Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's second quarter presentation 2025. My name is Henning Beltestad, I'm CEO in the company, and with me today I have Sjur Malm, CFO. First of all, I will take you through the highlights in the quarter, and then Sjur will take you through the key financial highlights, then I will come back and talk a little bit about the outlook going forward. Our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood, and we are very proud of the value chain that we have developed. This gives us great opportunities going forward. Our fully integrated value chain is our competitive advantage. We mean that we deliver value for our customers which are seeking sustainability, health, quality, traceability, stability, availability, and convenience.
Our value proposition is speed and cost efficiency, reliability and trust, product and category innovation, traceability and quality assurance, and clear ESG commitments. Highlights of the quarter: strong biological performance, spot prices for salmon and trout well below last year, group contract share of 30%, supporting both farming and VAP sales and distribution. Record high earnings in VAP sales and distribution segments, low quotas in wild catch offset by significant price increase, and positive cost development in farming. In the quarter, we have paid out the dividend of NOK 2.5 per share paid in the quarter. We have had an operational EBIT of NOK 680 million compared to NOK 906 million same quarter last year. We are reporting in three segments: farming, wild catch, VAP sales and distribution, and we will go into some details of the quarter in the different segments. We start with the farming highlights.
The spot prices for salmon are about NOK 30 lower compared to the same quarter last year, which of course has affected us in this quarter. We still have managed to keep a good profit in this segment, especially with subcontract shares. Improvement in biology showing results, the highest net production in sea in the second quarter, high survival rate, higher superior share, higher average harvest weights, and declining costs. That's on the positive side. The biological development in the start of Q3 is a little bit more challenging following high seawater temperatures. We keep our guidance of 195,000 ton. Shielded technology continues to show good results. In this quarter, we harvested about 49,000 ton compared to 36,000 ton last year. A good increase in volume.
If we go into the different regions or companies, we start with Lerøy Aurora and Noth, very strong biological development, both in growth, survival rates, superior share, and continued high license utilization. We see a significant cost decrease compared to the quarter before and expect a slight decrease going forward versus expectation of a slight decrease. The cost expected for the third quarter is at the same level as the second quarter. Also here, we see high seawater temperatures, especially in the beginning of the third quarter, but so far the measures against sea lice appear to improve the situation versus last year. The estimated harvest volume is 50,000 tons. The volume harvested in the second quarter is 11,000 tons in 2025 compared to 5,000 tons in 2024. The operational EBIT is NOK 18.9 million compared to NOK 37 million in the second quarter of 2024.
Lerøy Midt, also a strong biological performance in this quarter. Record net growth, high survival rates, continued high license utilization, and also we see improvement in superior share compared to the same quarter in 2024. As expected, a quarter increase in cost. Also here, high seawater temperatures and challenges in the start of Q3, expect cost at the same level quarter on quarter in the third quarter. Estimated harvest volume is 75,000 tons. If we look at the harvest volumes, it's close to 70,000 tons compared to about 16,000 tons last year. EBIT per kilo of NOK 11.5 compared to NOK 37.5 last year. Lerøy Sjøtroll, also here a strong biological improvement. Record net growth, high survival rate, high superior share, and continued high license utilization.
In this quarter, 47% of the volume is trout, where we had a realized trout price for the group of less NOK 2 lower than salmon in the quarter. It's been a decrease in cost compared to the first quarter, and we expect the cost at the same level. That's a good thing. We will see going forward, we expect a cost increase compared to the second quarter. Also here, we have some risk when it comes to temperatures, the increase in July and August. Estimated harvest volume of 70,000 tons in 2025. Harvested volume of 21,000 tons compared to about 16,000 tons in the second quarter last year, and an EBIT value chain of NOK 9.7 million compared to NOK 13.5 million last year. It's a strong development in Lerøy Sjøtroll.
If we also look at the numbers in the second quarter last year, we see there is always only a small decrease. We also, when it comes to the price reduction, know this is a good improvement in performance compared to last year. Scottish Sea Farm, strong biological development with next generation of fish performing very well. Lower price return impact result in the quarter. The volume in 2025 is impacted by reorganizing site structure, long-term potentials significantly higher. The small input to sea in H1 2025 is 6.5 million compared to 3.5 million in the first half of 2024. Great expectation for especially next year in Scottish Sea Farm. Estimated harvest this year is 32,000 tons. The harvested volume in Q2 is 11,600 tons compared to 12,000 tons last year. Unfortunately, this second quarter is a negative EBIT of -2.4 million compared to 19.1 million, same quarter 2024.
