Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's first quarter 2018 presentation. My name is Henning Beltestad. With me today, I have CFO Sjur Malm. First of all, I will take you through the highlights of the quarter, then Sjur will take you through the key financial figures. I will come back and talk about the outlook for supply and demand. Highlights. EBIT in the quarter is NOK 960 million. We harvested 37,000 tonnes. We had an EBIT per kilo, all inclusive, of NOK 20.8. Contract share of 22%, which is in line with what we guided. We guided 25% in the last presentation. The net interest-bearing debt is about NOK 2.3 million, and we have a harvest guidance of 166,000 tonnes in 2018 in Norway. This is reduced by 3,000 tonnes.
First quarter 2018 is the third-best quarter ever in EBIT of NOK 960 and is the fourth best quarter in EBIT per kilo. A good quarter in a historic perspective. Lerøy Seafood Group is reporting in three different segments: Farming, Wild Catch, and VAP, Sales and Distribution. I will start with the Farming highlights. The price in the quarter in spot is NOK 6 lower than the same quarter last year, but is significantly higher than the fourth quarter and is up NOK 10. The trout prices in the quarter is lower than the salmon prices, and this is normal for the trout when we have a significant increase in the prices of salmon. The trout prices is more stable than the salmon prices in general. The contract prices is marginally above spot. The cost is down compared to fourth quarter 2017.
The biomass in sea is 11% higher than the same quarter last year, up to 99,000 tonnes from 89,000 tonnes in 2017. You look at the farming volumes, as I said, the expected volume for this year is 3,000 tonnes down to 166,000 tonnes. We keep our estimates for Scotland, which is 13,000 tonnes, which is our share of Norskott Havbruk and Scottish Sea Farms. In total, 179,000 tonnes. You look at the Wild Catch, a very good quarter. Harvested 8% more than first quarter 2017. This is the highest catch volume in a quarter ever, so a very good fishery. The prices is also up an average of 11%. The cod is up 12%, haddock 20%, the saithe is down 1%.
Still challenging on the factory side in Lerøy Seafood. Also with the increased price level, it makes a pressure on this segment. It's hard to increase the market prices in the same speed as the raw material price increase. If we look at the volumes in different species, we harvested 9,200 tonnes of cod, 6,500 tonnes haddock, 3,600 tonnes saithe, 1,300 tonnes shrimps, and 1,400 tonnes others. A total of 22,000 tonnes. The remaining quarter is about 32,000 tonnes, 15,000 tonnes cod, 2,500 tonnes haddock, and 14,000 tonnes saithe. For the Sales and Distribution, it's been a very challenging quarter. It's been high volatility in the prices and with the Extreme increase in prices end of the quarter, which have made a very challenging quarter for the VAP and Sales and Distribution. The underlying performance or activity is good.
The EBIT in the quarter is NOK 65 million compared to NOK 86 million in first quarter 2017. Sjur will take you through the key financial figures.
Yes. Thank you, Henning. I think one thing to highlight, basically from the first quarter of 2018 is the strong demand we continue to see for seafood. This has impacted price development both in redfish and whitefish. It's positive for upstream segments, while it takes time for downstream segments to transfer the higher prices to the end consumers. We're seeing high profitability upstream with some pressure in some of our downstream assets. If you look at their key financial figures, the key drivers are highlighted on the latter lines. We've harvested 13% less fish, first quarter of this year compared to last year. The profitability per kilo on the redfish is NOK 20.80, compared to NOK 25.80 last year. There's a fall in profitability per kilo. This is driven by price, and there's a lower harvest volume.
This is the key drivers behind our EBIT first quarter this year of NOK 960 million, compared to almost NOK 1.3 billion last year. We're still satisfied with our results. The result first quarter last year was the best in our company's history, and we have a slightly different harvest profile this year with high volumes Q2, and less in Q1. Looking at other result lines, we can see income from associated companies is a significant source of income for us. This includes particularly in Scottish Sea Farms, which I will return to, but it's a positive development and it's a significant contribution. Net finance is down. One part of this is effects on currency. Overall pre-tax profit before biomass adjustments is just NOK 1 billion, a reduction from last year. EPS, NOK 1.30. As I said, we are satisfied with this quarter's result.
