Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's Third Quarter Presentation 2023. My name is Henning Beltestad, CEO of Lerøy Seafood Group, and with me today, I have CFO, Sjur Malm. First of all, I will repeat, you know, our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood. We are both fully integrated in red fish and whitefish, and have a unique position to develop the value chain and develop the markets in different regions.
Our target for 2025 is to increase, and beyond, is to increase, the turnover by to NOK 50 billion in 2030, reduce our total emission of 46% within 2030, to be the number one company in EBIT of the value chain of salmon, and a wild catch EBIT of NOK 500 million, and to have a EBIT of NOK 1.25 billion within 2025 in bulk sales and distribution, and a farming volume of 205,000 ton. If we start a little bit about sustainability, to create the world's most sustainable value chain for seafood is extremely important for us as a company.
If we look at the Coller FAIRR Sustainability Ranking among 60 producer of protein in the world, we see that we are ranked now as number two after Mowi. Also, we see that there are four companies from Norway in the top 10 ranking. That really means that this industry are doing the right things and developing the industry in a sustainable way. We can also see that we are the company that has the largest improvements from last year, and we are very satisfied by that.
Also, cutting CO2 emission, we also see in Norway that we are among the nine companies that are cutting emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. And we will continue to work hard to keep this development also going forward. Also here, we see that there are four seafood company in top nine. We have Lerøy, Mowi, SalMar, and Skretting. And so I will say that this industry is really going in the good direction in these issues.
How do we work with our part, you know, to have a climate reduction as on a operational level, on a daily operation in the company? We work very detailed through our value chain, you know, trying to spot the areas where it's most important to cut, and we have that as high on our agenda internally in Lerøy Seafood Group. The third quarter it's been a record revenue. Earnings is impacted by previously announced the ISA outbreak. We have a operational EBIT of NOK 12.4, compared to NOK 14.3 same quarter, 2022.
It's been some challenges in the biology late third quarter and also into early fourth quarter. We have seen a positive development of VAP sales and distribution, and it's been a little bit more challenging with lower profitability and lower quarter in wild catch. The EBIT in the quarter is NOK 631 million. We report in three segments: Farming, Wild Catch, VAP Sales and Distribution. We start with the Farming. There's been a loss on the operation from Lerøy Sjøtroll, driven by ISA, of around NOK 200 million. We see a significant quarter-on-quarter reduction in cost, driven by Lerøy Aurora and Lerøy Midt.
Challenging biology in third quarter and start of fourth quarter because of some gill health issue in Lerøy Sjøtroll and Lerøy Midt. That cost the harvesting of fish sooner than planned, so with a lower average weight. And this will also impact the harvest volume in 2023 and 2024. We expect cost in the farming segment to be at the same level as third quarter. For Lerøy Aurora, it's been a very positive development in 2023, but a little bit lower growth rates than expected in third quarter and the start of fourth quarter. We cost is significant down, and we expect the same level in fourth quarter as in third quarter.
The expected volumes is 43,000 tons in 2023, and 47,000 tons in 2024. We see a significant, significant lift in the harvest weights expected in 2024. If we look at the operational EBIT per kilo, it we achieved NOK 25.9 in third quarter, compared to 36.8 in second quarter. But we see a good development in Lerøy Aurora and a very good performance. Lerøy Midt also a positive biological development in 2023, but we have had some gill health issues late third quarter and beginning of fourth quarter also here, which has accelerated harvest of some fish with a lower average weight.
We see a significant cost decrease quarter-on-quarter, and we expect same level in fourth quarter 2023. Expected harvest volume is 61,000 ton in 2023, and 70,000 ton in 2024. And we expect to see improvement in coming year from higher, better quality biomass going into 2024, improvement in smolt quality and improvement impacted by new farming technology. We'll come back to that a little bit later. Per kilo, EBIT is 18.1. Lerøy Sjøtroll, it's been a challenging quarter. Forced harvest of two salmon sites with ISA. Trout is performing very well.
Fish groups with the same characteristics as Lerøy Midt gill health harvested early, and harvest volume in 2023 and 2024 is reduced to 53 thousand tons in 2023, and 58,000 tons in 2024. Also here, we expect clear improvements from a smolt quality, new farming technology, and increased production of trout. We have a negative result in the quarter of NOK 7.1 . Norskott Havbruk still a biological challenge impacted harvest volume, average harvest weight cost, and price achievement in this quarter. Incident-based mortality in a quarter of NOK 13.1 million , and so a very challenging quarter for Scottish Sea Farms.
