Of 2022. My name is Pål Grimsrud, and I'm the CFO of Proximar. Together with me in Japan, I have the CEO of the company, Joachim Nielsen, and Marius Birkenes will also assist us in the Q&A session. We will now take you through the main events of the second half of 2022, and after presentation, you can all submit questions for us. With this introduction, I will let Joachim start out.
Thank you, Pål, and good morning. Proximar's outlook remains strong, and we believe our fundamentals are better than ever. The cost advantage of local production has increased over the last years, and we expect it will remain high going forward. In combination with the unparalleled freshness made in Japan and branding potential of our Mount Fuji location, we're also confident in the potential to as-attain price premium. Following geopolitical instability both in Europe and Asia, we have witnessed increased attention and strategies on local food supply. This is now a top priority on the national agenda and also a big concern for Japan. After falling for several decades, Japan has amongst the lowest self-sufficiency rates comparing to other major countries, approximately 38% today versus 73% in 1965. On top of this, we see increased focus on ESG, and our products are very well-positioned here.
This is also why we're taking our ESG emissions very seriously. We believe this will pay off in the long term. The Japanese consumption of salmon is growing steadily. We see this trend continuing, driven by the younger generation's preference for Atlantic salmon. Despite being a seafood nation, consumption per capita of Atlantic salmon is still at very low levels compared to other markets. Lately, we've also received interest from other Asian markets for our upcoming product, supporting our view on the product's attractivity, not only in Japan but in other Asian markets. Japanese seafood has a strong reputation in Asia. We believe this, combined with the Mount Fuji location, drives this interest. We're now getting close to completion of our construction works of the 5,300 tons facility just 1.5 hours from Tokyo.
Following the partial takeover of the hatchery and nursery building in October, we can now also show that we are in production. This also means that we are on track in terms of our target to harvest our first fish in medio 2024. Over the years, our focus has been on building Proximar with a strong foothold to industrial partners to give us relevant insights and know-how, which we believe is a key for future success. With the 10-year offtake agreement signed in 2022 with Marubeni Corporation, we are well positioned in terms of getting our product to the market. This also means that Proximar can focus on production and growth going forward.
We see high prices in the Japanese market, which should imply strong margins and good earnings potential for Proximar once we get our production up and running and start selling in little more than a year from now. This also translates into what we believe is the robustness in our business model. Proximar is not dependent on high market prices and will generate good profitability both in a lower price environment and if production levels are, for some reason, not achieved. This we try to illustrate here assuming different densities, ranging from 30 kilograms per cubic meter up to 100 kilograms per cubic meter and with implied production volume shown on the line to the left. Our target is 80 kilograms per cubic meter, but starting at 64, then gradually increasing to our target over a three-year period.
The 80 kilograms is also in line with what has been seen at the AquaMaof facility in Poland. On the graph to the right, you will see that even with more conservative densities, we are still at profitable levels, assuming the reference price calculation using 2024 prices today. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that we remain confident in achieving our production target at 80 kilograms per cubic meter. Speaking more about second half of 2022, we have reached several milestones during this period. In October, we issued a convertible loan of NOK 250 million in a challenging market. As part of the transaction, we also increased the construction facility from JA Mitsui Leasing with NOK 50 million.
A major milestone was reached in October as we took over the hatchery and nursery building and successfully received our first batch of eggs marking the start of production. In November, we organized a ceremony to mark the production start and welcomed more than 100 guests to celebrate the historic moment marking the first commercial production of Atlantic salmon in Japan. Proximar is moving forward, we are on track on both construction and production. As of the end of 2022, we had 84% completed of the civil works. We had two batches in production and 12 employees. Going forward, we will continue our recruitment primarily for the production staffing, and we will be taking monthly delivery of new batches of eggs.
When it comes to the market, the fundamentals remain strong, and we also expect this to continue. The start of 2023 has been very active, and we've received two loan offers from different Japanese banks. In early January, we received a credit-approved offer of JPY 4 billion post-construction loan with a drawdown in end 2024. In February, we received a loan offer from another Japanese syndicate of two large banks of JPY 8.8 billion. This offer is subject to final credit committee approval, but the process is at an advanced stage, and the offer is also straight on our targeted debt ratio.
In January, we transferred our first batch of fish to the start feeding in accordance with our plans, and the first batch is expected to be transferred to the nursery in March, which will be yet another milestone for us. In February, our CFO, Pål Grimsrud, decided to resign from his position. He will remain in his role during his notice period until August, and we have initiated a recruiting process and have ongoing dialogues with several very qualified candidates. We are on track and have already the largest part of construction behind us. In our grow-out building, which is to be completed this summer, we're now doing installation work of production tanks and backfilling around these. Following the completion of this building, we will transfer the first batch to our grow-out and scheduling first harvest medio 2024.
In terms of updated CapEx, the main deviations from previous communication is related to currency effects and some smaller but important upgrades. When it comes to currency effects, as we now will be financing the large part of remaining CapEx and OpEx in Japanese yen, this will have limited effect on cash flow. As for the upgrades, the main cost is related to upgrading of feeding system better suited for us, shifting to a solution reducing breakage and dust. We expect this to have a positive impact on feeding cost, reduce spill, and perhaps even more important, improving water quality. It's also expected to reduce downtime for maintenance and carries a lower electricity consumption compared to conventional solutions. We've also enhanced the electrical system to provide better and more seamless protection in case of blackouts.
