Good morning. Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's third quarter presentation 2022. My name is Henning Beltestad. I'm CEO of Lerøy Seafood Group, and with me today I have Sjur Malm, CFO. First of all, I will start with presenting our fantastic value chain. Our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood. The last 20 years, we have done huge investments to build this value chain, both for red fish and white fish. Two months ago, we had a capital market day in Norway. I think it was 22nd of September, where we presented ambitious goal for Lerøy Seafood Group.
We have a target of 2030 of NOK 50 billion, and we have an ambitious goal for reducing emissions by 46% within 2030. For us, it's important to have the best framework available to go in this direction. One week after the presentation, we got a shock from the Norwegian government that proposed to implement a new resource tax with an additional 40% tax on profits generated in the open sea phase of farming.
The proposal has immediate and long-term negative effects for the industry, which includes significant reduction in investment, as well as making it basically impossible to do contracts. Hearing on the proposal until 4th of January, with the tax concluded in parliament probably before summer 2023. The tax will take effect from 1st of January .
The process adds significant uncertainty. Lerøy has invested significantly also in human capital to build an integrated value chain that you saw earlier, a value chain that meet customer need and drive demand for salmon. The proposal is challenging for integrated business models and has a significant risk of lowering the demand for Norwegian salmon. We mean that this tax is extremely destroying for the industry for Lerøy and we are today presenting this also in Norwegian to the authorities to better understand what the consequences of this tax will be for the whole industry and also for Lerøy. To show this fantastic value chain, I will show you a movie.
It lasts for three minutes, which I think is probably the most efficient and sustainable value chain for salmon. This is an example starting in a shop in Bergen and go all the way back to roe. This shows the unique value chain and also the investments needed to develop these kinds of value chains to secure the customers out there in the markets of both competitiveness and also the best sustainable solutions. Enjoy.
When we look ahead, determined to give you the most sustainable salmon possible, we need to rethink the entire value chain. We need to make every step smarter and even more efficient. We are not there yet, but we are on the right track because here you see the salmon of the future.
Highlights in the quarter. You just seen our fantastic value chain, and now we will go in and look at the results for the Lerøy Seafood Group and also the different segments that you see in the value chain. First of all, it's been a record high turnover this quarter. The EBIT also is up 44% compared to same quarter last year. EBIT all-inclusive on salmon and trout of NOK 14 per kilo. We see after a difficult period for VAP Sales and Distribution, the first half of the year with extreme price developments, it's been challenging for this segment. We see now that with lower prices. We see a good improvement in this segment.
The total harvest volume is estimated to be 202,000 ton for 2023. We see a very positive development in Wild Catch. As I mentioned, we got the resource tax proposed by the Norwegian government 28th of September. If we look at the EBIT, totally, we had an EBIT of NOK 831 million, and it's been on a stable level for the last four quarters. As you know, we report in three segments, Farming, Wild Catch, VAP, Sales and Distribution.
First of all, we take the Farming highlights. We have had a quarter with volatile prices and with a significant reduction compared to third quarter 2022. I will come back to that afterwards. We also in this see in this this quarter that there has been a huge price difference from beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter. That can affect the different regions with when they took out the volume in the quarters. The EBIT in farming increased from 7.6 to 14.1 NOK per kilo in third quarter.
Contract share of 37% and the contract prices is below the spot prices in the quarter. We see a strong development in Lerøy Aurora, while some challenges in particular in the Lerøy Sjøtroll. We expect the volume for 2022 of 175,000 ton. Inflationary trends bring year-to-date cost increase, but small cost reduction for quarter- on- quarter.
If we look at the EBIT farming also, it's been NOK 791 million EBIT in third quarter, which is down compared to second quarter 2022. If you look at the different operations, we have Lerøy Aurora. We have seen a strong biological performance, a significant quarter-on-quarter decrease in cost. Cost is higher than last year, but lower than inflationary trends, so a very good development in Lerøy Aurora, and they are really back on track. We expect for this year 40,000 ton, and for next year, we expect 46,000 ton. The achieved EBIT per kilo in this quarter is NOK 17.3. We slaughtered 15,600 tons.
If we look at Lerøy Midt, we have had a fairly okay quarter but some challenges. Quarter-on-quarter reduction in cost, but increase in cost compared to last year, but lower than inflationary trend. More challenging biological situation impacts harvest volume in 2022 and also 2023. We had to take out some batches at a lower average weight than what were expected. We expect a volume of 68,000 tons in 2022 and 66,000 tons in 2023.
We had an EBIT per kilo of NOK 19, so it's a fairly good performance in this quarter, but of course much lower than second quarter 2022 of NOK 23. Harvested volume is 22,000 tons in this quarter. If we look at Lerøy Sjøtroll, it's been a challenging biological quarter. High number of treatments impacts the growth of the fish, and also in some areas, we had to take out the fish with a lower average weight. There's been unfortunately a cost increase quarter-on-quarter, and it's also been some challenges into the fourth quarter.
