Welcome, everyone, and thank you for taking time to watch this quarter three presentation for Icelandic Salmon. Today I have with me Jónas Heiðar Birgisson and Björn Hembre in this presentation. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. You can send your questions to questions@arnarlax.is at any time during the session. First, a brief overview of Icelandic Salmon. As most of you probably know, the company is listed on the Euronext Growth Oslo and on Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Reykjavík. The company is the sole owner and the parent company of Arnarlax ehf in Iceland, or all our operational activities of the group are performed in Arnarlax ehf. We are present throughout the value chain from smolt to sales. We have four smolt facilities with a current capacity of seven to eight million smolts, depending on the size of the smolt.
We have farming operations in eight sites in three fjords in the southern Westfjords of Iceland. All production is ASC certified. The total maximum allowed biomass is 23,700 tons. We have our harvesting plant in Bíldudalur that is BRC certified, a food safety standard, and has a capacity of 30,000 tons per year. We sell all our fish through our internal sales team out to the domestic and the global markets. Before we dive into the details, let me say a few words about the current status and the outlook. In quarter three, we have successfully stabilized the biology after a rather challenging winter and spring this year. We have released more smolts into our pens, and we have recorded good growth in the biomass.
We have been able to control the sea lice situation this year, and we have introduced two new vaccines on our smolts, which will reduce the risk of biological incidents going forward. We have also increased harvest volume somewhat compared to quarter two, and we expect the growth to continue into quarter four. But we still have a way to go before we fully return back to normal levels, which likely will be in the second or second half of next year. Now, let us take a closer look into the quarterly numbers. In quarter three 2024, Icelandic Salmon harvested 1,750 tonnes compared to 4,040 tonnes in quarter three 2023. We continued harvesting on the autumn 2023 generation. The harvest volume was affected by optimization of the MAB and also the sea lice situation in autumn 2023.
We see improved results compared to previous years on the smolts that we put out to sea this year, especially when it comes to survival rate. The EBIT for the quarter ended at -EUR 3 million. This is affected by low revenues due to low volume and also high cost due to low capacity utilization in the harvest plant and well boat, even though we see a reduction from quarter two on the cost. There was a one-off due to mortality in sea of EUR 0.4 million. This mortality was in the beginning of the quarter and was the ending of the challenges we experienced in first half 2024. Then an update on the license status. The 10,000-tonne license in Ísafjarðardjúp of sterile salmon was revoked in quarter three by the Environmental and Natural Resources Board of Appeal.
The main reason the Board of Appeal revoked the license was due to Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority's MAST did not provide a comprehensive weighted assessment of the potential increased risk of spread of diseases and parasites. We are now working towards the authorities to get a new approval for this license again. We are currently in a process to establish bigger sites for better MAB utilization. This has been a process that has taken quite a long time, and we have not planned for a final decision before the end of 2025. We hopefully have it in hand at that point, but utilization of these sites will be a bit later. Our application for 4,500 tonnes in Arnarfjörður is still with the authorities. Due to political disagreement, the government has called for a new election in November 2024. How this will affect the new law proposal is unclear.
Will the new majority of the government and the new minister take up again and continue with what has been proposed, or will they start from scratch on a new law proposal? We don't know that, so we will have to come back when we have more information. The company will therefore work under current legislation until a new law proposal is made and this clears out. It's worth mentioning that salmon farming has become a significant contribution to the Icelandic economy and is year to date, end of September, 5% of all value of exported goods from Iceland is farmed salmon. If we look at the sales and marketing update, we saw a good price achievement compared to market price. This is a result of great performance of our sales team, high average weight over harvested fish, above market average.
There was a lack of six kilo plus fish in the market and a high superior share of 95% and increased sales to North America and Asia. If you look at the North American market first, that has been significantly stronger in quarter three compared to the first half of the year. Price relative to spot prices in Europe were more favorable and our harvest weights were well suited for the market, giving us a chance to greatly increase the share sold to North America, which ended at 25% of our volume for quarter three. The Asian market also had a strong demand for six kilo plus fish at favorable prices. 18% of our volume was sold to Asia, and we are normally around 5%, so a big increase there.
The increased volumes to other markets than Europe is partly on air freight and partly on boat shipments to North America. Improvements in our harvest plant have made it possible to increase the volume of air packed boxes, which gives big opportunity for more air freight. The contract share in quarter three was 13%, and the contract gave a positive contribution to the price achievement. I will then give the word to our CFO, Jónas Heiðar Birgisson. Welcome, Jónas.
Thank you, Björn Hembre. Good morning, everyone. I will now provide an overview of our key operational and financial developments. Despite some continuing biological challenges that persisted into the third quarter and the quarter with a low harvest volume, the situation stabilized by the end of the quarter. As already mentioned by Björn, the third quarter was used to build up the company's biological assets. This, in return, is the main driver for the increased asset base. When we look at the financial position at the end of the quarter, the equity ratio was reduced to 54%, mostly due to weaker operational results. Net interest-bearing debts increased as we continue to build up the biological assets. Regarding our bank facilities, we have a credit facility in place to support our growth ambitions and plans moving forward.
The main driver of our increased net interest-bearing debt is increased working capital, mainly due to the buildup of biological assets during this low harvesting period. Additionally, we continued investing in line with our strategy to expand our harvest volume up to 26,000 tonnes per year, and this included buying seawater equipment and finalizing projects in our smolt facilities. We expect that the smolt facilities will be fully operational within the first half of next year. Paid taxes amounted to EUR 1 million during the period. That's including EUR 860,000 in resource taxes on the harvest volume for the first six months of the year. This brings the net interest-bearing debt, including lease liabilities, to EUR 89 million at the end of the quarter. I will now hand the presentation back over to Björn Hembre.