We had a contract level of 49%. We see improved biological situation at the moment and going forward, so we will increase the volume compared to last year. To this year, we expect 25,000 tons, and for next year, we target 37,000 tons in 2024. If we look at the total farming volumes, 2023, 357,000 tons in Norway, and expect to increase the volumes next year to 175,000 tons. For the wild catch, it's been also more challenging than normal in third quarter.
The main reason for that is lower catch volumes, values on lower quotas and weakening price on key species such as haddock, saithe, and shrimps. Also, on an operational level, and efficiency in the fishery is lower compared to other quarters, mainly because of lower volumes on cod and more fisheries of shrimps in this quarter. If we look at the catching in the quarter, a total of 14,400 tons compared to 14,900 tons in second quarter, May third quarter last year.
Year to date, we see we have caught a higher volume, 63,400 tons, compared to 58,000 tons last year. So, I will say that we really did a good performance year to date, catching other volumes when the quotas of cod is going down. So that's on a positive side. VAP sales and distribution strong improvement compared to last year. Operational EBIT of NOK 163 million compared to NOK 63 million. Same, no, second quarter. As of today, expecting a profitability in the fourth quarter in line or higher than fourth quarter 2022.
And, we see a significant potential for improvement in some regions. Yeah, and yeah. And this is showing our segment, and we have distribution and processing facilities in all the central markets in Europe and sales branches in Asia and in North America. And then, Sjur will take us through the key financial highlights.
Yes, thank you, Henning. Now Henning has talked us through the key drivers, and they are summing up to these financial results. If you look at the key drivers of a profitability, those include the volume within red fish and white fish. Looking at the red fish volume, meaning harvested volume of salmon and trout, that volume is, as we can see, 4% lower than last year. We see that the margin at that volume is lower, down from just about NOK 14 last year to NOK 12 this year. That margin reduction indicates then that the costs increase is higher than the price realization. If you look at the cost initially, the costs are higher this quarter than the same quarter last year.
The key driver is feed cost, and feed cost on harvested volume is up around NOK 7 . If you look on price and price realization, we have had very low average harvest weights this quarter. And our price realization, given a harvest size, is close to benchmark NSI prices. But the low average harvest weight has a significant impact still, as the prices for larger fish have been higher. On top of this, we have the ISA impact in Lerøy Sjøtroll around NOK 200 million, which divided on the volume is around NOK 4 . So if you add those NOK 4 , we would see that without the ISA outbreak, we would be higher this year than last year on red fish. Looking at white fish, volume is the same.
As Henning has pointed out, we have used more fishing days. It's a lower share of cod, it's a higher share of shrimp, which is more energy-consuming fishery and time-consuming fishery also. And we see that even though the volume is the same, the catch values are not the same. And we see in some then, that the profitability through the value chain is lower than last year. In sum, this brings operationally a bit of NOK 630 million compared to NOK 833 million last year, and again, we had that NOK 200 million ISA impact. So without that, we would be pretty close to where we were last year. We also see revenues up 8%.
Key driver for that is basically the weakening of the Norwegian kroner and the fact that prices are going up, and that is also impacting our working capital, which I will highlight in the coming slide. If you look on the earnings per share, this quarter, we have implemented the year-to-date effect, meaning the three first quarter best estimate on resource tax on running earnings. I'll get back to that. If you look on EPS year-to-date, without the implementation effect on the resource tax, just the resource tax estimate on running profitability, we get to EPS of 1.91 this year, and comparable figure last year, 2.84. Balance sheet. If you look initially on tangible asset, we have invested also in 2023 in our value chain.
That includes in the trawling fleet, for more, efficient operation. It includes the land industry, upgrading the land industry factories, and it's includes investment in new technology in, in farming. And those are the key drivers for the increase in tangible fixed asset. If you look down on working capital items, feed cost is a key driver for higher, cost of biological asset efficiency. Higher prices is also a key driver for, for value of inventory, and receivable. And we see compared to last year, we have an increase in, in working capital items. Still, we believe we have a strong, balance sheet, and looking at working capital items, it is somewhat comforting that working capital is down this quarter, NOK 185 million.
