Morning, everybody, and welcome to Norcod Q4 webcast. My name is Christian Riber. I'm CEO of Norcod, and I'm here today to present the numbers. Alongside with me, we have our CFO, Stian Vollan-Hansen, who will take care of the financial part of this presentation. Also, I would like to start saying that in the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A. Already now, you can put in your questions in the chat, and we will then address them at the end of the presentation. What we'll go through today is the highlights, which you see on this slide. After the highlights, we will give you an operational update on our production. After that, Stian will come in and give you a run-through of the financials through Q4, and of course, also the yearly numbers. Stian will take care of that part.
Then in the end, we'll go through the outlook and the Q&A. The highlights of Q4, first of all, we've had a significant increase in our revenue through the quarter, totaling at NOK 124 million, which is up 47% since Q4 in 2023. Also, we have significantly lowered our operating losses, down 66% to NOK 35 million. Totally, we harvested 2,390 tons in Q4, which is a significant increase from the previous year, also bringing our total for the year up to 8,336 tons, which were above our targeted 8,000 tons. We're very pleased with that. Also, what we saw in Q4 was that we had an increase of our MAB on our Frøya site Jamnungen . Now we have a site gone from 3,600 tons to 5,200 tons. This is an important step, which we'll come back to later.
Also, we've started stocking our new site, Bjørnvika, up close to Nesna, which is very close to our other site, Labukta. Those two sites will be run in combination. We've stocked the first five pens and had a very good start at that site. We will finalize the stocking in the spring of 2025. Also, we've seen very strong market conditions throughout the quarter, which we've also seen during most of the year. A consistent increase in our prices has been observed. We see this trend continue through Q1 and Q2 in 2025. The conditions for farmed cod market-wise have never been better. We're very happy to share some post-highlights. As we informed in Q3, we were looking and working on a revised growth strategy to meet the demand from the market.
We have been through both market conditions and the forecast of our production, which both look very favorable. Therefore, we have built a revised growth plan where we will take our volumes up to 25,000 tons in 2029. It will be a step-by-step increase plan over the next five years. Already now, we have funding in place, both from our bank, DNB, in a debt commitment to increase our debt with them. Also, we have contemplated private placements, which will take place in Q1 2025. We already have strong commitment and backup from our long-term existing shareholders of NOK 150 million. That will be the basis of our growth plan. We will come back with more details later. To the operational. In Q4, we harvested almost 2,400 tons from three different sites. 900 tons came from Labukta up by Nesna.
First harvest we had from that site. That was positive. Also, we harvested 900 tons from Mausund on Frøya, which is the second cycle we've harvested at that site. We also harvested almost 600 tons from Frosvika up by Bodø. All the fish was brought to our own harvesting facility, Krokeide, and harvested and sent to the market from there. The biological performance we have at the moment at Jamnungen looks very, very good. It exceeds our budget and expectations. We have very good growth on the fish. We still see very favorable sea temperatures through Q4 and also into Q1 2025, which gives us even better growth than expected. We have seen a good biological start to our Bjørnvika stocking through the quarter. As mentioned earlier in the highlights, Jamnungen has been granted an increase in biomass up to 5,200 tons.
This is another very important step for us and part of our strategy that we want to grow our existing sites because it will give us a significantly more cost-efficient production. Instead of being able to produce 4,500 tons with the overheads we have today, we can now produce approximately 7,000 tons of fish at this site with the same overheads, and the only variable will be feed. To some other news, as we have informed earlier, back in end of November, we had a fish escape at our Labukta site. During one of our regular inspections, we found an opening between two net plates. This opening was quickly closed again by the divers. This escape has been more or less finalized as we have emptied the pen and counted all the fish and have counted up the escape numbers. Of course, we always have a zero escape policy.
This is not favorable for our operations. We have already now looking at improving our procedures and equipment, where we're looking to have even more often our rechecks instead of every other week. We'll increase it to potentially every week to have even more surveillance of the nets. Also, we're considering changing from generational nets, where we have nets in the same nets in the water through the whole generation, to switching nets during the cycle. We are very much focused on our fish and maturation. This is a very tight collaboration with the Directorate of Fisheries, where we manage our maturation. We've seen a little bit of increase in a few pens on our Frosvika site. Therefore, we have decided to harvest part of that fish out a bit quicker than planned. Besides that, we have very, very good control over our maturation.
We have a strong lighting regime that we, of course, on a regular basis develop and look through. It has very good effect in delaying the maturation of the fish until it's harvested. As earlier informed, we harvested almost 2,400 tons of fish in the quarter, which is 60% of the total volume of farmed cod harvested in Norway in the quarter. That is very much aligned with the volume for the total year. Stian, over to you.
