Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Nordic Aqua's presentation of the Q2. Today we present, myself, Ragnar, CEO, and with me here in China is Andreas, our managing director, and from Oslo is Tom, CFO, also joining. If we go to the agenda today, we will start with some highlights. Andreas will come in and present the market. I will come back with operations and project, and then our CFO, Tom, will come in with the financials, and I will sum up in the end. Remember also when we have this session, that it is a possibility to come in and ask some questions in writing during the presentation, and then we will answer them in the end of the presentation.
First, starting with highlights, if we look at how things are going, we are quite satisfied, I think we can say, with many things. If we look at the production, we could say at the goal where we wanted to be when we have stage one and stage two together, aiming for 8,000 tons harvest, and then we have just under 2,300 tons in production for the quarter.
If we just continue what we are producing right now, we will be at the level where we should be. Total biomass is quite high, and the cost is coming down. The harvest has been ramped up during Q2, and we will further ramp up during Q3 and further going on. Sales price is EUR 7, and especially a strong achievement for the 5+ area, where we are just under EUR 8 per kilo. Farming cost, during the quarter, has been taken out with just over EUR 6. Operating EBIT is just under break even.
Stage two, we have completed, we are producing at full now, just some minor issues still ongoing. We have also started to design the stage three. Our managing director in China will come on just after me and explain more about the market, but we can still see that the market is just getting stronger and stronger here in China. Here, I would just like to give the word to you, Andreas.
Thank you for that, Ragnar. Yes, we are pleased to announce the Q2 results when it comes to the market performance and the harvest. The volume in the Q2 quarter ended up at 1,362 tons, and we have done some research on that, and we see that according to a third party, Kontal i, that is the first land-based salmon farmer that actually harvests more than 1,000 tons at an average rate, about 4 kg in a single quarter. That just underlines the trajectory we are in, which also Ragnar gave in his introduction.
The actual numbers for the quarter was 4.4 kg HOG, which is 5.3 kg live weight, and we had a solid, superior share of 96%. The average sales price achieved was around EUR 7/kg, EUR 6.94/kg . We were obviously somewhat impacted by the softening spot prices that we saw in this Q2, which was also a trend through the first half year of this year, which was also somewhat below the initial forecast that we given late last year.
It is also worth noting that some of the harvest volumes were skewed towards the end of the quarter as we were ramping up. I think it is also good to highlight, and this is something we are tracking closely, is that for the 5+kg superior grade we have, we are at a 21% price premium to the Sitagri export prices from Norway. The prices for the quarter came in at EUR 7.85/kg . I think if you also look at the average harvest price in general, we are tracking now closely at what is the average harvest size from traditional salmon farming in Norway.
That is something which we think is important here in the local market, to be able to make sure that we get sizes that are attractive for our price achievement. If we look on the actual size topping, this is a topic we talked about before, but we think it is worth mentioning that there is a price ban in China. We know there is a preference for larger sized fish. There are some local reasons for that in terms of taste and texture, yield, and also that there is a sashimi consumption. So there is a bigger sensitivity in terms of the pricing.
But I think it is important to note here that we are improving when it comes to the premium we get, especially now if we compare it to earlier quarter. If you see all our sales and we look at it towards a Sitagri index, and we weight this and we do it week- to- week so we have an apple-to-apple comparison, we are at 8% above Sitagri, which was an improvement from last quarter. We see that being steady now in the market, being a player that our customers getting used to, they like our stability, they like our product.
We see that that is now gradually yielding results, and it also gives some encouragement for the future and the further building of the market. We also participate at various events. Throughout the year in Q2, we were at some customer tasting events where we also put our Salmon Nordic Pure Atlantic, the brand in the spotlight. We also received some award during the quarter, which was from the Shanghai Climate Week Lighthouse Outstanding Case Award for our sustainability efforts and also our green manufacturing when it comes to using solar panels.
The overall value proposition, and we talked about this many times, but it still is something we talk to the market about, we talk to the customers about, and we feel that the freshness we can supply to the market is a unique feature that is very much a key aspect of seafood in China, where fresh seafood is something that is related to quality, and that we can do it here in the way we do it, locally produced, localized Atlantic salmon with the RAS technology is a strong selling point. Furthermore, for safety, we have no antibiotics used in our facilities.
We also do not use any type of medication, and there is no parasite risk and so on, which also resonates well with the local market. We also, by being locally here, we take down the transport costs and also the transport carbon footprint, which has a sustainability aspect to it. We are agile in terms of developing the market and looking to build more strategic partnerships when it comes to developing both the food service and the retail sector.
Next there. For those of you who do not know China that well, we are very well located. It is near Shanghai, the Yangtze River Delta. It is in an affluent area of China where you have, in the radius of five hours, 100 million consumers that focus on health, that are increasing the salmon consumption, as we will see in a minute when it comes to how China is developing market-wise. It is also a good location to serve a wider population of China, more than 800 million within 12 hours.
We think the location we are at at the moment has been a very good starting point when it comes to developing this local market. The actual development in Chinese market, and the ones who follow it will see that it has been strong growth year-on-year, especially since 2024. So far for this quarter, there was a year-on-year 25% increase.