Looking into our balance sheet, I would just like to highlight the key changes. As we have announced, as we have carried out, we have invested significantly in our core activities over the last 18 months to 12 months, we continue to do so. This is the key reason for the increase in tangible fixed asset. Key investments include a new trawler in Havfisk, a whitefish trawler, include a new processing facility in central Norway, new smolt facilities in Hordaland, a new facility for processing to the Dutch market. Significant investments have been made, we are strong in the belief that this will strengthen Lerøy's position in the years to come. Other changes, Henning has already highlighted that we had 11% more fish in the sea in Q1.
Here, I'm showing that the cost of that fish is 7% higher than last year, so cost per kilo is lower this year compared to last year. We are indicating that we will see a falling cost curve, during 2018 when it comes to redfish. You can see that receivables is on par with last year. It's a high number comparing to the fact that our revenue is down. The reason for that is the exceptional price development, particularly late quarter, which impacted receivables and quarter. We have a good cash position, strong balance sheet, equity position of 58%, and net interest bearing debt of NOK 2.3 billion. This is just highlighting our amortization schedule. We do everything we can to keep it as flat as possible. We are well within our governance. No major refinancing coming up. Looking into our cash flow.
Starting with EBITDA, we made a significant contribution when it comes to paying tax this quarter. We made a small acquisition in Sales and Distribution segment here in Norway. I think the key line here is the CapEx of NOK 831 million, which relates to the investments I already highlighted, in which the new trawler in Havfisk is the most important. Other than that, there are smaller changes. We have good profits, which we are able to convert to cash as we always are. Those earnings have been spent on tax and on significant investments, which we believe positions Lerøy for further growth and a stronger position in the future. Now looking at the different segments. Henning has already been through this, but you can see the key change from last year is profits in farming that relates to lower harvest volume and lower price realization.
When it comes to Havfisk, it's a good first quarter, up from last year. It's being helped by high price realization, while higher price realization raw material also is a challenge for processing, as it is in the Sales and Distribution segment. Looking into the different companies, Lerøy Aurora, in the most northern part of Norway, reporting about NOK 28 this year. We are very proud of that result. It's a very strong result. Lerøy Aurora is in a growing pattern. We have made and we continue to make investments in larger smolts, starting up a new add-on to the smolt facility this year. We expect to see growth in Aurora in the coming years. We expect costs to stay at the low level, which we believe is industry-leading in our industry today. A good quarter and outlook is strong.
Looking into Lerøy Midt, which is in central Norway, there has been some challenging years behind us, particularly in 2015, 2016. We highlighted throughout last year that biological production was improving and was good, but there's quite long lead times. Gradually we're starting to see those operational improvements in cost figures. We are seeing declining cost, and we expect to see declining cost quarter- on- quarter through the year, and particularly in the second half. This is a significant growth from 2016 to 2017, and we expect further growth now in 2018. A very positive development in Lerøy Midt, and as of today, we expect that to continue. Looking into our southernmost farming operation, Lerøy Sjøtroll, we are a bit disappointed on profitability level this quarter. As you can see, it's down NOK 9 compared to last year. This is mainly related to price achievement.
This quarter, we have 30% of the volume is trout, and trout has been sold at a discount to salmon, that's impacting. Also in the salmon volumes, we've seen a higher share of downgrades than what we normally see, which is impacting price realization. Both price and cost is not at the level we are totally pleased with. We have made and we are making significant steps to improve, particularly the cost situation. The biggest one in terms of investment is an investment in a new recirculating facilities in Hordaland. We are putting in eggs now in the second quarter.
We get first fish out 2019, and as I said, there are long lead times, but we strongly believe, based on our own experience with this technology, that that will put us in a much better position in the coming years, both when it comes to cost, but also when it comes to capacity utilization of our licenses. Looking into the whitefish segment, we are seeing strong demand. We are seeing higher prices for cod and for haddock. We have had very good catch efficiency this quarter. It's a high volume being caught, and we see particularly strong earnings in the catching part, while the processing part is challenging. It do take time to transfer price to the end consumer.