All right. We are here at the financial update, and we'll have a look at some of the highlights. We have a significant increase in financial performance in Q4 compared to both Q3 2024 and also Q4 2023. As you can see, we have a standing biomass at sea now, which is a little bit—I'm sorry. The harvest volume in Q4 now is 2,400 tons. We have decreased our production cost at sea significantly, down to NOK 46 per kilo whole fish equivalent, which is something we are very satisfied with. Our revenue is 49% up compared to Q4 2023, which is aligned with our growth strategy. We have a significant increase of revenues as well. We are satisfied that we're now making more money per fish we are selling. If we continue to the next slide.
Biological assets at sea are now worth more than ever before. We have a value of biological assets at sea in million Norwegian krone, which is higher even though we have less biomass at sea in tons. This is because we have harvested more of the fish in Q4 with less value, with lower average size and higher mortality, which means that the fish we have by the end of the quarter now has increased in value. We are looking at selling this fish in the future at a better price. Our balance sheet development is not subject to large changes. We are not investing in many new assets in Q3 and Q4, mainly because we are focusing on the revised growth strategy. The main change in balance sheet development is currently the increase of biological asset value. Let's have a look at the financial review.
As earlier mentioned by Christian, the operating revenues in the fourth quarter are NOK 124 million based on a harvest volume of 2.4 tons, which is almost 49% up from the NOK 83 million in harvest volume of 1,600 tons we had in Q4 2024. This is something we are very much satisfied with. We are continuing to increase our production and harvesting volume in line with our growth strategy. We also had the operating expenses at NOK 177 million, up from NOK 150 million in Q4 2023. This increase is mainly explained by significantly higher harvest volume compared to the corresponding quarter last year.
Since the production cost per kilo is decreasing significantly, both from Q4 2022, but also from the whole year 2023, we are seeing an operating loss, which is 67% down from Q3 2023, where we had NOK 104 million, and now we're down at NOK 35 million. We are significantly increasing our financial performance now in Q4 2024. As Christian also mentioned, we had some non-recurring items here in Q4, which mainly relates to the escape incident in late November. This was reported and are mainly the non-current items of NOK 7.2 million. If we continue with the financial review, we have now been in touch with the profit and loss, so we'll continue to the balance sheet. As I mentioned, there have not been large changes to the total assets in Q4. The change from last year in biological assets is the main driver of the change in total.
We have reduced the biological assets a little bit in total assets. Available credit ended at NOK 12 million, and the cash at hand ended at NOK 23 million. The total available funds reached NOK 34 million by the end of the year, which is a small increase from the end of Q4 2023. As Christian mentioned also, our cash situation now is a bit low in order to deliver on the revised growth strategy, hence why we are launching this capital increase. The biomass buildup and upscaling strategy is primarily why we have moved forward with the capital increase plan. The retained earnings has also reduced equity further from Q4 2023. The total equity ended at NOK 157 million, down from NOK 225 million the corresponding quarter last year.
This is an equity rate right now at 24%, which we are looking to increase now during the planned capital increase. It is also important to mention that Norcod has been operating in compliance with all financial covenants and the risk loan agreement with DNB. Due to the challenging conditions during the summer in 2024, we had a subsequent decrease in the equity ratio. We have been given a waiver of the equity rate requirement of 35% until the contemplated capital increase is completed. We are pretty sure that we will manage this after the capital increase. The total non-current liabilities ended at NOK 128 million in Q4. It is a small increase down from NOK 153 million in Q4 2023. The current interest-bearing debt is at NOK 205 million up from NOK 119 million.
This large change is mainly due to investing in biomass, spending funds on investing in biomass, along with the increased harvesting levels. Of course, in combination with the increased overdraft facility. Net cash flow from operating activities were -NOK 48 million in Q4 2024 compared to NOK 6 million in minus in Q4 2023. The increased overdraft facility was utilized throughout the quarter to repay overdue accounts payable. Therefore, the net cash flows from investing activities were only NOK 5 million down in Q4 2024 compared to -NOK 9 million in minus in Q4 2023. The change relates to reduced purchases of equipment in this quarter. Net cash flow from financing activities ended at NOK 66 million in Q4 compared to NOK 15 million in Q4 2023. The reason is solely because we have a variation in the utilization of the credit line facility.
All right, I'll leave it over to you, Christian, for the market update.
Yeah, so a very important part of our plan is, of course, the market. We've seen beneficial market conditions throughout most of 2024. We've had an increase in our prices quarter- by- quarter. From Q1- Q4, we've increased our prices with 29%. This increase is expected to continue through Q1 and Q2 of 2025. We have a very positive mindset regarding the market. This is also one of the main drivers for our revised growth plan. Also, this whole Snow Cod launch has been a great success, differentiating it even further from the wild caught cod. People are really now recognizing farmed cod as a different species, a different product that can be utilized both as raw, as smoked, and as all the traditional ways that you know from wild caught cod. Snow Cod has been a great success.
