Hello. Welcome to our Q2 presentation of Kaldvik 2024. My name is Guðmundur Gíslason, CEO of the company, and with me is our CFO, Róbert Róbertsson. To start with, we harvested only 514 tons in the quarter, and that is low volume to distribute fixed harvest and wellboat costs. EBIT had therefore a small negative in the quarter. We, on the other hand, increased our biomass in sea to 17,000 tons at the end of the quarter, and standing biomass now is well over 22,000 tons. We can also state that our fish, both on land and sea, have never in the history of the company been in better shape. We did a listing of the company in the quarter and the capital markets day on the East Coast this spring.
That was a good step for the company to open the doors for investors in Iceland and other markets. We now aim to harvest this year around 17,500 tons. That gives us an opportunity to move more volume to first half of 2025, and even now, the harvesting volume better. We therefore can achieve more growth and better prices. This is possible due to our big MAB licenses and confidence in our farming capacity. Smolt output this year will be increased, both in number and sizes. Róbert?
Good morning. Here we have highlights from the quarter. As expected and guided in last quarter, Kaldvik harvested limited volumes in the second quarter, or roughly 500 tons. This explains the negative EBIT, group EBIT, as we have fixed costs related to our harvesting sectors. The good news is that this is the last quarter, hopefully for a long time, that we are harvesting limited volumes. And I can say that the farming sector of the company had positive EBIT. Here you can see financial summary. The graph here on the left demonstrate the development of total assets. Total assets increased by NOK 220 million during the quarter. Investments in working capital and CapEx make up the majority of the asset increase.
The book value of biological assets increased as well and ended at around NOK 1.5 billion. Total liabilities increased by NOK 380 million during the quarter, mainly due to financing of CapEx from previous quarters and financing of biological investments. Our financial health remains robust, with 61% equity ratio. Here you can see a high-level analysis of the net interest-bearing debt, which increased by NOK 192 million during the quarter. EBITDA reached NOK 14 million. Net investments in working capital, particularly in biological assets, amounted to NOK 126 million. CapEx investments amounted to NOK 81 million, and we keep CapEx guidance of NOK 290 million for 2024.
Financial items amounted to NOK 41 million , where finance cost of NOK 35 million is the main contributor. Finally, the currency fluctuation during the quarter impacted our interest bearing debts and could decrease the net interest-bearing debt by NOK 42 million . Kaldvik activated incremental borrowing of EUR 3.5 million during the quarter. This borrowing is split into EUR 12 million financing of or revolving facility or financing of our biological assets, and EUR 11.5 million in CapEx facility. Kaldvik is fully financed through 2025, with bank facility of EUR 180 million . Net loans from the bank syndicate amounted to NOK 138 million , sorry, EUR 138 million at the end of the quarter.
Like we mentioned, Kaldvik carried out a listing of the company, company shares on Nasdaq First North Iceland in May. And this was done in addition to our previous listing on Euronext Growth Oslo. The dual listing was approved at the same date as we, as the company's capital market day, 28th of May, and the first day of trading was the day after, 29th of May. So no offering of shares was carried out in the dual listing, and the dual listing did not have any impact of numbers of outstanding shares in the company. So...
Thank you, Robert. And it was certainly an enjoyable day listing the company in Iceland. And, on that, we started that week actually transporting smolt, and we managed in the quarter to transport about 3.4 million smolts, with an average weight around 450 grams, and the biggest groups around 800 grams. The big news there is that we managed to shorten time to deliver the smolt from the tanks to the wellboat by 50%. And this has a huge impact on the stress level for the fish. So we reduced stress and lowered mortality, and we see a significant changes of the health of the fish in the sea after the transport, and feeding has gone up 35% compared to generation 2023. This is a true game changer, spring.
We are so proud of our team on the land and that after so many years of adjusting and finding improvements, that this time we have managed to compile it all into a good successful transport. We are using satellite photos, for example, now to look at algae blooms in the sea. So when the wellboat is sailing from the land stations to the sites, then they need to travel for around 24 hours. And on the way, things can happen, and we have managed now to use these algae bloom photos to avoid or close the wells when we see them. This has been a huge benefit in the transport and welfare of the fish. We use the weather forecast and not travel or sail in bad weather.
