Good morning, and welcome to the second quarter presentation. I'm here together with two colleagues. My name is Bjørgulf Haukelidsæter Eidesen. I'm the CEO of Horisont Energi. On my right-hand side, I have Siri Melberg, our Head of Communication. On the left-hand side, I have our new CFO, Leiv Kallestad. Since this is the first time he is part of the quarterly presentation, he will introduce himself.
Yeah. Thank you, Bjørgulf. I joined Horisont at the start of June. And for me, this is a very exciting challenge. There are three reasons for that. One is the big picture, where we are in an industry that is actually contributing to a better world and a green transition. The other one is the industry in its infancy, and Horisont is really a pioneering company, and we can make a change compared to what has been there in the past.
And then you have the Horisont as a company and, what Bjørgulf and the team has done over the last four years, building a company that, has developed projects, has had its struggles, but are now repositioning itself to, develop both the company and the project, into an exciting future. So I'm looking forward to take part, in the team.
Thank you, Leiv. Okay, so, let's get started. Next slide. Okay, so today's agenda, I'm going to take you through the highlights of this quarter, including subsequent events. Then we're going through a short project review on the clean ammonia and CCS side. Leiv will take us through the financials of the first quarter. I will give you an organizational update with the changes that we have made, and then give you a few reflections on summary and outlook, going forward. We will end with a Q&A. There is a Q&A button, so you can add questions, then we will get them, and we will answer that towards the end of the presentation. Okay, let's get started. As a company, we have two lines of business. We have the clean energy production, where we develop clean ammonia plants.
Our flagship project there is the Barents Blue project, which we will get back to. An essential part of the clean ammonia or the Barents Blue, at least the blue ammonia, is carbon capture and storage. We have a separate business line also for carbon storage for third-party customers, so we are developing offshore carbon storage licenses and the whole value chain from capture of CO2 at customer, and then shipping towards final storage at our plant. So these two businesses are alive and well in the company, and we're developing projects within both of these areas. With these two business lines, we are, as I say, capturing two of the big ones. It's carbon, it's renewable energy, and it's hydrogen. Okay, so move forward.
The highlights from this quarter is that we have prolonged, and we also extended the partnership with E.ON to develop the European energy of the CCS value chain. I will get back to this. We also had a confirmation of securing the power supply for the Barents Blue project from Statnett. As some of you know, there has been a shortage of power to industrial projects, but since we have been in line for power for a long time, we have been power ahead in the queue. So we have secured what we need for the first train and also for some carbon storage in addition. In addition, I guess we have made a big change.
We had a project called Errai, which was a carbon storage project combined with the terminal at Gismarvik. This terminal, we have transformed from a single project terminal and sized it up to be a big terminal for many carbon storages. That opens up the space for us, where we're able to develop a portfolio of carbon storages, and we will also get back to this point. But this is a big and new development. Next point then, following on the last point, we are now aiming to develop a portfolio of carbon storage licenses. I guess the change here is that we will go for, let's sayfour, five , maybe more carbon storage licenses, but with lower equity than we had in the Errai project.
So we spread the risk, and we get to be more robust, and we create more activity, and more space for customers to store in. Furthermore, we have strengthened the governance and organizational alignment, and we, as we have done some changes to the board and to the management team. We will also get back to these details. Then, we were able to reduce the net loss compared to this first quarter. So the net loss in this quarter is NOK 58.7 million. We will also give some explanations to what type of activity is behind the use of cash. The cash in bank now, at the end of the quarter, is NOK 267.7 million.
We see that the cash position is satisfactory for the planned activity that we have, and we are funded until end of 2024 and, yeah, a bit beyond as well.
Yeah, at least.
The subsequent event, we had a press release 7:00 A.M. this morning, which we're very happy about, and that is the signing of the joint development agreement for Barents Blue with Vår Energi, our new partner. So we will also get back to this point, but this is obviously also a subsequent event, but it's also a key part, a key message in this quarterly report. Yeah. So let's take the next one. With Fertiberia, which is now the subsequent event, but and a very important event for the company. This is a very important milestone for us. Early this year, we changed partnership, and now we are fully reestablished, you can say, the partnership in this project.
So we are back on track with moving forward, fully forward, with Vår Energi and Barents Blue. We will share team efforts in the joint development of the project, and also we will share all the external costs. So we have a 50/50 joint development agreement set up now. And our first milestone is the concept select for the project, which we did this. So that is the next big milestone for us. We also contemplate to establishing Project SPV together with Vår Energi. That is, that we will start the process, but estimate to complete that around or just after concept select. After that milestone, important milestone has been reached, we will move on to DG 2 and then finally to the final investment decision.
