Welcome, everyone. Thank you for taking time to watch this Q4 presentation for Icelandic Salmon. My name is Björn Hembre, and with me today I have Jónas Heiðar Birgisson and Hjörtur Methúsalemsson . After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session, and you can send your questions to question@arnarlax.is anytime during this session. First, a brief overview of Icelandic Salmon AS. Most of you probably know that the company is listed on the Euronext Growth Market in Oslo and on the Nasdaq First North Market in Reykjavík. The company is the sole owner and parent company of Arnarlax. All operational activities of the group are performed in Arnarlax ehf. We are present throughout the value chain from smolt to harvesting. We have four smolt facilities with a current capacity of 7-8 million smolts, depending on the smolt size.
We have farming operations in eight sites in three fjords in the West Fjords of Iceland, and all production is ASC certified. Total maximum allowed biomass for the company is 23,700 tons, and we have a harvesting plant in Bíldudalur in the Westf jords of Iceland. The harvest plant is BRC certified and has a capacity of 30,000 tons per year. We do all our sales via internal sales team 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 Q4, we had a stable biology and were able to utilize the maximum allowed biomass over license in Arnarfjörður quite well. We finalized the smolt output in October, and we have recorded good growth in the biomass. We have been able to control the sea lice situation.
We have also increased the harvesting volume significantly compared to Q3, and we expect low volumes in Q1. We still have a way to go before we fully return to more normal harvest volume levels, which is likely to be in the second half this year. Now, let's take a closer look on the highlights from the quarter. We have worked our way through a challenging period, and in the Q4, we saw the results of our efforts: higher harvest volumes than in the previous quarters, a more stable biological situation, and a good control of the lice in sea. In the quarter, we harvested 6,455 tons compared to 7,290 tons in Q4 2023. There was a satisfying superior share of the harvested volume of 94%. The harvesting in the quarter reflects good MAB utilization over license in Arnarfjörður.
For the full year 2024, we harvested 11,676 tons compared to 17,919 tons in 2023. The decrease in volume, both quarterly and annually, is related to biological challenges experienced in Q4 2023 and the first half of 2024. We finalized harvesting on the autumn 2022 generation and achieved a high harvested average rate to optimize the MAB utilization. The biological results on the spring 2022 generation showed good and improved results when it comes to growth, mortality, and feed conversion ratio. The autumn 2022 generation did not show the same, mainly because of mortality and culling related to lice outbreak in the autumn 2023. From the site Ringstaðir with spring 2022 generation, we harvested during 2023 and 2024 11,000 tons from that site. When we did the environmental sampling at the peak biomass, it showed the best condition possible. A good performance on that site.
We see good results on smolts put out in 2024, especially on larger smolt put out in the spring. We expect to start harvest on the 2024 generation in Q3 2025. The EBIT for the quarter ended at EUR 1.4 million. The cost level reflects the before-mentioned biological challenges, which resulted in lower overall production and thereby higher cost per kilo. The quarter included a one-off cost of EUR 600,000 related to mortality at one of our smolt facilities due to a pox virus outbreak. While this has been an ongoing challenge, we are seeing a positive development. The issue is not yet fully resolved, but many mitigating measures have been implemented with additional actions now underway. If we look at the licenses, the 10,000-tonne license for sterile salmon in Ísafjörður was revoked in Q3 by the Environmental and Natural Resources Board of Appeal.
The main reason for the revocation was that the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authorities did not provide a comprehensive weighted assessment of the potential increased risk of the spread of fish diseases and parasites. We are now currently working with the authorities to get a new approval for this license. We have some applications pending for approval. We are currently in a process to establish larger sites for better MAB utilization in Arnarfjörður. The process has taken longer time than anticipated, and we do not expect a final decision before the end of year 2025. We hopefully have the approval in place by then, but full utilization of these sites will take a bit longer. Our application for 4,500 tons of maximum allowed biomass in Arnarfjörður is still under review by the authorities.
There was a new parliamentary election in November 2024 in Iceland, resulting in a new government led by a Social Democratic Party and two other parties. The new government has expressed its intention to introduce an updated version of the new law proposal in Althingi during the fall legislative session, with a focus on ensuring a sustainable development of the salmon farming industry in Iceland. Until the law is in place, we and other companies in our industry will, of course, continue to operate under the current legislation. Salmon farming has become a significant contribution to the Icelandic economy and represented 6% of the value of all goods exported from Iceland in 2024. The new law proposal will be crucial to ensuring a continued sustainable growth of the industry in Iceland.