We expect harvest volume of 66,000 tons for this year and 2022 we expect 68... No, in 2023, 68,000 tons. The harvested volume in a quarter is 18,600 tons and we had an EBIT per kilo of NOK 5.70, which is well below the second quarter EBIT of NOK 27. The last couple of years, we've seen operational improvements in Lerøy Sjøtroll, but unfortunately this quarter, we have had more biological issues that made this, you know, a quarter below our expectation. We will be back on track.
Then in Norskott Havbruk owned 50% by Lerøy and SalMar had a challenging quarter in third quarter. The result is negatively impacted by environmental issues related to micro jellyfish and gill health, low average harvest weight of fish, and a contract level of 44%.
We expect the harvest volumes to be 38,000 tons, which is reduced by 8,000 tons due to the biological challenges that we had in third quarter. That will also affect the volumes in 2023, and we expect a harvest volume of 43,000 tons in Scotland. We harvested 11,290 tons in the quarter, had an EBIT of NOK 4.2 compared to NOK 20 in second quarter 2022.
If we look at the farming volumes for the group, we see about 175,000 tons in Norway and 90,000 tons our share of Scottish Sea Farms gives us 194,000 tons totally, which is lower than 2021. The expectations for next year is 180,000 tons. 46,000 tons in Lerøy Aurora, which is up close to 6,000 tons. 66,000 tons in Lerøy Midt and 68,000 tons in Lerøy Sjøtroll. We have the plan for 2024 and 2025 up to 205,000 tons.
The main contributor to that volume will be Lerøy Midt, which opened the Belsvik 2 facility for post-smolt salmon, which is meant to give us the majority of the extra volume going forward. If we look at the highlights for Whitefish, it's been a good year to date. We have had year to date EBIT of NOK 357 million compared to NOK 267 million last year, and a good improvement in the catching. Also, now we see good improvements on the industry side, on the land side. We are very happy with the operational improvements that is done both on the boats and also in the factories. We have had record high catch values driven by higher prices, but partly offset by increased bunker and crude oil, and gradually more signs of improvement in the land-based industry. Remaining quotas below last year.
For the Wild Catch, this is the volume in the quarter. We had a total volume of about 15,000 tons compared to 12,000 tons third quarter last year. Year to date, we had 58,000 tons compared to 54,000 tons last year. We have a remaining quota of 15,000 tons compared to 29,000 tons remaining quota 2021. On VAP Sales and Distribution, as we said, it's been a challenging first half with extreme volatile prices and also high prices that affected this segment. We also see in this quarter we had volatile prices which negatively impacted this segment also partly in third quarter. We see a margin improvement and that we are back on track in this segment again, going out of third quarter and into fourth quarter.
We really believe that, you know, our operational improvements in all facilities will continually go better step by step going forward. This shows our sales and processing operation now span more than 14 countries. Sjur will take us through the key financial highlights for the quarter.
Yes, thank you, Henning. Key driver in these days is obviously inflation, which we see in higher prices, but we also see in higher cost and higher working capital build. If you look into our profit and loss statement, we can see that we have the highest revenue of all time, which is up 18% from last year. That is driven by higher prices. If you look into the contributors of the operating result, starting with the salmon trout integrated value chain. The EBIT all-inclusive here is NOK 14 compared to NOK 9.60 last year. We see that that margin is on a similar harvest volume.
The drivers in the margin is that we see higher costs. This includes the result downstream. In downstream, we have a lower result per kilo than last year. We also see a significant cost increase in the Farming operation, around NOK 3.5 per kilo due to feed. Around NOK 1 per kilo due to cost after the sea phase, which is driven by high energy cost both in terms of electricity, but also in terms of bunkers cost for fuel for the well boats. Despite then the higher cost and the lower result per kilo downstream, we see that the margin is up, and that is a reflection of a higher price realization.
In the Wild Catch, Q3 is a seasonal low, but we had a good catching quarter. Prices remains high, and we see that we have a slightly higher margin than last year, and then a slightly better result. In sum, these drivers give us the operating result or EBIT of NOK 831 million, which is up 44% from last year. Income from associate is down, and Henning has already explained the key asset there, Norskott Havbruk. We see that we have an earnings per share before value adjustment of just shy of NOK compared to 0.74 last year.
Key discussion in Norwegian media these days is obviously related to the resource taxation and the fact that Lerøy has sent out warnings that we may temporarily lay off close to 350 employees in the value-added business due to the fact that we lack contracts, and those contracts are impossible to enter into due to the new tax proposal. In relation to that, we get a lot of questions then from Norwegian media on how we can make quarterly profits like this and still do temporary layoffs. I think it's important for us to highlight the amount of investments, and that was well highlighted in the video we showed. We can see the total assets today in Lerøy is just shy of NOK 37 billion.
Obviously, firstly, we have to compare the operating results to also investments. We have made significant investments the last 20 years into creating the world's most efficient value chain. If you compare operating profit compared to that, it's difficult to see massive evidence of super profit. We believe this quarter shows we have a decent profitability, and that profitability must obviously be seen with investments. When it comes to contracts, Henning has already and will comment upon that later. Other key items in this balance sheet is the impact of inflation and higher prices, and we see that very clearly in the working capital items. We can see that feed cost is a key driver to why the inventory efficiency is significantly higher in cost this year compared to last year.
