Good morning, everyone. Now we're going to present the Nordic Aqua Q4. To present today, we have from China, myself, Ragnar, CEO, and Andreas, MD in China, and also from Oslo, Tom, CFO. The main news today is that after combating geosmin for two quarters in Q3 and Q4, we're finally back now with harvest in February this first quarter with excellent 7 kg fish of premium quality. That is very good news. Today we're going through some highlights. I will take you through operations and projects. Andreas will come in and let you know about sales and market. Tom will present the financials, and I will just come back briefly with a summary. If we look at the top headline for highlights, it is that we are back with commercial harvest in mid-February. The biology for the quarter has again been very good in all batches.
Excellent fish out. Geosmin has been handled through Q3 and Q4. The harvest that we are at now is a premium 7-kilo fish at scale with no signs of maturation. Going forward, as you can see in the picture also, we are progressing with Phase 2 construction. What you can see here is on the roof, you can see that that's the facility Stage 1 and where we can see the steel bars. Going forward up to the right is the new facility, which will match the existing facility of another 4,000 tons annual production. Production construction is going on schedule. In Q4, we completed the private placement of just around EUR 30 million. Just going briefly through operations, we recently harvested, as I mentioned. We had geosmin to start with in July and had issues through Q3 and Q4, and now we're back.
We did implement a series of measures. As you can see also in some of the pictures here, we have added technology, protein skimmers, vacuum UV, ozonation, adjusted how we ran our biofilters, added additional water capacity. Recently, we have activated carbon to combat geosmin, and also we have done some modification on the largest RAS systems that we have in RAS 7 and RAS 8. The CapEx of geosmin for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 encounters EUR 19 million, mostly in Stage 2, as you will have time to present later. We are finally there. As you can see, we have combated the geosmin, and we are back with geosmin-free fish in the harvest now in February. Look at the biology. We had no harvest in Q4, but then we started now in Q1. Mortality has been very low throughout all of our production batches.
From smolt up to harvest, accumulated mortality of less than 3% in all batches. That is percentages of numbers of fish. We have been up in Q1 to Q3 of last year of around 1,000 tons in production. In Q4, production was less since we were not harvesting fish. We, on purpose, took down the production. Now we are back and producing fully again. As I mentioned initially, we have harvested 7-kilo fish, excellent quality, no maturation. That is what we consider ourselves a very good achievement. The expectations for the full year of 2025 is between 3,500-3,700 tons harvest. Just briefly also mention the Stage 2 project, the project to take us from 4,000 tons to 8,000 tons in harvest. It is going as planned.
The first eggs we put in Q3 last year, September, and we expect the first harvest to be two years later, so Q3 2026. That is when we can see the full effect from the 8,000 tons production. Technical installations in the building that you can see below started in January. Estimated CapEx for Stage 2 is EUR 77 million, including the EUR 14 million that I mentioned just before, also with improvement CapEx for geosmin and new water additions. To sum up the timeline of the build-up that we had here at Gaotang in China, we started with Stage 1 facility to construct Q3 2021, first harvest Q2 last year. We can say a very successful project in many ways. Production or construction went as planned, and also production went as planned, two years, as we said, from eggs to first harvest.
Everything went according to schedule with the Stage 1, at least until we got geosmin in July last year, which we see that we are out of now in Q1 this year. For Stage 2, we started construction in Q3 2023, and we had the first egg input in Q3 last year. For Stage 3 , taking us from 8,000 up to 20,000 tons, we still have that within our project, but the exact start of the construction is not decided yet. It will be decided during 2025. Now I will continue to give the word to our Managing Director in China, Andreas, please.
Thank you, Ragnar. As Ragnar mentioned, we are very excited about resuming commercial harvest and sales now in this quarter. We have a highly motivated sales team. We are operating in a fast-growing Chinese market. We are also receiving very good customer feedback on the fish we are supplying. In addition, we are also in China for China. We are operating, producing here, selling here, and that is in a place we feel comfortable at, given the global setting of uncertainty with regards to tariffs and trade. I will give some highlights and also some information about the market in my part of the presentation. First of all, I want to emphasize that in Q4, although we were handling geosmin topics, we were still very much active in the market.
We participated at China Fisheries and Seafood Expo in Qingdao, one of the biggest ones in China, with an own booth connecting with customers. We participated at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai in November, where we had a chance to interact with further customers and prospects. We had a way of increasing our corporate image. We also signed some agreements, in addition to also showing more to the Chinese market and stakeholders the uniqueness of our pioneering project of being the Atlantic scaled-up salmon producer with RAS systems in China. We also saw the opportunity to be part of Norway's commitment towards China in working more on the green shift, where we are also a good example. We generated more than almost 600 news reports, which also underlines the general interest in the market for what we are doing here.