If we look at the sales and marketing, we can report a quarter with strong price performance compared to the market and continued strong demand for our salmon. This is a result of great performance of our sales team. We achieved a high average weight on our harvested fish and reported an average weight of 5.2 kg gutted weight in the quarter. If we compare to the Norwegian market average size, which ended at a record low 3.9 kg average, according to official statistics from the Directorate of Fisheries, based on that, we are even prouder of our achievements. During the period, we observed a lack of 6 kg plus fish in the market and with a superior share of 95% of our volume in this category. We also saw a continued high sales to North America and Asia.
The North American market was strong in Q4 compared, same as we saw in Q3. Price relative to spot prices in Europe were more favorable, and our harvest weights were well suited for that market, giving us a chance to greatly increase the share sold to North America. 18% of our volume in the quarter was sold to North America. The Asian market also had a strong demand for 6 kg plus fish and at favorable prices. 13% of our volume was sold to Asia. The percentage is down from 18% in Q3, but the volume is up from 307 tons in Q3 to 786 tons in Q4. This increased volume to other markets than Europe is partly on air freight and partly boat shipments to North America.
Improvements in our harvest plant have made it possible to increase volume of air-packed boxes, which is beneficial for the air transport, of course. The contract share in Q4 was 11%, and the contracts gave a positive contribution to the price achievement. I will then give the word to our CFO, Jónas Heiðar Birgisson. So, welcome, Jónas.
Thank you, Björn. Good morning, everyone. I will now provide a quick overview of our key operational and financial developments for the Q4. Before we begin the overview, I would like to note that the 2024 consolidated annual report for Icelandic Salmon will be available on the group's website, arnarlax.is, on April 25th. I'm pleased to announce that the group has reached an agreement with DNB and Danske Bank for additional sustainability-linked financing of EUR 65 million, which increases the group's loan facility up to EUR 160 million. This funding will support the group's operational and biological growth going forward, following a challenging period that started at the end of 2023 and followed us through the first half of 2024. Other than the extension of our financial agreement, there were no special extraordinary items to report on the group's balance sheet during the quarter.
It was a relatively ordinary quarter with changes in the group's balance, mainly due to limited investments, mostly directed to smolt facilities. These assets declined, and depreciation exceeded the amount of new investments. A high harvesting volume during the quarter led to a decrease in biological assets and increase in trade receivables. Total assets ended the year at EUR 263 million. The group's liability decreased primarily in current liabilities driven by a reduction in tax liability and trade payables, while non-current liabilities increased due to higher interest-bearing debt and tax liabilities. Total liabilities ended the year at EUR 113 million. Our equity ratio improved following a positive operational performance, and net interest-bearing debt, including leasing, decreased over the quarter. The main driver of our decreased net interest-bearing debt is positive EBITDA and positive change in our working capital after a high harvesting period during the quarter.
We continued our investments with continued focus on smolt facilities and seawater equipment. The investments in our smolt facilities were, among other, connected to get our facility in Laxabraut in operation, which is planned in April this year. Paid taxes amounted to EUR 3.2 million in corporate taxes. This brings the net interest-bearing debt, including lease liability, to EUR 88.7 million at the end of the quarter, or down by EUR 2.5 million over the period. I will now hand the presentation back over to Björn Hembre for operational updates.
Thank you, Jónas. In Q4, we saw an increased harvest volume compared to Q3. The harvest was mainly controlled by the maximum allowed biomass utilization of our license in Arnarfjörður. In October, we reached a record high volume through our harvest plant of 3,000 tons in a month. We saw a stable biological situation in sea during Q4, even though the sea temperature has been 1 degree Celsius lower over the quarter than average from previous years. We saw a decrease in cost compared to previous quarters. This was mainly related to better utilization of capacities like harvest plant and sales, but also a positive development on cost in seawater production. There was a good control of the lice with use of non-medical and medical de-licing.
In Q2 2025, we will implement even further preventive measures by starting using Stingray laser in addition to lumpfish and lice skirts that we are already using as preventive measures. We continued to experience some challenges with the pox virus and an outbreak in one of our smolt facilities in the quarter. We have seen a positive development as the consequences were less severe than in previous outbreaks. That is due to the mitigating measures we have implemented, and we expect further improvements as we continue to apply new measures. This has shown not to be a quick fix, but a long-term work where we see effects of many mitigating measures giving results together over time. Now, at the end, let me conclude with our outlook for 2025.
We are confident in the solid position that we have built and our ability to deliver and support Iceland in its efforts to become an even greater seafood nation. Our long-term ambition and potential is to increase the production within existing licenses and current regulatory framework up to 26,000 tons per year. In 2025, we expect a significant increase in biomass over the course of the year, followed by a much better MAB utilization. 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.