For the rest of the year, development and working capital, we expect to build some biomass, Q4. Also receivable, et cetera, will be dependent on price level, toward end of the year. CapEx, NOK 300 million this year. Best estimate today is NOK 1.3 billion-NOK 1.5 billion in 2023, little bit dependent on when technology in coastal production technology to farming is delivered. But we see this quarter a reduction in net interest-bearing debt from around NOK 6 billion- NOK 5.5 billion. Then some comments on resource tax. We can understand some believe that we've been a little bit late on reporting resource tax. The key challenge on resource tax is that it was implemented late May, with effect from first of January.
So it was impossible for us, obviously, to report in Q1. In Q2, we did the best we could, implementing the implementation effect. And now in Q3, we have done the best estimate possible on what is the resource tax on running earnings. And those two figures in total is around just above NOK 2 billion, and the best estimate yet to date on resource tax on running earnings is around NOK 300 million. That includes then both the resource tax and the production cost, and in note 10, we see the split. When it comes to future statements on resource tax, it's difficult to give a guidance on what will be the effective tax rate in the farming segment.
The reason for that is that there is several steps in the farming value chain, and it's only the time in sea which has increased tax rate to 47%, and the other phases only have 22%. Which means that dependent on how profitability moves up and down in the resource tax segment, the farming segment, the tax rate will vary. So but we will probably update our how we report in this segment, Q4 or Q1, to give the best possible data on how to calculate resource tax. But as of today, year to date, best estimate is NOK 300 million. Yes, with that, Henning, I give the word back to you.
Yes. Then we will start with supply. We can start with the two last years, 2022 and 2023. It's been very stable volumes, no growth, zero. Exactly 1.2% negative growth in both years. And also into 2024, we see a increase of 5.1%. The drivers in the growth, we see Norway 5.1%. We see United Kingdom is coming back with 10%. Faroe Islands 18% after a year with negative growth. The same with Iceland, a negative growth in 2023, and expect a growth of 31% in 2024. But overall, 5% is, it's good that we have growth.
If we're gonna grow this industry, grow the market, it's important to also have volume growth stable every year. If you look at the consumptions in the fourth quarter, we see that there is a strong negative volume growth in Europe of 5%, other markets 3%, and U.S. is a little bit up, and it seems like the U.S. market will continue to take market share globally in the coming quarters and also the coming years. So we really believe that the U.S. market will be a driver in the demand of salmon and also seafood going forward.
The prices in the quarter so far. It's in third quarter. It's around NOK 80 , and the average so far this year is NOK 89 . We expect, like normally, that the prices in the last month of the year will have a positive trend upward. Our outlook within our farming segments. No, our segment. We start with the farming. Like we said, there's been some challenging biology late third quarter and early fourth quarter. The situation right now is much better.
We have made significant measures implemented, particularly within smolt quality, improved genetics selection, improving procedures at hatchery, lower temperatures in the early stage, and we really believe that this will give us a more robust smolt of a higher quality, and also to have a better survival rate in the sea in the time to come, and we will see this in improvements in the sea step by step going forward. And then we have the new farming technology that we have been focusing on for the last three to four years, developing good methods in the new technology.
We started this summer with the first deep location with the deep cages. And we see that this is so far it's showing a very positive development and especially if we look at our largest problems, which is the sea lice. We see we have no treatments on the cages that we have been using this new technology, so that's very positive. And then we work hard with the process improvements and implementing of Lerøy Way in the farming segment. The wild catch, we see that there is a weaker development in prices, which impacted fourth quarter.
If we look at the quarters for 2024, it's further down. So, for cod, it's 20%, haddock, 17%. Of course, this is not what we hope for, but we need to be good and to go for other species, you know, covering up from the volumes that is down on cod and haddock. We see, you know, we expect improved profitability over time, realizing the potential of the value chain, and we have a new facility in Båtsfjord, completed in January 2024. For VAP sales and distribution, increased demand for integrated, sustainable value chains.
We really feel that there is a good demand from customers where this is important to have the full traceability, to have the stability, and also to secure a sustainable value chain for seafood for our customers. And we see a strong focus from both our regular customers, but also on or from new customers. And we expect profitability in the fourth quarter in line or higher than fourth quarter 2022.
We see a large variation in profitability in different unit, and we have a clear potential that we need to take out in all these units for 2024, and we have a good plan for improvement, also implementing Lerøy Way in these facilities. Yeah, and back to the new technology and our... We expect to have 20% of our stock to be protected within first quarter 2024. So and we really believe that this will make a good change for our performance in seagoing forward. So with that, what I had today, and yeah. Thank you very much from Sjur and me.