There are still things to be solved in this project, and we are working hard and have been working hard on the gas part to get the gas supply from the gas sellers at Melkøya. We are also progressing very well on the Polaris CO₂ storage and work to secure a new partner qualified as operator. Furthermore, we have worked with financing for a long time. Now we will mature that further and towards the DG2, and finally, DG3. So the financing strategies will also be mature now together with Fertiberia. And then support schemes, we will also work, continue to work with that. We have the IPCEI project already, and we have secured some funding.
Now we will work further in, say, other types of support schemes to get additional support for the project. Yeah. Okay, within the CCS space, we have prolonged and expanded the partnership with E.ON. So together with E.ON, we are forming a complete end-to-end value chain for CCS, which involves both the capture, the liquefaction, the CO₂ purification, inland transport, shipping, and final storage. So we cover the entire value chain together with E.ON. And we are making further efforts. So in this updated agreement, we will be ready available or responsible for aggregating the carbon storage part and the shipping part. And E.ON will back that up with customers and CO₂ volumes for the storages.
We have an ambition, prior to 2030, to have more than 1 million tons delivered to the storages. So this is a commitment from E.ON to provide CO₂ for the carbon storages. Yes, thank you. So let's head into the project review and go into clean ammonia. First, I will talk a bit about the context and the market outlook. So we have seen, following, especially, I would say, the unfortunate situation with war in Europe, there is an initiative in EU called REPowerEU. We know that there's been a huge energy deficit in the EU, and this huge hydrogen ambition will seek to replace a significant part of the energy that was taken out of the system as a result of the war.
We see now that, if you look at ammonia equivalents, we are talking about 100 million tons of ammonia equivalents that will be produced or imported to EU by 2030. This is a significant amount, and the Barents Blue, with 1 million tons of production, can supply about 1% of the need that EU now is striving towards 2030. It is a very important initiative, and it's also been further supported by the Maritime Fuel Initiative, which will, let's say, mandate the, or make it mandatory for shippers to have clean fuels into the fuel mix, and also the CBAM, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will enforce a carbon toll on the border to EU.
All of these factors are driving now the transition to clean energies and clean fuels, and clean ammonia is an important part of this picture. You can take that one. So this is the Barents Blue project highlights. Just to repeat that, we are an IPCEI project, one of 2 Norwegian IPCEI projects in hydrogen. So we are a part of the official, you can say, hydrogen value chain in EU. We have a best-in-class CO₂ footprint for Scope 1, 2, and 3 combined. We have above 99% CO₂ capture rate. We are the first world-scale clean ammonia plant in the project development in EU, and when it's operational, it will be the largest clean ammonia plant or ammonia plant as such in Europe.
We are developing a new clean industry in Northern Norway, so there will be a big ammonia hub, a world-scale ammonia hub in Northern Norway when we are in operation. We are EU taxonomy compliant with the product, so we fulfill the taxonomy requirements, and we can provide a fully green product to the EU market. Let's move forward. Yeah. So highlights. The most important highlight of the day is the joint development agreement signed with Vår Energi, moving the project forward now, but also securing the power that we need for the first step, very important. We have good progress on the commercial aspects, both on the feedstock and on the offtake. And with Equinor coming on board, we shifted the focus towards realizing the first production train.
So the second production train, we have, we have delayed, and we can start to call it a future option. Now there's a full focus on realizing the first step, both on the Melkøya, on the modification part, on the project, on the permitting, on, on the, on the co-commercial side. So we have simplified, we have reduced cost, and we have focused the project to secure the first step. You might also remember that we received a grant of almost NOK 500 million, or almost EUR 50 million, from Enova as part of this IPCEI status that we have received, and we are part of the IPCEI hydrogen program. That was received seventeenth of December 2021, so it's been there for a while, but this is an important part of de-risking the project forward.
We have identified also potential upside, where we can deliver blue power from the project, and we will work with stakeholders to identify the interest of doing just that. That's also an upside for the project. Okay, let's move forward. Now over to carbon capture and storage on the project side here. Next one. There, we have some ambition to 2030, to have over 200 million tons of equity storage capacity in our project portfolio, becoming carbon storage operator. We are positioned to do that in the North Sea. We want to be a central player also in the carbon market, including this carbon dioxide removal. This is also a key part of the cooperation with E.ON, and we anticipate this will be a very, very big part of the carbon market and will be growing substantially going forward.
So this is the renewable part of the carbon market. We have a fossil market, which is fossil CO2 for storage. The renewable CO2 for storage creates what we call negative emissions. On the project portfolio side, we have one project in development, which is the Polaris project. This is the license that we have in Northern Norway, which will take CO2 from the Barents Blue project, but also from third-party customers. We are also now developing a portfolio of projects, so we'll be on early phase on many new projects. By 2028, we want to have four projects in our portfolio and one to two of those in operation. Polaris should be one of them. Furthermore, we will have one new project in operation inc...