Our volume guidance for 2025 is maintained at 15,000 tons, as previously guided, where a majority of the volume is expected to be harvested in the second half of 2025. This volume guidance is affected by the biological challenges that we experienced in Q1 and Q2 in 2024. However, in 2025, we expect to build significant biomass in sea and will, for the first time, fully utilize the maximum allowed biomass in our license in Patreksfjörður and Tálknafjörður. This is because we started to use a new site on that license for the smolt output in 2024. We expect an increase in underlying cost in Q1 and Q2 because of lower utilization of capacity reflected by the lower volume. However, we expect a lower cost second half of 2025, with full effect in Q4 when the volumes are ramped up.
For full year 2025, we expect a lower cost level than full year 2024, and this is driven by increased volume and lower feed cost. For Q1 2025, we expect a contract share of 10% and approximately 10% also for full year 2025. I would also like to use the opportunity to thank all the staff in Arnarlax for the contribution to these results that we now see that we are achieving. I will thank you all for taking the time to join us in this presentation, and we will now shortly head over to the Q&A session. You can still send questions to questions@arnarlax.is. We will take a short break, and I will see you soon. Thank you so far.
Okay. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Q&A session for the Q4 of 2024. My name is Hjörtur Methúsalemsson , and I will be managing the questions today, and we will try to answer all the questions that come in. You can still send in questions to questions@arnarlax.is, so yeah, looking forward to reading your questions. Jónas, could you elaborate on the financing agreement you mentioned in the presentation?
Yes. This is an extension to our current sustainable-linked financial agreement that we have with DNB and Danske Bank. It has increased the facility from EUR 95 million- EUR 160 million, so an additional EUR 65 million to our facility. Given the challenges that we've met over the last year and end of 2023 with high mortality both in seawater and freshwater, this facility comes as a crucial support for us to support us in our growth plans. This ensures that we can keep on track on reaching a harvest volume of 26,000 tons according to plan and, well, reducing the risk of any delays in those plans.
Okay. Yeah. I have a question to you, Björn. It's both from Oda Djupvik or Kristoffer Haugland that wonders the same. Although volumes are moved from Q4 to Q1, you did not increase the 2025 volume guidance. Should this be interpreted as challenges with production or conservative guiding?
I think we, based on the experience with the guided volume from last year, we have chosen to have a bit conservative approach to the guided volume for 2025. I was expecting that question, but that is the reason.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Another question from Oda Djupvik. What implications should we expect from the challenges with the pox virus in the smolt production? Will this impact the sea phase production?
As where we are today, we don't expect to see an effect on the smolt output for this year and going forward due to the pox outbreak. We have some surplus capacity on smolt production, and luckily, so then we seem to be in a position to maintain the output plans.
Okay. Excellent. Yeah. We have then a question here from Ola Trovatn. Do you need larger sites to reach the 26,000 tons harvest target?
It would be beneficial to have that, yes. We will be very, very close without us as well, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Another question from Ola. Do you expect average harvest weight above 5 kilos for the Q1 of 2025?
I don't think I'm in a position and should comment on that.
Okay. Okay. Do you plan on releasing 7 million smolts or more in 2025? That is also a question from Ola.
No, we do not plan to release seven or more. No, we don't.
Okay. Okay. I have a question here from Christian Olsen Nordby. He talks about that it makes sense to have larger smolts to harvest more fish in the first half than the second half. How do you see your smolt weight develop over the coming years?
We expect to be this year at around 250 g. When we have implemented the Laxabraut 5 that Jónas mentioned this year, we should have an average smolt weight of all our smolts, so 300 g.
Yes. Yeah. Excellent. I have a question here from Morten Nystrøm . Can you give any more colors on the biology to give us even more confidence that your challenges you witnessed last year are over?
Just referring to the biology we saw in Q4, that was quite promising and with good control on the sea lice and everything. It was a stable, good quarter, and we expect that to move on.
Yeah. Yeah. Morten has another question here as well. Given stable biology, what is the range for harvest in 2026 based on the biomass?
We could say something about that, but of course, we don't give any range, and the guidance is 15,000 tons. As I mentioned on one of the first questions, we maybe feel that it's a bit conservative, but we also think that we will deliver on that, and that's why we do it.
Yeah. Yeah. One question more. It was mentioned in the presentation that the smolt station Laxabraut 5 will be ready in April. What does that mean for your operations?
That's basically that we have finalized the smolt strategy 100%, and we will have a smolt output that is adapted to the MAB utilization to get to the 26,000 tons, and we get then the average weight for the smolts in total at 300 g, which then means we will put smolts into sea that is from 130-140 g up to 700 g. It will be a variation, but that is because of the utilization of the maximum allowed biomass.
Excellent. It seems we have gone over most of the questions, so I would just thank you for being here with us today and enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you.