say.
Yeah. Okay, thank you for that. Jónas, going into the Icelandic Stock Exchange market in September last year, how has that affected the company?
Well, we haven't really seen much liquidity in our shares after the listing in First North, and there are multiple reasons for that that I'm not gonna speculate into. But, We still believe this is the correct choice and, correct decision to go in there and increase the access of the Icelandic investors, especially, into the stocks of Icelandic Salmon.
Yeah. Mowi seems to believe in effect of a new vaccine against winter sore. Do you think that could help during the... against the Icelandic winter sore?
... Yeah, we have a documentation for that and that we have started to use from the smolts put in sea this year. When we talk about vaccines, we also have implemented the usage of ISA vaccine on from the smolt output in 2024 to reduce the risk for ISA. So, yeah, we do what we can, I would say, on the vaccine side.
Yeah. Another one to you, Björn. Can you comment on the lessons learned from the lice situation last year, or and what other mitigating measures you have done?
Yeah, as I mentioned in the presentation, we have secured access to non-medical treatment, which we started to use last autumn with good effect. That will be available the whole lice season for the coming years. And then it's several things that are learning points, of course, after a situation like this. First of all, to avoid to come in this situation and, yeah, also the, like one item, the medicines for delicing were not in stock on Iceland. The system was not built to keep them in stock, so that is also changed and so we can take much sooner action when needed.
So yeah, I'm pretty sure that we have a much more robust system today than we had last year.
Okay. That's good to hear. According to analysts, we seem to be looking at a close to zero supply growth this year. Can you comment on demand for your product in the main markets?
Yeah, we feel a general strong demand, and we of course also follow the salmon market in general. But also feel that we kind of get closer and closer to customers who prefer some differentiation in the product spectrum. And we feel that we have a good position in all the three markets, actually, that we may—our main markets, Asia, US, and Europe. With, of course, Europe on top, but yeah, we think market-wise, the future is quite bright. Yes.
Yeah. Okay. That's good to hear. Jónas, can you comment on CapEx levels going forward?
Well, we, for the last year, like, Björn mentioned in the presentation, and myself, we spent, what? EUR 25.8 million in growth projects during last year. Going forward, it's, if I remember correctly, EUR 15 million that we're spending in investments, and that's mostly are all related to cages and nets and to increase the production in sea.
Okay. Yeah, it seems that there are no more questions coming in, so I think we have covered most of them, and I just want to thank you all for joining us and see you next time.