Hello and a very good morning to you all, and welcome to Proximar Seafood's Presentation of the Third Quarter, the quarter where we present our very first sales income as promised. As always, the presentation will be given by our CEO, Joachim Nielsen, in Japan, and myself, Ole Christian Willumsen, CFO, here in Bergen. We will start the presentation by giving you the highlights of the quarter before we move over to the section where I think many of you are very interested: the sales and marketing part. Then we'll, of course, give you an update on the production before we revisit our business case and give you the financial summary. We will then close by having a look at the summary and outlook session. And with that, I'd like to hand you over to Joachim in Yokohama to get us started. Joachim.
Thank you, Ole Christian. The third quarter has been a milestone quarter for Proximar. On the 30th of September, we harvested our first fish after 10 years of preparations and hard work. This was a trial harvest, meaning that we only harvested a limited number of fish, equivalent to approximately 1.2 tons HOG, and the result of the harvest showed 100%, superior quality and an average weight around 4 kg HOG. It was also a fantastic acknowledgment to see the fish being sold at premium pricing in the market, translating to approximately 130 NOK per kilogram in price achievement to Proximar. This translates to approximately 10%, price premium over the imported fish from Norway using our benchmark approach. On the 30th of September, we also announced our brand, Fuji Atlantic Salmon.
In terms of financing through the quarter, in August, we sold 40 million NOK in our convertible bond, which was held by the company, and later secured an additional 75 million NOK in loan facilities from Japanese banks for working capital purposes. Looking at the production, we continue to see good biological performance and stable water quality. Fish health remains good, and we continue to see low mortality. Unfortunately, the turbidity issues remained through the quarter, forcing us to reduce feeding as a precautionary measure. The ozone system was installed and started carefully testing in September, but due to design weaknesses and needing improvements, primarily for safety reasons, the proper dosing could not start as planned, prolonging the period of reduced feeding regime. Biomass developed positively but lower than expected due to turbidity issues.
The standing biomass at the end of the third quarter was 733 tons, split into 18 batches, and we are on track aiming for full utilization of the system in 2027. We're now counting 47 employees in addition to eight in-house harvesting employees, and most of our employees are today working at our facility in Oyama. For the market of Atlantic Salmon in Japan, it remains stable, and we see demand is picking up as the record high prices have eased somewhat. Prices have fluctuated, however, we see a rather stable picture when looking at the significant cost advantage of our local production in Japan, which is shown here on the lower right graph, showing the implied transportation cost between Norway and Japan in terms of transportation of Atlantic Salmon. As mentioned briefly in summarizing the quarter, the first sales have really confirmed our expectations.
We have achieved premium pricing not only for the trial harvest, but continuing into the fourth quarter as we are now harvesting and shipping out fish on a weekly basis from the facility. And the average price achievement so far is approximately 125 NOK per kilogram to Proximar, which shows the price premium of approximately 10%, compared to the imported salmon from Norway using our benchmark approach. And I'm also pleased to see the quality remains high, 99.2% superior grade. And so far, we've harvested 19.2 tons, averaging four kg HOG. The price achievement does not come by itself, and I believe Proximar so far has been very successful in the long-term preparations done together with Marubeni ahead of our first sales.
Our brand, Fuji Atlantic Salmon, was released in conjunction with the trial harvest on the 30th of September, and the brand is combining the essence in our production, our location at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, and the product itself, Atlantic Salmon. Salmon tends often to refer to all salmonids, and for Proximar, it's really important to emphasize that our product is Atlantic Salmon. And this is also the reason why we're including it in our brand name. In the logo, we also wanted to combine Norway and Japan, Norwegian know-how, and Japanese excellence, which is really what we're doing in Proximar. And we believe that the brand and logo are simple and clear and associate directly to our product. And we're also emphasizing future differentiation to coming competitors as one of the aspects in the branding.
Going forward, we will continue building our brand, which so far has started off very well. After shipping to various supermarkets, we're encouraged to see how the brand is actively being used in the supermarkets and shelves, building our visibility and consumer recognition. We have previously experienced strong interest for Proximar and enthusiasm in Japan, and can really say that the last months have taken this to new heights. Our media plan, which has been part of our planning in terms of branding and marketing strategy, has worked out fantastically. Following a smaller ceremony at the Oyama City Hall with the mayor and local media, we arranged a larger press conference together with Marubeni on the 25th of October in conjunction with the start of our first commercial and regular sales.
The press conference was well attended with 18 different media channels, including international and national media and TV stations. And we believe the strong enthusiasm in Japan for Fuji Atlantic Salmon is also a result of being the first and only domestic supplier of Atlantic Salmon, combined with our location at the foot of Mount Fuji. And this has also translated into large press coverage after the conference. We see here some extracts. We were in the main TV channels in the news as well as in large national media, including Nikkei. And we continue receiving inquiries. And in the next couple of weeks, we will also have another two large TV stations coming to film at site. Following the fish to the supermarkets, we're also very pleased to see the efforts here, both from Marubeni but also from the supermarket chains, helping build our brand and product awareness.