And we have over 30 people making sure our smolt is handled gently and measurement over 50 parameters to follow up on each detail. I can say that I felt like watching Formula One when I visited the guys at the time when they were delivering the smolt to sea. Not necessarily the speed, but the determination and technology used. On top of this, we have now new vaccine on all the fish that is in sea, transported to sea this year, to increase survival on our cold seas. And this has already been recognized in the post-smolt tanks that have saltwater and part of the vaccine was handling some of the Moritella that was discovered at land-based stations. So we already seen big difference, and the fish is robust and healthy.
We are starting with our autumn smolt release in 14 days, and the team and the smolt has enjoyed good summer and ready for action. This is going to be the best transport season ever, we hope. On land, the continuous improvements are really showing results and also progress. We have new houses in Land South on operation, and then our operation on Land North, where we are building our G house, had a delay this winter due to a lot of snow. The facility now is being built together, and we hope to have it finished by the end of the year. Looking into sea, that is where things have been happening really fast now. Sea operation have been, though, quite relaxed. We have not had big issues that have come up.
We are breaking records on feeding every day now. This is happening even when the temperature in the sea has been a bit below average. It even snowed in the East Coast last week. Growth has been a bit slower than our plans in the beginning of the quarter, and we need to harvest smaller fish to keep up demand. Harvesting was done early in the quarter and then soft start end of the quarter. Therefore, we are finishing up a site that had not expected size and quality in the end of the quarter, and we harvested smaller fish in the end of the quarter. Yeah, it was a bit too early for that fish. This is a sacrifice on firm all-in-all-out strategy and demand from customers to have a weekly delivery.
We expect to see fantastic growth months ahead of us. AI cameras show we have now AI cameras in most of the cages where we have the bigger, bigger fish, and they show no sea lice. It's healthy fish with up to 96% superior. The company has never had such fantastic biology on land and sea. Generation 22 is the best performing gen up to now. It has already been 22 months in sea, or small smolt in in autumn 2022 September October release, and is now growing over 300 grams per week. Again, no sea lice on this fish and 96% superior. Biomass is increasing, and we see that our team is handling the increased work. We have now started hiring and training people for Sæsilfur that we plan to put out fish next year.
Due to our big licenses, we have possibility to move fish from Q3- Q4 and Q4- Q1, and therefore increase growth and make up slow start in the beginning of Q2. Then harvesting. Yes, 500 tons is just like few days of full harvest, so cost was high on this 500 tons. But like Robert said, hopefully, this is the last quarter we have such small volumes. We are in the quarter going to harvest full weeks and even on Sundays to deliver salmon fresh to the market. We are increasing volume on contracts as we have now more volume, and investigate new markets. For example, Asia, where we have not been able to supply until now, as the priority market has been USA.
And they, the market in Asia is preferable on 5+ , so we are looking forward to start building customers and send big smolts, big salmon to Asia. And as you can see, we have recovered quite strongly, and on track and in full production. Our aim is to reach milestone one of 30,000 tons. Looking into 17.5 this year, and 25-27 next year, and then gradually reach the 30,000 tons. And this means that we can move around 10,000 tons to the first half of 2025, and 50,000 tons rest of 2025. And this is much better spread for our customers and also utility of our equipment, both on land and sea, for harvesting, and therefore achieve higher prices and lower costs. And what does...
How do we go above the 30,000 tons? The company has already started looking at possibilities to build more biomass and harvest going forward. That is obvious. We have possibility to build capacity on land with bigger smolts, and with bigger smolts, you shorten time in sea, and therefore we could utilize the licenses up to 30% better. Sterile, we have 12,800 tons MAB license of sterile that we haven't started using, but we see opportunity there. We started with sterile back in 2022, and with a quite good success, and that's a opportunity we are looking into going further. Then optimizations of MAB licenses, that's like we are doing now, utilizing the licenses better, and that means more volume going forward.