Thank you, Jónas. A short operational update then. In quarter three, we saw an increased harvest volume compared to the very low volumes in quarter two. The volume is still below normal levels, but we expect to see a significant higher volume in quarter four. Stable biology in sea during quarter three has, even though the sea temperature has been one degree lower this summer than in 2023. We have had good control on the sea lice with the use of non-medical and medical delousing. In quarter two 2025, we will implement even further preventive measures by starting using Stingray laser in one of our sites in quarter two next year, in addition to lumpfish and lice skirts that we are already using. All smolts put into sea this year are vaccinated against ISA and an extra vaccine against winter wounds to reduce the biological risk.
We see an improved performance on the smolts put into sea this year compared to previous years, especially when it comes to survival ratio. We expect to start harvest on the 24 generation in Q3 2025. We still see a strong demand for high-quality Icelandic Salmon in the market, both for the quality, the origin, and the sustainability features. Now, let me conclude on our outlook for Q4 24 and for 25. We are confident in the position that we have built and in our ability to deliver and support Iceland, its efforts to become an even greater seafood nation. We have built a long-term ambition and potential to increase production within existing licenses and current regulatory framework to 26,000 tonnes per year. This can be achieved because we are building a company with a robust corporate culture and with a committed and highly competent staff.
We have also patiently enhanced our value chain to address and overcome challenges related to smolt capacity, production in sea, harvesting capacity, and sales. In the short term, our volume guidance for 2024 is 13,000 tonnes. This total volume for the year is much affected by the challenging situation we were through in October-November 2023, where we lost a significant amount of our fish. But you will understand from our guidance for the year that the volumes for Q4 are expected to increase significantly compared to the first three quarters. The biological challenges in the first half this year will affect the harvest volumes in 2025. Mitigating measures have been put in place to address the challenges we experienced. Volume guidance for 2025 is 15,000 tonnes, where the majority of the volume is expected to be harvested in the second half of the year.
We expect a decrease in underlying costs in quarter four because of better utilization of capacity due to higher volumes and a stable production that we saw in Q3 this year. The contract share for quarter four is expected to be 11% and approximately 12% for full year 2024. I would then also like to use the opportunity at the end of this presentation and thank all dedicated employees of Arnarlax for their huge effort made to take the company forward. We will then move over to the Q&A session, so I hope you all will follow us there. And please send us questions to questions@arnarlax.is. And I also want to thank you all for watching the presentation. So we move then to the Q&A session.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this Q&A session for the third quarter of 2024.
My name is Björn Hembre, and I will be managing the questions today. We will try to answer all the questions that are sent in, and you can still continue to send in questions to questions@arnarlax.is. Yes, we have already some questions here. One from Kristoffer Haugland from Arctic to Björn. How many smolts will you release in 2024 and 2025, respectively?
For 2024, we ended at approximately five million smolts. We will not do any guidance on the smolts output for next year, but we expect an increase for next year compared to this year.
Okay. And then we have one question here from Christian Olsen Nordby, Kepler Cheuvreux. Is your smolt yield assumption substantially different in 2025 versus 2024?
I would not maybe say substantially different, but as I said in the presentation, we will have most of the harvest the second half of the year, and that is because we want to utilize our maximum allowed biomass as good as possible, and that is the same process we have been through this year, and that's why we have highest volumes in quarter four, so I think it will be quite similar, actually.
Okay. And I have here a question. Will the revoke of Ísafjarðardjúp license impact the potentials of reaching 26,000 tons?
The sterile license in Ísafjörður is not a part of the plan to reach 26,000 tonnes. So that will be an additional volume if we get the license and decide to do the sterile production. So it will not affect the 26,000 tonnes.
Okay. And then a follow-up question on the 26,000 tonnes. When are we expecting to reach the 26,000 tonnes on the current licenses?
We haven't said any exact year there, but we expect it to happen in the few coming years. So yeah, we're working hard for that.
Okay. Then I have a question here on the biological challenges. Are you worried about the string jellyfish as a challenge in Iceland, which has been impacting Norway a lot?
Yeah, we have been observing what's happening in Norway, and we have done some research on the presence of this string jellyfish. And there is no documentation that that has appeared in Iceland ever in history. Through the dialogue with the Marine Research Institute, we got that information. So of course, we are worried, but it has not been here so far. But of course, we will monitor this going forward as well.
Okay, and another one on the biological challenges. How far down the line do you expect to see the effect of the biological challenges that are expected the first half of this year?
As I said in the presentation, it will affect 2025 volumes, which is lower than we, of course, hoped for with the 15,000 tonnes. But there is nothing that has happened so far that should affect the 2026 volumes. So we should be back on track in 2026.
Okay, then one question here to Jónas regarding taxes. What is the level of resource taxes in Iceland today?
The resource taxes are 3%, but it's calculated from prior year average prices. With the full implementation of the resource taxes as it goes in steps, it will be at 4.3% in 2026. That said, we paid for the first six months of this year's harvest of 3,700 tonnes somewhere around about EUR 860,000. It's not representing the operational performance as such.
Okay. Now, it seems like we don't have any more questions. So I would just like to thank you all for being here with us today and see you next time. Have a lovely day.