As mentioned already, we have market acceptance confirmed by resuming commercial sales. We are now pursuing the customer relationships that we have built up to strengthen them even further. We are also developing into new areas into the market. Overall, we feel very comfortable where we are, given the quality and also the unique opportunities when it comes to the Chinese market. In addition, how are we going to do this? For some of you, this is a known material, but we feel we have a compelling market, should we call it a value proposition to the market. We have an unparalleled freshness that is documented with being able to supply to the biggest salmon market in China in Shanghai for around five hours. We also have a very strong food safety profile of our production.
This is a testament to the technology and the management of how we run our farm. We have a 99% superior grade. We have had, in general, less than 2% mortality, which are very strong numbers in addition to no antibiotics. This is something that is also highly valued in the local market. In addition, we focus on sustainability. Being here gives us close proximity to the market. We are not reliant on air transport, in addition to being agile, being able to seize upon opportunities in the market, building those strong customer relationships, seeing new opportunities, and also being able to adapt ourselves to how the dynamics of the Chinese market work in terms of supply and demand.
We will use this to develop further into the food service, which we know is the dominant sector in China with the focus on big fish, as well as the dynamic growing retail section, both with e-commerce and also traditional retail. If we take just a broader view on the market, we see that China had another record year last year in terms of import volume, almost 93,000 metric tons of fresh Atlantic salmon HOG. This is a 15.6% increase year on year. Every month saw a record import volume, except for April. This is also showing that the trajectory of the market is picking up since 2019, whereas here the Corona years had quite a big impact. In addition, we also see that the focus from the market is also to develop those pockets where we can see growth happening.
It is very encouraging to also see that the volumes of the Chinese market are quite consistent throughout the year. Throughout the year, we have a top of 9,200 tons, and the lowest months were 6,700. I would like to add that we see the trend now moving into 2025. If you look at the Norwegian export numbers from the first eight weeks, they are up 65% year on year. There is really a big demand now in the Chinese market, and that is something we are very excited about by being here and being able to produce and offer the product we have. Quick view at the breakdown of the different origins here, and we can see that China has a little bit of uniqueness in the sense that all the salmon-producing countries are trying to or are exporting to this market.
Norway is a market leader, steady around 46% in 2024, a little bit down for 2023. It was a strong year for Faroe and Scottish salmon last year. It is a market where you have all the basically salmon-producing countries competing here. Finally, if you look at the imports of Atlantic salmon to China throughout the years here, and we are trying to look at, okay, what are the import prices, and we divide it into the European side, which is basically Norwegian, Faroe, Scottish, compared to the Chilean and Australian ones. There is a premium, if you will. There is a higher price, import price for the European side. They are able to provide bigger salmon. In addition, we also see that when it comes to the food service sector, there is also a preference for some of these European Norwegian sizes and also origin.
That is also a testament to Norway's strong performance, that they are not only the biggest country when it comes to market share, but also command some of the higher prices into this China, should we call it traditional big fish market. With that, I'm summing up the sales and market part to say again, we are back in business here in China. We have an excited and motivated team. We see great opportunities in taking part of this growth that is happening in the market. We are also very much looking forward to the rest of the year and beyond by providing our premium quality Nordic Pure Atlantic Salmon into the exciting Chinese market. With that, I will hand over to CFO Tom. Thank you.
Thank you, Andreas, and good morning, all. I would say that 2024 was a very active year, and the fourth quarter was no exception. We had one transaction in the equity capital market. We had a transaction and milestones in the debt capital markets, both in the short-term facility and long-term facility, which I'll comment on later. The CapEx budgets that we established for the capital raise remain valid and intact today. OpEx has been managed to reflect our activity level and for a cost-efficient production going forward. Not forgetting that we signed a cooperation agreement with Bank of China in China in November, and we signed a rental agreement enabling further expansion in Stage 3 up to 20,000 tons. The full financial statements are, of course, in a separate report and also extracts attached here to this presentation, but some key takeaways.
The revenue of EUR 1.6 million reflects sale of downgraded fish during the quarter. In the operating expenses, we have included EUR 2.3 million, which has been expensed as cost related to unutilized production capacity, cost that would otherwise be capitalized. Ragnar commented earlier that we had planned and voluntarily reduced our production in the fourth quarter, so that is why. Hence, our EBITDA was EUR -4.4 million, operating EBIT EUR -5.1 million, and the loss for the period EUR 1.8 million. On the balance sheet and cash flows, you'll see the investments of EUR 1.2 million in the quarter and cash from financing EUR 23.8 million. You'll also see an increase in the right-of-use assets and the leasing debt, which reflects the extended leasing period of Stage 1 up to 30-plus years.