The development is positive, and development is, I would say, as expected and as what we believed in when we made this acquisition, namely that the demand for whitefish would continue to be okay, but also even strengthen. We are seeing that happening in the markets today. We believe we have a good position for the future. It will take time before we see the improvement in processing, but we're taking significant steps in that respect. Looking into our U.K. operation, which we own together with SalMar. 2017 was partly challenging on some sites, in particular with accelerated harvesting, which impacted the volume in 2018. I would say beyond that, the performance now in 2018 is very good. We have good biological performance in all regions. Development is positive.
The result this quarter is excellent, and we are investing in a new recirculating facility, which will take this company even further. We do expect to see significant growth also in volume looking in a two to five years horizon. Excellent company, impressive profitability, and also positioned for growth in the coming years. Looking into Sales and Distribution segment, we are seeing positive impact from the fact that we are offering today an even broader palette of seafood. Lerøy today is not only a redfish company, we never were, but now it's very evident. We are 100,000 tons of whitefish. That position is making us an even more interesting supplier to our key customers. There are gradually more of our customers who appreciate what we can offer when it comes to product portfolio, traceability, and accuracy when it comes to delivery.
Underlying positive development, but we are seeing some impact from the volatile prices. Henning will show you in a couple of minutes how volatile the prices actually were. I give the word back to you, Henning.
Yes. First of all, we start on the updated supply side. These are fresh numbers from Kontali from last Friday. We see that the total guided volumes or the estimate is going down. We see now that Norway is down to 5.99%. I think the last update that we had was between 7% and 8%. The volume estimate in Norway is going down, and also the global volume is going down, and now it's 3.7% volume expectations for 2018, which is not really scary for us. If we look at the prices, like you said, it's been extremely volatile. In the first quarter, maybe not that volatile. It's not much up and down. It's mainly up.
You see from the fourth quarter, we see that the prices in the bottom of fourth quarter has been down to NOK 43, and the highest prices in the quarter is NOK 80. It's almost doubling. We also see that into second quarter, we see a high price level. Per week 17, it's about NOK 70. We also know that week 18 and 19 also is extremely high price level, especially in Norway. Of course, this situation with these volatile prices is extremely challenging for the Sales and Distribution part of the company and the value-added processing units. If we look at the estimates from Norway on a monthly level, we see that in April, May, June, and July, it's a stable level between 90,000 ton and 100,000 ton.
We see that in May, there is a 7% increase compared to last year, and 11% increase in June. For the second half, we see we have higher volumes coming out of Norway compared to last year. If we look at the total of Europe, including Faroe Islands and Iceland and Scotland, we see that it's more stable. It's not a huge growth second half. We expect an okay market from Europe based on these numbers for the rest of the year. If we look at Chile, it's a high increase in volume the first quarter, and then it's a negative growth the last three quarters in total. If we look at worldwide numbers, we see that it's about the same level as last year. We believe that we are continuously developing new markets, increasing demand in established markets.
We believe this growth is achievable. If you look at the markets, we see EU is up 7% first quarter, USA up 10%. We also see that Russia is coming a little bit back, and we see that others or new markets is increasing by 15%. I have to say, we had a spot level of around NOK 60. Also, the contract prices has been around NOK 60. It's really a strength to see that the EU market is increasing by 7% at the NOK 60 level. You see other markets is double growth than EU. I think the other markets will continuously increasing their market share of Atlantic salmon in a global picture.
If we look at the other markets, we see a good growth to China with 18%, in Brazil with 20%. We see a lot of markets here with huge growth potential. This is at the NOK 60 price level. The demand for salmon is extremely strong. Also, if you look at the smaller markets, there is also a good growth in the smaller markets. The potentials are huge. If we look at the conclusions or the outlook, we believe that the demand for seafood is remaining strong and the outlook remains positive, even though we will also see a lot of fluctuations going forward. In general, a strong market view. The harvest guidance is taken down by 3,000 ton and a total of 179,000 ton. We expect also that the second half of the year that there will be a lower cost going forward.
We expect a contract share for second quarter of 25%. We see a significant potential in whitefish. We expect 65,000 tons in total fishery from Havfisk. We also see an increase in catch volume of shrimps. A very positive outlook for also the whitefish. Even though we still have a long way to go on the factory side and with that process, we are doing major investments in Nordland, in two factories, Stamsund and Melbu, second half of this year, which will make us even more in a better situation handling these facilities for next year's. That was what we have. Thank you very much.