When it comes to farming and guiding, we keep our 195,000 ton guiding in Norway, 50,000 tons in Lerøy Aurora, 75,000 tons in Lerøy Sjøtroll, and 70,000 tons in Lerøy Midt. Our share of Scottish Sea Farm is 16,000 tons, so a total of 211,000 tons. Wild catch, I will say a good quarter and a good first half. The cod quota is down 32%, impacting catch volumes for the trawling fleet. Of course, also the raw material price and volume in the land industry. I will say that it's done a great performance on both sides, handling the quota situation in a good way. A very good performance H1, with the EBIT 114 million higher than first half 2024. We see the key species, the prices. It's extremely high cod prices, close to NOK 80.
The haddock prices are still very high, and the saithe prices are up to NOK 30. If we look at the wild catch quotas and the catch volumes, we have the same volumes as the second quarter last year, about close to 18,000 tons. On the positive side, we see that the remaining quarter for 2025 is 3,000 tons higher. 17,000 tons this year compared to 14,000 tons last year, same period. Sales and processing, we have operations in 70 countries and sales to more than 80 markets. It's been a record quarter, really good performance. The structural improvement continues to yield results. It's a strong half with the first half with a record 12-month rolling operational EBIT. This is an effect of a structural improvement work, strong demand in end markets, positive development in emerging markets, and strong positioning with strategic customers globally.
New branch offices in Asia are starting to show results. The expectation for continued positive profitability trend in 2025. We are on a good trend in this segment, and we are really satisfied with the development and are positive for the future. Thanks, Sjur. I will take you through the key financial highlights.
Yes, thank you, Henning. This quarter has seen excellent development in a lot of the factors we control ourselves. We are obviously impacted by a significant fall in spot prices for salmon and trout. Starting with our profit and loss sheet, we can see the result this year compared to last year. Key drivers on the lateral lines. Spot prices are down NOK 30 a kilo. We have full impact of that on the close to 50 million kgs of salmon and trout we harvested, which would mean a result drop of NOK 1.5 billion.
We are seeing a significantly lower fall in our operational EBIT, and that is also highlighting the balanced business model we have. Looking at the profitability on the salmon and trout, we are seeing good cost development. We are seeing good development in superior shares and excellent biological development. This also includes the profitability downstream, where we see high and increased activity, better capacity utilization, and an increased profitability. Still, with a significant fall in spot price, we see that overall EBIT per kilo in that value chain is down from NOK 27 a kg to NOK 12.5. We are satisfied with the development in key operational KPIs in the quarter. Looking at the wild catch segment, we know quotas are down. We can see that the catch volumes are relatively equal to last year.
There are some timing effects when comparing this quarter to last year, but the core impact, if looking at numbers year to date, this year compared to last year, is that price achievement is higher because price development has developed more positively than the quota reduction. Year-to-date quota is down 114 now. Our operational EBIT year to date is up NOK 114 million, and we see that this quarter the operational EBIT per kilo is up from basically zero last year to NOK 8/kg . In sum, with these value drivers, we see operational EBIT is NOK 680 million compared to NOK 906 million last year. We see that we have a healthy revenue development, much helped by volumes, both upstream and downstream, and offset somewhat by lower prices on salmon and trout.
Turning to our balance sheet, the long-term, non-current asset we see is up close to NOK 2 billion. This is a reflection of CapEx, which I will return to in the next slide, but includes, among others, new farming technology. There are also some leasing agreements on right-of-use assets, which predominantly relates to new agreements on well boats. If you look on the current asset, our standing biomass of fish is up from around basically 100,000 tons last year to 110,000 tons this year. That is the driver for the increase in biological asset at cost. I would say we have good control on working capital and a healthy development on key working capital items. We have a healthy and strong balance sheet, and we are investment-grade rated, and equity ratio of 49%.
Net interest-bearing debt rose from, comparing with, from NOK 7 billion to NOK 8.5 billion in this quarter. The key driver for that is the payment of a dividend. Looking beyond that, we saw that working capital was developing relatively healthy with small changes. We have an EBITDA of NOK 1 billion, and we see that CapEx has increased NOK 600 million. It's fair to say that this debt level, net interest-bearing debt level, is a bit higher than what we expected it to be at this point of the year, and that is due to lower profitability in the farming side and a lower salmon price than expected. We believe we have a healthy balance sheet and a strong balance sheet. On CapEx, we have not made any changes to this slide compared to the previous quarter, and we expect to invest NOK 2 billion.
You can see the split. It's maintenance and CapEx, smaller growth CapEx, which is in the area of NOK 1 billion. The core of our investment strategy and where we allocate capital is new technology in farming, and in particular then in submerged farming, but also on smolts, also on lasers. In addition, we are investing in smolts. Henning will highlight in a later slide when we expect to see the impact of these investments in operation, but we believe we already are seeing the impact of them in our numbers this first half of 2025. There is a discussion, particularly in Norway, on what are the ripple effects of our activity. This slide is included to highlight those. What we see here is in the light blue lines where we in Lerøy operate, and the dark blue dots is where Lerøy has bought from suppliers. This is for 2024.