Also, now we're shipping fish to over 20 different markets on a regular basis, all being harvested at Krokeide, packed within four hours from harvesting and sent out. All with extreme freshness, which is a very important selling point from us. Looking ahead, we see the market conditions being very, very favorable also in the future for farmed cod. We have seen a significant decrease in the wild caught cod quotas for this year. It is also expected to see a decrease in wild caught cod quotas next year. It is expected from the Havforskningsinstituttet to stay at a low level for the next three to four years minimum. Therefore, we are also seeing these favorable market conditions. The longer time we have our fish in the market, the more demand and the more favorable our market terms are.
Right now, we cannot keep up with the market demand for our fish. We are in a very positive market position. As mentioned earlier, and also mentioned in Q3, we have looked at our strategy going forward. As we said earlier, we will not grow until we see favorable conditions and that we are on the right track to show profitability. Therefore, with the current market conditions, we feel that timing is right at the moment. We know from when we start a growth plan, it will take us 20 months by having fish on land, putting it at sea, and having it up to a four-kilo fish. Therefore, we are starting this long-term growth strategy now. Of course, growing biomass, as we know from previous, growing biomass, establishing new sites costs money.
Therefore, we've had a great dialogue with our bank, DNB, who's been supporting us all the way through with financing. They have great belief in farmed cod as a future farming industry. They have committed new loans of NOK 150 million. At the same time, we're contemplating a private placement where our long-term existing investors, again, show their support and their belief in our project. They have now indicated a commitment of NOK 150 million. In total, it's NOK 300 million of new equity in the company. This contemplated private placement will be launched during Q1 of 2025. We are doing this together with DNB Markets, who will take care of our private placement. Again, it's been great for us to see the trust from both our banks and our long-term shareholders.
They can see the development we do quarter- by- quarter. They can see what a great product we're producing and the favorable market conditions. At the same time, they can see our forecast on our new productions, both from Jamnungen and Bjørnvika. It looks very favorable. All in all, we feel we are in a great position now to start our growth. As I said earlier, we will grow step by step. We won't do major increase in the short term. We will have one extra release and setup in 2025. This, of course, also has an effect on our cash flow as we'll be spending more cash on setting up a new site and feed. The positive cash flow throughout the year will be revised. It will only be a positive cash flow here in Q2.
All in all, we are very excited about our long-term growth strategy and the favorable market conditions. We feel we are on the right track and look forward to the future. Now we'll go over to a Q&A where you can put your questions in the chat, and we will reply as good as possible. There's a question here from a guy called NV. He's asking about selling prices and production prices. Production price, I think, Stian covered, which was NOK 46 per kilo in the fourth quarter. Selling prices is across the board, all sizes and all qualities is approximately NOK 65 per kilo. We are expecting to see an increase through the coming quarters on that price as well. He's also asking what price are we planning to do this private placement in Q1.
That will be determined by the DNB Markets once they've been in contact with the market. We will come back with details on that later. Knut Ivar Bakken is asking, how much of the 2025 volumes have you sold on contracts? How much are contract prices up in 2025 versus 2024? Throughout the year of 2024, approximately 70% of all our fish has been sold on contracts. I think through Q1, 85% of all our fish is sold on contracts. Our target is to sell between 80%-90% of all our fish on contract. The farmed cod has so many advantages contract-wise because we can do long-term contracts with planned deliveries and volumes for the supermarket and the food service clients that we have. In general, we see the majority of our fish should be sold on contracts.
We always want to have approximately 10%-15% of unsold fish for the open market, but also for new clients and new contracts and contract expansions. Knut Ivar Bakken, this is a question for you, Stian. How much CapEx do you expect in 2025?
That depends on how fast we're able to get a new location. As it is right now, we are not planning on large CapEx in 2025. That will firstly occur at the beginning of 2026 if we are working in accordance with plan. That depends on how fast we'll be able to get the new locations.
Knut Ivar Bakken is asking here again, how many individuals do you have in the sea at the end of 2024 compared to 2023? It's a fairly stable number, around five million fish at sea. We haven't increased that volume because, as we informed earlier, we want to maintain our volume until we see a very close runway to profitability. Therefore, we've had a stable volume throughout the last two years, and we will now start taking up that volume. What else do we have here?
We have Kia asking, when we expect break-even or positive EBITDA, as we wrote earlier in Q3, due to the warm summer, which we had this summer. The two sites we're harvesting at the moment, Labukta and Frosvika, they've had less growth than expected and therefore a higher cost per kilo. For Q1 and Q2, we are not expecting to see break-even or positive EBITDA. There will be opportunities in the fall once we start harvesting Jamnungen. Okay. I think that about concludes our Q4 webcast. If there is any further question, as you all know, you can always contact Stian and I directly. Also, we have a post we will post our webcast on our web page. That is also a possibility to get even more answers. You can always contact Stian and I on email and phone. Thank you very much for attending.
Have a great day.
Thank you. Have a great day, everyone.