We had almost for the first half year touching close to 100,000 tons. The growth story of China continues, and there are obviously some projections that have been made some years ago. 2023, Alibaba predicted 210 tons in 2030. We think that will be exceeded, and not in 2030, but before that. There is also other, Pareto made a suggestion of 300,000 tons in year 2030. Who knows where it ends up? The key factor is that China is a growth story.
It is going to continue to be a growth story as the penetration of salmon continues with Chinese consumers, as well as higher frequency. We see very positively on the market development in China. It is also a market with many origins, and we know that from before. You have Norway as the clear leader, which has, especially these two last years when you have lower than expected pricing, Norway has been able to capture a lot of market share also in China and has an impressive growth in China for the first half year of 33%.
Pricing, a bit depressed from what they have been used to. That is reasons that are related to the supply situation from Norway. But we think that the prices will, as some analysts also look at, will have a potential for improvement. Historically, we've seen that it's more than EUR 10/kg that's been the local pricing here, and that is something which obviously will further strengthen our business case by being here in China, which we think is being in the right market at the right time with the right product. Thank you.
Thank you, Andreas. Continuing to go into operational parameters. As I mentioned to start with, the overall production is going very well. The biomass production was just under 2,300 tons. Especially in May and June, the production came really up to where we wanted to be month on month. We finished this facility in late February, and already in May after we come up to full production. We think that is a very good result to achieve. The total biomass, 5,600 tons. If you look at the cost, during the quarter, we have reduced that cost of EUR 4.7/kg, while the average cost, because the cost before has been higher, is EUR 5.4/kg.
If we can continue with the cost that we have at the moment, it will gradually come further down. If we look at what we have produced so far in the facility since the start, then it's just over 14,000 tons. Mortality has been on a fairly low level, under 6% in all batches. Of course, some batches are much lower than that. If we look at harvest, we are just under 6,000 tons, and we are guided now going forward that only this year we will be between 5,500 and 6,000 tons. Average weight of the harvest, 4.3 kg.
We have discussed that we wanted to come up to a higher level, but as we can see with the high biomass that we have right now, we don't have so much flexibility to produce the fish that we have in the facility now much larger. We have a very high number, good survival rate, and that means that it will take a little bit longer than we have said before to get up the sizes.
We have already guided now also to the size this next quarter or this quarter that we are in now, Q3, will be around the same level that has been in Q2, and we expect the same level in the end of the year. Sometime next year, maybe not the first, but at least the second quarter, we would like to come significantly higher than that. If we could get the size up to live weight up to 6 kg- 6.5 kg, we think that that would be really beneficial for the prices. Generally good superior share also. Just looking briefly to the project. Now we are in full operations in stage one and stage two.
So we can say that stage two has also been completed. We still haven't paid all the bills, but that is just a matter of a process that we always have in such projects. As I mentioned before, the cost of stage two was significantly lower than we expected when we started the project. We are also looking into stage three now to design. We have started up on designing. Always, of course, we find some improvements, so we think that stage three will become a better facility than stage two, just like stage two was a better facility than stage one. So we continue to improve also on that page.
We don't know quite yet when the construction will start. There are still some issues to be discussed. Also, of course, we are not alone. We have also the government, and we have financing partners and so on, and all that should be in place before we push the final button that we start. Okay, from this, I'll just give the word back to our CFO, Tom, and to the financials. Please start, Tom.
Thank you, Ragnar. In the second quarter, our revenue was EUR 9.4 million, reflecting an 84% increase year-over-year, but perhaps more relevant, a 57% increase since Q1 this year. Obviously the key driver for this is increased harvest volume, also increasing 77% to 1,362 tons from Q1- Q2. We have touched upon the prices which came in lower at EUR 6.94 compared to Q1 due to market conditions, but also due to the fact that we had harvest volumes skewed to the end of Q2. But we are happy to note that we are above Sitagri 8% all over and 21% for the larger sizes, the 5 kg plus.
Farming cost was EUR 6.1/kg , which was down from EUR 6.3/kg in Q1, and this is due to consistently good growth over time. Thereby we had an operating EBIT of EUR - 646,000. We had fair value adjustments during Q2 of EUR - 4.2, reflecting the lower price band. We had financial items in Q2 of EUR + 100,000, basically due to unrealized currency gains. So that gives a loss for the quarter of EUR 4 million.
Then we had positive net cash flows, EUR 722,000. EUR 580,000 from operations and about EUR 140,000 net from investments of CapEx into stage two and financing of the same. Cash at end of quarter, EUR 5.4 million and equity EUR 108 million corresponding to 56%. Then we have loan agreements with a broad base of Chinese banks for the long-term project finance and for the working capital.
For the project finance, we have drawn equivalent to EUR 37 million of the EUR 49 million available, leaving EUR 12 million approximately for remaining CapEx. For the working capital finance, we have currently around EUR 8 million available and have drawn EUR 5 million of those. For stage three, we will address the financing with our bank group as we progress our process towards final investment decision. Back to you.