That is connected to the Gismarvik terminal, and four other projects in development and past Stage 1. So in total then, up to six projects, twpo in operation and four in development. For 2030, five projects in development and up to four projects in operation. It's a new license group with a new operator. And furthermore, we are exploring the third-party CO2 storage options using Polaris, both from volumes in Northern Norway, but also volumes outside of Norway, from Europe. So we have concepts that make this commercial, and while also still obviously taking on the CO2 from the Barents Blue project. So this provides expansion and scaling opportunities for the Polaris project. We have done a lot of project development in Polaris, and we have developed a lot of IP on the offshore, in particular, the offshore CO2 injection solutions.
So this is also a part of what we have built, let's say, a part of the company, the know-how related to developing various types of offshore carbon storage systems. So, this result overall in the commercial offering of CO2 for Continental Europe to Polaris, which we are very happy about. So we are in the market with this capacity. Okay, let's move to the next one. The CO2 terminal at Gismarvik. Gismarvik, just to start out with, is a big industrial park, one of the, I think, probably the biggest one in Norway. It's a very large area, deepwater quay. There was power here. We have secured a large site. We have an option agreement for that.
This site will be used to develop, now a big CO2 terminal that can take up to 25 million tons of CO2 on an annual basis. We see that this should provide capacity for about four carbon storage projects, so we will be able to develop a large portfolio together with partners connecting to this terminal. So we see this to be a big CCS hub, where we can import CO2 from Europe, but also take local CO2, CO2 from Norway, to make Norwegian emission cuts before 2030. We have worked hard and worked long with developing this CO2 terminal concept, so we have made a simplified, secure, and very cost-effective solution. We also have the same type of effective solutions offshore.
So we think all in all, we are developing a very competitive CO2 value chain, and with this scale that we talk about here, we get very interesting economics. So we think this is also a big competitive advantage to be able to develop such a significant CO2 hub as we have here. Let's move forward. Please say. Thank you. As a company without the revenue, we are spending money, and because of that, we are generating losses. But the losses are generated for the purpose and the goal of creating value for shareholders down the road. So that's important to bear in mind. If we look at what happened in the first quarter, we have had a loss of EUR 58.7, and in isolation, that's down from the first quarter.
... which was NOK 75 million. The main reason for that is that we terminated the Errai project, and the costs associated with that project was winding down. If we look at the first half, we had a loss of NOK 134 million, which is substantially higher compared to the first half of last year. The main driver for that is that the first half of this year included some costs related to Barents Blue, a significant portion of costs from the Errai project, and we also had higher employee costs and internal costs because the organization was built up during the second half of last year and into this year. So there are good reasons for that.
But when we then look forward, we see that the cost will go down, because we, at this point in time, have refocused the company, and we are spending mostly internal costs. The cash, which Bjørgulf already touched upon, was NOK 268 million at the end of the quarter. And although the outflow has been high, it is now reduced, so we have a more modest spending at this point in time. And because of that, we also see that the funding of the company for what we are doing now is satisfactory. As Bjørgulf already touched upon, we see that we have funded the company until the end of 2024 and really beyond.
And of course, there is an implicit assumption in this that when we move forward with some of these projects that Bjørgulf has presented, we will go out and finance those projects separately.
Thank you. So, on the organizational update, we have made several steps to strengthen the governance and align the organization. We announced previously that Gabriël Clemens from E.ON was appointed chair of the board. He represents the largest shareholder and underlines their long-term commitment to Horisont Energi. We also strengthened the management. We have reduced the size of the management team to four persons, with the core management team consisting of myself as CEO, the new COO, Ståle Brattebø, and Leiv Kallestad , new CFO, which presented themselves and presented here to you today, and Gude Hansen as the Chief Legal Officer. The business areas is also focused around clean ammonia and CCS, supported by commercial and technical teams. So we are, we have worked hard on optimizing the use of resources in the company.
This new setup allows us to adjust the activity level and maintain a sharp cost focus. So we've been able to sharpen a lot the activity and the focus in the company. And we expect, furthermore, to lower the cost level and reduce the cash burn, also going forward compared to previous quarters. Okay. So the final slide just to summarize a bit. We have today signed a joint agreement with TotalEnergies for the Barents Blue project to develop the largest ammonia plant in Europe. We have secured power supply for the Barents Blue project, so two very important milestones. And the next steps going forward verify obviously and document the commercial basis for the Barents Blue together with our new partner. So we have a particular commercial focus onto the next milestone.
So the focus will mainly be on securing the gas and the commercial agreements for the ammonia. So we have worked hard on this, and we have had a lot of progress. We'll continue and try to finalize this work as an intermediate stage onto the concept select milestone. And then at that point, targeting to start up the FEED study. That is the next sort of big step in the Barents Blue project. On the carbon capture side and storage, we, as I said, prolonged and expanded the partnership with E.ON to develop the European CCS value chain. We are also now working hard to establish a new license for Polaris with a new operator.