Fuji Atlantic Salmon has been very visible and primarily available in the high-end supermarket chains, and the feedback from customers is very positive, and we're pleased to see that the enthusiasm for our fish is shared. The value of the recent marketing activities through media and supermarket chains is enormous, and it's truly exciting and motivating to see this development. Unfortunately, it's taken much longer time than expected to get the ozone system to supply the required amounts. Safety is a key for us, and due to poor design and missing safety functions, the ozone system has not been able to run at the planned levels. Turbidity has therefore forced us to reduce feeding, which we also communicated in our second quarter presentation. We have, over the last couple of weeks, been able to increase the dosing to our C module, which is currently running with a targeted dosage.
We see that turbidity has dropped sharply and is now well below 1 NTU, which is referred to being crystal clear and drinking water quality. During the last couple of days, we've also been able to finally increase the dosage for our second module in operation and expect the same results within a very short time. We're already seeing a drop in turbidity and expect this to continue like we've seen in the C module. This means we are finally able to resume feeding as normal and get our growth curves back on track. For the two remaining modules, the ozone system is already being prepared and will be fully operational as required from the first fish being introduced to them. Turbidity aside, we keep seeing a stable system and good water treatment capacity.
All key parameters for good growth conditions for Atlantic Salmon are well within the acceptable range and tolerances, which gives us good growth conditions. We've also been through a summer with peak temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius outdoor, maintaining temperatures below 15 degrees in the production water. The water quality is stable, although we see some variations due to the fact that we're building up biomass and fine-tuning the system. The data points here are from the C module in the grow-out, where we have had full utilization, and it's also in line with the performance that we've seen in the nursery department, where we have had full utilization for more than a year. When it comes to production and fish performance, the overall picture is positive.
However, reduced feeding due to the turbidity has had a significant impact on growth, and certainly here for the December 2022 batch, which is very visible on this graph. This is also the batch with the highest densities, and where feeding has been most constrained, and with the previous slides in mind, as for water quality and turbidity, we're therefore confident in getting the growth curves back on track going forward. We continue to see low mortality, and fish health is good, both very important indicators of our growth expectations, and currently, we have 10 batches in our grow-out system and a total standing biomass in the facility of 877 tons and more than two million individuals. I will now hand over the presentation to Ole Christian to revisit the business case in brief and also go through our financials.
Thank you, Joachim.
We've always said that when looking at our business case, an important part of that is to assess the cost of importing Atlantic Salmon into Japan, since this represents a floor of the prices that can be expected for Proximar. This graph on this slide is then updated with the latest cost of importing salmon into Japan for the third quarter, and the average cost has then been NOK 118 per kilo. It's then very both comforting and encouraging to see that we have been able to sell our fish in the market at prices considerably higher than this benchmark, represented by the NOK 130 per kilo for the first harvest that Joachim has already mentioned. That's about 10% higher than the benchmark.
Then looking into what this may mean for Proximar's margins going forward, we can start by looking at the left-hand side of this graph that we've also shown before. The red line here is then the updated cost of importing Atlantic Salmon over the last three years. It's been varying between 100-160 NOK per kilo. And the horizontal line is the EBIT cost per kilo that we estimate when we are in full production in 2027. So that the shaded area between those two lines indicates a profit margin per kilo. When we then move over to the right-hand side of this graph, we are illustrating the expected EBIT cost per kilo at varying annual harvest volumes. We have a dotted line around the box of 5,300 tons, which is our base case in full production, representing an EBIT cost of 68 NOK per kilo.
What is good for our business case is that even with lower harvest volumes, the expected price is still considerably higher than the expected EBIT cost at that volume. So that gives us confidence in our business case and the way forward for Proximar. If we move over to having a look at the financial summary, I'd like to start by saying that as the revenues now will increase over the coming quarters, we will move over to report on the well-known EBITDA and EBIT, also including EBIT per kilo. However, it's still a little premature to do so given the still very low harvesting volumes. So then looking at the P&L, we are reporting our first, yet very small still, but still our very first sales income of 145,000 NOK. The earnings before tax came in at minus 23.7 million NOK and 14 million NOK after tax.
No big surprises in the P&L account in this quarter. Moving over to the balance sheet, we now have total assets of about 1.7 billion NOK, where about 85%, of that is represented through the fixed assets. When we look at the current assets, the biggest item there is the cash balance of 114 million NOK at the end of the quarter, and the inventory standing at roughly 98 million kroner. Looking overall, the balance sheet is funded roughly 70% by debt and 30% by equity. Moving over to the passive side of the balance sheet, a quiet quarter for the equity has only been adjusted with the comprehensive loss in the period, and the equity stood at 470 million NOK. Looking at the debt, there are no payments due until August next year when the syndicated loan in Japan has its due date.