Thank you. Thank you, Tom. I will just remind people also once more that if you have any questions, there is a timely delay in writing comments and questions. Please write now so we can see them when we end the presentation. We will just have a brief look at the outlook. As Andreas mentioned also, the market is growing still, as we can see here in China, significantly. If you look at harvest volumes for Q3, we expect to be between 1,400 tons, 1,600 tons during the quarter. Similar average weights as we had the quarter before, 4.5 kg.
We can say that we started to harvest some of the Q3 fish now early in our mid early in the quarter. We will come up to full harvest volumes also in the time to come. For the year, we now guide 5,500 tons- 6,000 tons. If we look at the price achievements, of course, as has been mentioned, we are above the Sitagri with the bigger fish on 21%, 8% on average, so that the smaller fish is still not really paying a large premium compared with Sitagri.
As we can move forward and get the sizes up as we intend, then the price achievement should further improve from the stage that we are at now. Looking at the cost, we just mentioned it briefly, we are producing in Q2 at a lower rate than the standing biomass, so the cost development is going down. Of course, we know also that there will be some negative effects going forward, mainly from increased feed prices. We will see next quarter or the next quarters how development will be including some increases also.
The production is still running according to what we call full run rate on stage two. As I mentioned before, we are working with the stage three project, and we will come back to you when the final decision made. It can be made by the end of this year or early next year. We will still wait to announce when exactly we think that we should put on the start button for the stage three project.
If you just go briefly to the summary of what we have presented today, then we can say that the financials, EUR 0.6 million loss at the EBIT value, and harvest fine, production very good, and project completed number two and well away also to get ready for starting on stage three. With this, we conclude the presentation today. Thank you for listening. Then I just want to ask my people, my person in Oslo, Tom, are there any questions, comments?
Yeah. I will read some of the questions we have a second computer here. I will start with one. What is the expected timeline for ramping up harvest weights beyond Q3 this year?
Yeah. I mentioned it in the presentation also that we will come with larger sizes, and I think we can be quite okay with saying at least, Q2, and we will see if we are able to take the harvest rates up before that, but at least in Q2 next year, that is when we expect to come down. We could, of course, do something so that we could get it quicker.
If we just harvested quite a bit of small fish now, then all the fish would be going to the higher size sooner. But we think it is better both working with the customers and also, for the total financial picture that we gradually build it up. On the prices, I think there was a price question also then I think, I will leave it to Managing Director here, Andreas, to answer. Can you repeat the question just what it was on? Wasn't there a price question also?
The first one was on harvest weights.
Okay.
We have one on price. On price achievement, should we expect a similar price premium in Q3 as Q2 given flattish average harvest weights? What do you expect in Q4?
I think what we have seen so far, from the trajectory from Q1- Q2, was that we had more or less a similar harvest size. We were able to take up the premium on the total, which was 8% on Sitagri. So with more volumes, we were able to realize a better overall premium. I think that's due to the development we've done in the market. We have a very dedicated commercial team that is hands-on with the customers.
I think our job now is just to continue that trajectory and to do as best as we can in terms of achieving price achievement, also for sizes that are a bit smaller than what is the usual standard in China. So what the actual projection or this result will be on that, it remains to be seen. I think we all feel very confident that we are doing the right things here and that this should be reflected in also the premium. Obviously it's size related as such, so don't expect any big changes to it. We feel positive about the development going on.
Okay. Thank you, Andreas. I will read one which I think I can answer here, and that is on P&L cost. Should we see a similar realized reduction in Q3 as Q2? I would suggest that the answer to that is that we will probably see a similar type of cost, positive movement for continued growth, but a negative movement from increased feed costs, so probably in the same range or same area. Then there is the question on remaining CapEx and available liquidity.
On that one, I would say that we expect the available project loan to cover the remaining CapEx for stage two. So we expect no cash draw on operational cash for CapEx. Then we have one more on price. What is your fish sold for in China relative to Norwegian salmon in China or at equal harvest weights? That will be Andreas, I guess.
At the moment, we are benchmarking ourselves towards the Sitagri Index. I do not believe there is an average Norwegian price as such in the market. You will see different prices from different, not only origins, but sometimes suppliers when you come to at least the wholesale market for the bigger size.
We see that we are doing very well when it comes to the 6+ size. Obviously, as the prices go down, you will not find that much Norwegian salmon in the same price range. So in overall, on the sizes where we see that basically we are going to get the premium, we feel comfortable with the position we are there. I think it also reflected already in the Sitagri premium.
Then the last question we have is, if salmon prices remain at our current level for the next 12-18 months, do you expect to reach positive EBITDA without further cost reductions? We already have a positive EBITDA. We have given some, can we say, price and cost indications. Other than that, we do not generally guide on EBITDA other than noting that it is already positive in this quarter.
Yes. Maybe it is confusing when we say we have a loss on the EBIT level. If we report it on EBITDA level, it will be quite positive. Just because we report on the EBIT level that maybe there is a confusion there since the question was there. Okay, so this was the last question, Tom.
It was, yes.
Excellent. Then we just thank you all for attending and see you maybe on next time on November 12th. Thanks so much.