These growth possibilities take time to learn and build up, and it's a path that we are on. But looking at the successful journey that we are on now, and focus on biology and all out, all in, all out strategies, and emphasizes on research and development and learning, that we will achieve our over 17,500 tons this year, and about 25,000-27,000 tons next year. The company is fully financed for 30,000 tons. We are looking at possibilities for further growth. We are the biggest salmon company in Iceland, and by that, my time as CEO is coming up and to an end, and the new CEO will take over first of September, just in five days, three days. Roy-Tore will present the results of quarter three.
I will take a new role in the company and lead sales going forward. The company is in good shape, currently over 22,000 tons in biomass in the sea, and I'm proud and especially thankful and to our employees. We started back in 2012 , just a few guys, and now we are over 200 , and hundreds of investors, thousands of customers, and we built up a new industry in Iceland, and producing healthy salmon, healthy food, healthy protein for the world with low footprint, and we can certainly be proud of it. And we are continue, and we see possibility of success going forward to reach the milestone one is well within reach.
We have a great story and great future, and I really want to thank to be able to take part of it. If you have questions, please go ahead. We have either on the chat or on the mic going forward.
Okay. We have a couple of questions. First, Martin asks, "What is the expected contract share in third quarter?
Yeah, the contract share, well, the volume of contracts is going to increase, as we have more fish, and the contract share is not going to be as big as we have had in the previous quarters, but it's growing.
Mm-hmm. And then we have questions from Ola. You cut the 2024 volume guidance by 4,000 tons and state that you move fish from second half of 2024 to first quarter 2025. However, you also cut 2025 volume guidance by 3,000-5,000 tons. Despite this, what is driving this underlying cut to volume? I don't believe that we gave any guidance for 2025 until now.
Yeah. Yeah, that has been not given out, but to explain it, as I explained in the presentation, that we had a bit of a slow start, and we also harvested smaller fish than we anticipated. So that is part of it. And then also, we are using the autumn now to catch up on growth. Usually our models are indicating better growth in the spring and then underestimating the growth in autumn. So this is a cautious plan, and we really also see possibilities to exploit better prices in Q1. But in general, yes, there are reduction in volume, and that is not good, and we are looking into possibilities to recover loss going forward with these quarter-to-quarter changes.
Okay. How many smolts will you release in total in 2024?
We haven't released that number yet, but it's, as we stated in the report, that we have. We'll have more smolts than last year. We transported around 5.4 million last year. And the status on land is looking really good, and we will give that number when they are seaborne in quarter three.
How will the post-smolt group with batch multiplication impact the company?
As I stated, the transfer to sea this year has been excellent, and the fish had started immediately eating. Years before, we saw that the fish was took a long time to recover after the transport, and that was then lower feeding on those fishes at that time. This is a change this year. We see through about 35% increased feeding on our transported smolt. So there are no issues with multiplications or post-smolts on the land as it is.
What is the expected harvest weight in Q3?
The expected harvest weight in Q3 is going up. We haven't given out the number, but this fish will be a standard size, we'd estimate.
Do you expect to achieve a premium price compared to the reference price in Norway in third quarter, or is this difficult with the increasing sales volumes?
It's getting more difficult with the increased sales volumes, as we are starting up again with more volume and finding new markets that prefer premium salmon. We are been able to increase the fixed contracts on the good prices, but the ratio is different than previously.
And then what is the fixed cost base related to harvesting per quarter?
So, we have been building up our harvesting capacity and invested quite significantly in the past years in our harvesting facility. On top of that, we have... So we basically have a fully functioning harvesting facility of 30,000 tonnes annually of one shift. That there are fixed costs relating to our harvesting facility. On top of that, we have long-term contracts for wellboats. So, when we are harvesting limited volumes, as is the case in this quarter, that results in a low group EBIT. So, yeah, I don't think I can be more specific than that going into the cost base. But we have fully functioning harvesting facility and looking forward to increased volumes going forward.
Questions?
I don't think so. Yeah. No, no questions. I think I have covered most of it.
Yes.
Yeah, all of it, actually.
So then, thank you for listening in and hope we keep on making records and feeding and building up the PMS and service our customers the best way we can. Thank you for today, and have a good afternoon.