That's also why that loan is now classified as a current liability since it's less than one year until maturity. We have always said and keep saying that we will refinance that loan well before its due date and have already started the discussions with our banks and are having very good dialogues with them regarding this. The remaining non-current liabilities of NOK 501 million consist of some loans in Norway, the convertible loan and the loan to Grieg Kapital, and some loans in Japan. With that, I'd like to hand it back to Joachim to give us an update on the equipment installation and the harvest outlook.
Thank you, Ole Christian. Finally, we are approaching the last installation works and expect all the work to be completed by the end of this year.
As of today, three or four modules are completed, and the fourth module is close to completion. Our feeding system is also expected to be completed in November, making the everyday lives of our production team easier and freeing up time, and since we're close to completion and all equipment is on site with very few exceptions, we have a good visibility in remaining cost and remain on track on what was communicated in our second quarter presentation. This transferring to remaining CapEx in the fourth quarter of approximately NOK 15 million in line with expectations. As for the harvest outlook and volumes, the overall plan remains with some slight timing adjustments. We're targeting to harvest approximately 4,700 tons combined in 2024 and 2025.
However, we will delay some harvest from December 2024 to first quarter 2025 due to a combination of customer requests, supply balance, and the lower growth rate to our December 2022 batch. But this is a timing matter with limited impact of the overall volumes. Therefore, we expect a harvest of 80 tons in 2024, delaying 270 tons into first quarter 2025. We are on track in terms of our target utilization, expecting full utilization of the facility in 2027, equivalent to a harvest volume of 5,300 tons per year HOG. So, summarizing the current status and outlook, we remain very encouraged to see the price expectations since starting Proximar close to 10 years ago now materializing. Our business case remains strong. The production is running well, and having solved the turbidity issues, we remain optimistic on the growth and biomass performance going forward.
With the completion of installation works this year, we can fully focus on production in 2025. In terms of harvest expectations, we are on track with the initial plan with some timing variations and will work hard to deliver on the production targets going forward. We have a very competent team in place and are therefore well positioned for the future, and as a first mover in Japan, well ahead of competition, we're generating strong interest and will continue to work to explore strategic alternatives and further growth, creating shareholder values. We feel Proximar has successfully delivered on many of the important goals from early 2021 and will work hard on delivering on our targets going forward, so with this, we have come to the end of the third quarter presentation and appreciate your attendance this morning.
Welcome to this Q&A session in conjunction with Proximar's third quarter reporting.
My name is Marius Birkines. I'm the Director of Strategy in Proximar and will function as the moderator. Our CEO, Joachim Nielsen, and CFO, Ole Christian Willumsen, will be answering the questions. Joachim from the office in Yokohama and Ole Christian from our office in Bergen. We have gotten a few questions already, of which the first one is whether it is fair to assume a backend-loaded harvest profile in 2025. I guess this will be for you, Joachim.
Yeah, I would say that from second quarter, we will be on more stable production volumes going through the year and reaching more steady-state biomass the second half of 2024, sorry, 2025.
Thank you. And connected to this, what should we think of as a steady-state biomass level in the facility to reach an annual harvest of 4,000 tons?
4,000 tons would be approximately slightly below 2,000 tons standing biomass, approximately, yeah.
Okay, thank you. A question for you, Ole Christian. Can you give any color on what you expect for the net working capital in the coming quarters? Any guidance for expected CapEx in 2025?
Yeah, we haven't guided yet on the CapEx for 2025, so we will come back to that. We have guided remaining CapEx for the phase one, and we are keeping that guidance. So far, we don't have anything to communicate on these figures, but we stick to the current estimates.
Thank you. One for Joachim. We now have 10 batches in the grow-out tanks. Then the question is, how many grow-out tanks are currently in use and whether we are splitting the biomass between tanks?
Yes, so we are now using two of four modules, although we have still spare capacity tanks in the two modules in operation. We will take the third module into use early December, so that's when we will be filled up with the two of four modules, taking the third one into use. Each module has six large tanks. However, the two modules in operation have four large tanks, sorry, five large tanks and four quad tanks, which is one quarter of a large tank. So that means that we have in December, we will have approximately 12 tanks ready to 12 large tanks ready to be taken into use.
Okay, thank you. And another question. How is the appetite in the Japanese financial market for a potential listing of Proximar Seafood on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and whether we have done any market soundings regarding this?
I would say on a general level, we are experiencing quite a lot of interest for Proximar in Japan, and that also includes the investor side. So we see that there's a high interest, and then we have to explore more the opportunities. We have communicated Tokyo Stock Exchange listing is one possible track that we are considering, and we are continuously meeting with potential investors to do soundings, but also to present the company and build the appetite.
Okay, thank you. Then we have no more questions, but you're always welcome to send any additional questions to Ole Christian Willumsen by email. Our next scheduled communication to the market is a production update at the beginning of January. Before we will return with the fourth quarter and full year presentation for 2024 on the 28th of February.
So then all that remains from us is to wish all of you a nice day and a good weekend and goodbye from us.