And in addition, working hard there to onboard third-party CO2, to furthermore scale that the activity in Polaris. Third-party CO2 will also allow us to accelerate Polaris ahead of the Barents Blue project, so we can get an early start with CO2 storage for third parties. We are working towards attracting the operating partner, as we said, and working hard to do that. Furthermore, mature the Gismarvik CO2 terminal, which is now scaled up to significant size, allowing for a portfolio of carbon storages. And this is a very active and prospective area on the Norwegian shelf, so we are well positioned to develop a very interesting carbon storage portfolio, from based on the Gismarvik terminal position.
Furthermore, we really plan to use this edge to work on the portfolio with low to medium equity position, to reduce the risk, and to be able to develop a portfolio which will have secure and long-term activity level also in the company and the long-term business. So we will continue on our mission to accelerate the transition to carbon neutral future. Thank you all for attending today. Now, we will move on to the Q&A part of this event. So we have gotten a few questions already. There is a first question, which reads: "If we can provide more details on what we should expect regarding the partnership with Fertiberia going forward?" I think, what we see is that Fertiberia has -- they have a 50-year history in ammonia.
They have 14 plants in operation. They have a large base organization, and they have a large commercial operation. They also already have green ammonia production and have a large customer portfolio based on their green ammonia. So they're already in this green market. With all the capabilities of Fertiberia, them come into the project, we will work as a joint team with people both from Horisont and from Fertiberia, and jointly develop the project through the different work streams. But I think with all the know-how and capabilities of Fertiberia, we really see a strengthened project from all sides.
So we are, we are very, very happy about where we have gotten now, together with Fertiberia, and we expect a strengthened project, and we expect to be able to land the commercial parameters now towards the next milestone. We have progressed a lot already, and we'll progress even more together with Fertiberia now going forward. So, I think that is what I'm able to say at this point. On the timelines, next question: "What is the timeline for Errai going forward, and what expectations should we have in terms of progression for the rest of this year?" I would say that to...
When we did not get the Errai license, which was, let's say, one of the fortunate events of the first quarter, we originally had a startup plan for 2027 for the Errai. With the changes and the refocus, we have about a delay about a year. So we see now that we were able to start up in 2028, with the terminal and with the first carbon storage development as part of that terminal. That is the timeline we're working on. We have been able to progress and advance the permitting process, which is sort of have been a key driver, you can say, for the further development and the start-up date of the project.
So we've been able to maintain 28 as a start-up date. So that is what we are aiming for for this new terminal. In terms of progression, the rest of this year, target is to be able to align with one license, to be the first initial license that will develop complete development on terminal, and also the development of this first storage to connect. And with all the work we've done for Errai, there is a lot of documentation and work already done that will benefit any carbon storage that will be connected to this terminal. And we will, for sure, be part of the license to be connected to the terminal. There has been...
There is a question about the recent award that was in the close to the Sleipner area, the Sval, Storegga and Neptune, whether we competed for that license and what is the status of new applications from us? We did not compete for this license. There was other companies competing for it, and it was now awarded, I guess it was this eighth of August, it was awarded. It is a license in the same area as we have, as we had for the Errai. On our side, we are working with new license applications, and we expect to send new license application already this year, as part of developing the project portfolio for Gismarvik.
Then there is a question about price range: "Can you say anything about the price range for the vendor to join the Barents Blue project?" I cannot say that at this close, at this point, but there is payments involved from Fertiberia to Horisont on a milestone basis. So as we achieve certain milestones, there are certain payments to be made. Yes. So that is a good question. But we're not able to disclose this today. And then there is a question about how many FTEs are currently in the company, and how much was spent on employee cost in Q2 and first half. Do you want to-
Yeah, I can address that. That information is presented in note 1 in the financial report, but at the end of the quarter, we are about 44 FTE. But the number will go down over the next couple of months with a few FTEs, so we will be around 38-40 people going forward, which will reduce the sort of cash outflow on an annual basis of about EUR 10 million, compared to where we were at the start of the year. If you look at the employee costs for the second quarter, it was EUR 13 million. Again, if you look at the Note 1, compared to 4.8 in the second quarter of last year.
However, it's down significantly. It will go down significantly in the next quarter, and we have peaked for now before we start increasing employees when we get the projects coming into the next phases. So, but for now, we have a lower employee cost than we've had in the last quarter going forward.
Yeah. There is one last question I have to you, Leiv, and that is concerning how many shares you have bought in Horisont Energi?
Yeah, good question. At this point in time, I haven't bought any because I've not been allowed to buy any, so I will have to go back to that.
Yeah, for sure. Okay. Thank you all for the questions and for listening in, and see you next time. Have a nice day. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.