The biomass for the end of the year was 1,670 tons, including the fair value adjustment of EUR 2.7 million and equity ratio of 55%. On the CapEx and funding, it's been mentioned Stage 2, as previously announced during Q4, EUR 77 million, including the EUR 14 million in improvement CapEx. On the funding, we repaid the short-term facility of EUR 5.8 million in October. We successfully completed the private placement of close to EUR 30 million, which will, together with the planned debt financing, complete the finance of Stage 2. Last but not least, we signed the cooperation agreement with Bank of China, as you can see in the picture to the right there. This agreement comprised refinancing of Stage 2 and financing of Stage 2. Both of these elements are expected to have credit approval during Q2.
At a later stage, we'll address Stage 3, which is also included in the agreement. Yeah, so that's all from me. Handing back to Ragnar.
Thank you, Tom. Just before we go to the summary, I would just remind everyone that if you have any comments or questions, you're welcome to write them into the box where you can do this on Teams . Just to sum up, we can say that biology has been good, continuously good throughout the project. We have handled the Q4. In Q4, we handled geosmin issue, Q3 and Q4, but it led also to no commercial harvest in the second half of last year. We have now resumed harvest in February, with big and good quality fish. Stage 2 is going as planned. We completed in Q4 the private placement, EUR 30 million, and we expect the harvest this year to be between 3,500 and 3,700 tons. With this, we complete our presentation.
As I mentioned, you're welcome to raise any comments or questions that you should have. Thank you.
Yeah. I have the questions here, so I will read them so you can participate in answering. We have one question. The first one is, could you give guidance on the Q1 harvest? What harvest profile should we expect in 2025?
Yes. For the first quarter, there will be limited harvest. We start with low volumes, and then we should expect that we are going closer to normal harvest volumes in Q2. The exact numbers we do not have, we will see exactly what they will be, but they will be considerably lower than the plan going forward. I would say some hundred tons, maybe around that.
Do you have any remaining geosmin issue in the 2,232 tons standing biomass?
Yes, of course. As long as we are producing on land in the RAS system, there will always be. Every RAS system in the world has geosmin, but it is under the detectable levels when we have purchased the fish and sold it to the market. There is absolutely no taste of geosmin in our fish that we are sending out. We have tested it now during the two weeks before we started commercial harvesting, and there has been absolutely no comment on any taste issues. On the contrary, very good quality.
One, I think I can answer myself, and that is how much debt is currently committed for remaining Phase 2 CapEx? On that, I will say that we, as I said, have signed the agreement with Bank of China. It is subject to credit approval for Stage 1 and Stage 2
, expected to be in during Q2. We are in quite detailed discussions with them, and I believe we have a good overview. We have not published any figures yet, but the gearing is north of 60%, so more than 60% gearing in various tranches. Yeah. The same. Can you comment on your harvest profile 2025? I guess that is perhaps answered. I do not know if you would like to add anything.
Maybe I can add, yes, but we can say that the harvest profile is that during the first quarter, there will be somewhat limited harvesting. From Q2 and going forward, there will be at least harvest as steady state would indicate with the 4,000 tons production.
We have a question on sales. Can you comment on your price achievement for the first weeks after resuming sales? Should we compare to European or Chilean-Australian import?
Yeah, I think, as Ragnar mentioned, we did a very good preparatory work when we now re-entered the market in February. We had tasting panels with dozens of consumers. We also had small trials into the wholesale market, which all came back with the green light, and that gave us a lot of confidence when we re-entered and re-engaged with prior customers and also attracting some new customers along that process. I think what is important for us to highlight is that we are selling high-quality premium Atlantic salmon into the market.
In terms of how we are doing in price achievement, obviously in details, that will come back when we do the Q1 report. We are satisfied with the re-entry being a high-quality premium product, and we will continue to work hard to even strengthen our position and continue building the brand of Nordic Pure Atlantic in the market. So far, so good.
Yeah.
Was that complete, the list of questions or comments that you have had, Tom?
Yes. I think there has been some time now to, even with the delay, there has been some time to submit the questions. Perhaps we are approaching a close.
Sometimes we have seen the delay, so maybe we could just wait for a few seconds more and then we can go. Okay. Does not seem like there are any more comments, so I would just like to thank everyone for joining. Thank you from us all. Thank you.
Thank you.