We see our inventory is up. We see customer receivable is up. In sum, we have a massive actually working capital build this year. Yet to date, it amounts to close to NOK 1.3 billion. That shows, and this balance sheet shows the high capital need of this industry. We believe we have a strong balance sheet, net interest-bearing debt of NOK 4.4 billion and equity ratio of 56%. On cash flow and have shown us changes in net interest-bearing debt in the quarter. The key item this year is the build of working capital, which year to date amounts to NOK 1.3 billion. In that, it's important to remember that last year we released more than NOK 500 million in working capital.
This is partially a catch-up year from post-COVID and partially effect of higher prices and activity. We have already commented upon key drivers for the EBITDA. If you look on changes in working capital, it's less this quarter than the average per quarter yet to date, but it's still a working capital build. If you look on CapEx is close to last year, and this is investments needed to run our whitefish and redfish operations and do some more improvements. You see the net finance impact. We have reduced our net interest-bearing debt slightly this quarter, and we expect a bigger reduction in the fourth quarter. A key topic in Norway these days is obviously the resource tax. Not obviously, not from anyone, but from some.
In media, we get the impression that this industry is not paying tax. That is obviously wrong. This industry is paying normal corporate tax in Norway. In addition to that, we pay significantly more. The discussion on the resource tax is not if we should pay tax, it's how much more than normal industry we should pay in tax. Today, we pay in addition to normal corporate tax, obviously property tax, we have the production fee, we have an export fee, and we also have the auction for new licenses, which is basically resource tax on new capacity. If you look on the last three to four years, the additional tax beyond corporate tax out of this industry is more than NOK 14 billion. We're already paying more than average Norwegian company.
From there is a discussion on what other ripple effects do we see beyond tax? This slide gives some numbers on that. Obviously, we have a high number of own employees in Norway. This was 2021, just over 3,000 employees. Our operation also interacts in total in 16 municipalities we operate directly. In 2021, we bought goods from 4,500 suppliers worth NOK 13 billion. The ripple effects when it comes to number of employees of our footprint in Norway is estimated around 13,000 employees. Value creation estimated by Menon Economics is close to NOK 16 billion from our operation.
Obviously, the idea behind any tax is to reduce corporate availability of cash and increase government availability of cash. We think it's important to remember that this industry has huge ripple effects in Norway, and that this taxation gives increased risk to those ripple effects. With that, Henning, I give the word back to you.
Thank you, Sjur. We will go to look into our outlook and what we expect going forward. I can say that it's not that easy now to predict what the future is going to be with the situation that we're facing right now. If we look at the 2022 supply, we see that there will be 0% growth in Norway this year. We believe that the situation will be a little bit lower than that. This, especially in the United Kingdom. We believe that this volume is higher. It's not taking in the situation that we've been facing, the industry that has been facing the last couple of months in 2022.
We look into 2023. We see a small increase of 1.3% in supply. Norway is up 2%. U.K. is up 8%. We don't believe that this will happen with the situation that we've seen lately in mainland. We see that also Chile is a little bit down, so a total of 1.3%. If we look at the price, we see you know a year behind us now that's been with extreme prices. Now the prices in the last quarter is more normalized. We see in third quarter it was NOK 69 , and so far in the fourth quarter it's also NOK 69.
After the highest price level ever in the second quarter of NOK 105. We see that it's challenging now with the levels of pricing for next year. A lot of uncertainty because of the proposed tax that might come, but still there is nothing decided. There will be a hearing process until fourth of January. The proposed tax is from first of January, but it will be concluded in next year's summer.
It's really challenging for us to predict what to do and to get orders for next year. If we look at the volumes in Norway, you see it's pretty flat compared to the volumes that we are facing this year. Worldwide, it's also a similar picture. If we look at the markets third quarter, we see EU up 5%, U.S. 3%, and other markets up 6%. We believe, you know, going forward, it's really challenging when it comes to farming. It's the discussions around the proposed resource tax that is complicated everything. We expect a contract share of fourth quarter of 38% and a contract share of 2023 of 1%. We expect the harvest volume, including share of associate, of 202,000 tons next year. We believe that the inflationary trend will give higher cost in 2023, counterbalanced by operational improvements.
For the Wild Catch, a healthy profitability in 2022, likely development in 2023. The quotas, the cod is down at, the proposed is 20% down, haddock 5%, saithe up 15%, and saithe north 15% up, and saithe south 90% up. We believe in improved EBIT margin expected from fourth quarter 2022 for VAP, Sales and Distribution. Resource tax is a challenge for us and gives us less predictability going forward. It will be interesting to see how the demand impact will be, or in lack of contract, is still difficult to evaluate. We need to work hard together with the customers to find the best solution for both parties in the way to go forward.
In short term, to manage the implication of the proposed resource tax is head of our agenda at the moment. Again, our fantastic value chain, we are building step by step, improving and will also invest for the future in the whole value chain. Thank you very much.