What we can see is that there's vast ripple effects in all of Norway, in particular in the coastline. In addition to our 6,000 employees, which is a global number, and 4,000 employees in Norway, we have significant effects when it comes to creating jobs all along the coastline. All of these, we are proud to be part of producing the most sustainable food protein that's available out there today. Value creation estimated to NOK 15 billion and a substantial tax contribution. With that, Henning, I give the word back to you.
Okay. We are going to go for outlook. We have set some ambition targets going three years back. I will say that we can start with the targets for volume, the 200,000 ton. We have a guiding at 195 now. We were last year at 171,000 ton, and we believe that it's achievable to get to 200,000 ton.
We believe that it will be possible. We keep the direction towards the 200, even though we have the guidance of 195. The target for VAP sales and distribution, it's of course, it's a high target, but we see on the 12 months rolling, we are at close to the target end of second quarter. We believe that we will also have a strong performance going forward. This is within reach. I think the whole segment is working extremely hard to achieve this goal. For the EBIT for farming to be number one, it's a hard competition. It's still five months left of the year, and we will see the end of the year where we end. We strongly believe that we are in the right direction to achieve this also. The 2030 target is NOK 50 billion.
We also have the, you know, believe that we believe that this is within reach going forward the next five years. VAP sales and distribution, yet another quarter of earnings record reaching for ambition targets, as I mentioned. We see a strong improvement in the 12 months rolling from second quarter 2024 to 2025. We will have an 18% increase in EBIT up to 1.250. This is done through short-term actions and long-term actions. We really believe that we see structural improvement initiatives in all units in Europe. We see continued improvement in VAP factories and expect through 2025 based on higher capacity utilization and increased operational efficiency. We work hard with also the long-term actions. I have to say, I'm really impressed by the job that is done in this segment and to see all the improvement and that we are going in the direction to achieve our goal.
For the farming, as I said, we have a target of 200,000 ton. We were at 171,000 ton last year, and we will increase by close to 30,000 ton. How are we going to do this? It's through a long-term improvement program focusing on roe, smolt production, and new technology. This is showing where we are. This improvement program started four or five years ago, focusing on improving genetics, roe, smolt, shielding technology, and Lerøy implementation. We see that step by step, this will give effect on harvested volume. We see now for the second half of the year, we take out benefits from this program at a higher level than first half 2025. We have come back to some improvements afterwards. Like I said, we see the improvement. In second quarter, we see a strong biological performance in farming.
If we look at the growth rate, we increased 16% in the second quarter compared to the last five years. For superior share, we see a 9% improvement. For mortality, a 50% reduction. Biomass at sea is 9% higher end of second quarter compared to the average of the last five years. Yes, this strategy is showing results and the improvements that have been done. If we dive into the new technology and submerged technology, we see great results when it comes to lice treatment. Traditional cages compared to submerged, it's a reduction of 71%. Superior share plus 3%, and mortality is down 24%. That's good to see. Shielding technology, we increase in share of harvest volume from shielding technology. Plan for 2025 is that 35% share of total harvest volume from shielding technology in the end of 2025. It's three different technologies: submerged farming, semi-contained farming, and laser de-lousing.
We need to look at why have we seen a decrease in prices, especially second quarter of the year. We see that the main reason for that is the supply increase. We see in July also, we had a 21% increase in supply. The expectations for the rest of the year is that it will be a zero increase in supply compared to last year. We believe that we will see a positive price development going forward and also into 2026. Let's hope that the low price level that we've seen the last couple of months, it's been the bottom on the price level that we've had.
To summarize, farming, positive biological development in H2 2025, while higher temperatures are challenging at the start of Q3, contract share for value chain in the second quarter of 30%, and for 2025 at around 25%, which will have a positive impact on both farming and VAP sales and distribution. Structural improvement initiatives expected to continue gradually showing the result. Spot prices and price realization quota to date in Q3 is below production cost and, of course, will impact profitability, but we believe that there will be a positive price trend going forward. Wild catch, if we look into 2026, there will be a further reduction of 21%. Haddock plus 18% and saithe down 15% and saithe salt 24%. VAP sales and distribution progressing towards profitability target in 2025, also supported by contract positions.
Lower salmon and trout prices are building markets, increased demand for integrated sustainable value chain, and improved market share in some key markets utilizing the potential of our value chain. Please, if we want to show you this fantastic product, the trout, and end the presentation with this fantastic product, which we really believe has a great future, and Lerøy produces about 40,000 tons of trout from Norway. Thank you very much.