In addition, we have made some investments to prepare for the solar panels on the roof of the grow-out building. This we also expect will reduce electricity costs somewhat, as well as align with our strong ESG efforts. In terms of unforeseen cost increases, and quantity adjustments, this remains limited, and the numbers here are based on our updated forecast, and the main elements are slightly higher costs related to tanks and installation of these. With a large part of construction behind us, we have a good visibility in terms of cost and time as we now enter the final stages of the construction. Currently, the commissioning by AquaMaof is ongoing in the nursery department, in the hatchery and nursery building on the right here.
In the grow-out building, we are doing tank installation and backfilling, and the first part of the concrete floor will be made in early March. We are encouraged to see the performance in the first feeding, and following the first transfer of batch number one, we've seen the AquaMaof solutions also performing. The water parameters are well maintained, which is the key for successful growth. We're also continuing to follow data from the facility of AquaMaof in Poland, demonstrating robustness and steady performance. Until now, 36 cohorts have been harvested since mid-2019, showing KPIs, including growth, in line with our own expectations. The water parameters are maintained at adequate levels, also with high densities, which clearly demonstrates the functionality in the design. Despite being a smaller facility, harvesting approximately 300 tons per year, the design is identical.
We previously stated strong interest for Proximar in Japan, we believe this was clearly demonstrated by the participation and coverage of our ceremony in November. The ceremony was done in collaboration with Daiwa House and Marubeni. With more than 100 prominent guests and broad media coverage, we really believe we could see the proof of this interest. Following the ceremony, we had a broad coverage in news media, including television and national coverage in several channels. To transfer this interest to the relevance of market interest, we have also been welcoming several potential buyers of our fish to site through Marubeni, including large supermarket chains, wholesalers, et cetera. We believe that this again demonstrates the attractivity and positive association Proximar receives.
Having said that, we also believe that part of the large attention Proximar is able to attain is related to our location at the foot of Mount Fuji, as well as being the first mover in Japan.
Let us have a look into the figures of the last six months of 2022. In approximately three weeks, we will publish the annual report with all the details. The company looks very different this reporting period compared to one year ago. One thing, however, is the same. We are still waiting for the first fish to reach the harvest size, meaning we will not have any income until mid-2024 as planned. We have increased the staffing significantly in order to operate the facility, which has been operating then, with the first batch of eggs since October. We will further increase the number of employees going forward as the number of fish and the size increases. For the balance sheet, there are no surprises.
The asset under construction increased significantly, we can finally see some biological figures as the working capital figure is presented for the first time. The equity is still strong at approximately NOK 390 million. We have the 250 million convertible bond being reflected, as well as the full amount of the JA Mitsui Leasing loan in the balance sheet. This message is one that we were waiting for a long time to present. We received a loan offer of half of this size early January, which was announced to the market. At the same time, we were working on this alternative, we're very pleased when we could present this a couple of weeks ago. The two banks involved in this syndicate are both large Japanese banks.
They see the benefit of Proximar's project for Japan, and they would both like to take an active position by offering this loan. We are very pleased with both the debt size and the offered terms and conditions. When the banks issue a letter of high confidence, this is a strong statement from the banks of where this will end. From our side, we will do our utmost in order to conclude this in March as the planned first disbursement is coming within short. As for the market in Japan, the all-time high salmon prices and higher import costs have driven the prices in Japan significantly higher. The war in Europe, followed by reroutings of air transportation to Japan, has had a major impact on transportation costs. A significant longer distance and fewer departures are affecting costs, and we do not see this normalizing in the near future.
Despite a 45% price increase, the Japanese market remains strong and solid, with only a limited 16% reduction in consumption. The reduction is not only due to the cost increase, but also challenging logistics, reducing available volumes. We believe the long-term fundamentals remain strong and believe the long-term growth trend of Atlantic salmon consumption will continue. Looking at the price components, it's easy to spot the sources of the high market prices for Atlantic salmon in Japan. All-time high export prices from Norway with an average of NOK 81 per kilo, compared to 2021 average of NOK 59 per kilo. A general cost increase of transportation along with the conflict in Ukraine has increased the implied transportation cost from Norway to Japan substantially. For the last few years, this has accounted for around NOK 25 per kilo.
In 2022, however, this increased to 29 NOK per kilo in average through the year. Since July, the average has been 39 NOK per kilo. The elevated transportation costs makes local production even more competitive. To sum this all up, second half of 2022 has continued the positive development for us, and we are very pleased to say that our progress on both construction and production has developed as planned. What we now have moved into production marks an important shift for the Proximar story. We are also very encouraged to see the AquaMaof facility in Poland continue the consistent performance, which supports our own operational plans. We are successfully continuing our recruitment of highly skilled employees, and we are surprised by the level of highly quality candidates we are able to attract.
We do see the strong link with these candidates and the strong interest we experience in the Japanese media. We have also made significant progress on the debt financing, and we see the effect of our offtake agreement with Marubeni materializing in loan offers as expected and previously communicated. There are more banks showing interest lately, but our focus is now to conclude on this in the near future. The market outlook remains promising, both in terms of pricing and consumption, and Proximar is attractively positioned as a first mover in Japan. Finally, the timing is perfect, and we are really happy to see how the changes in the world politics and trade has increased focus on the self-sufficiency. For Japan, this has become high priority, and we are proud to contribute to building a new industry in Japan addressing these concerns.
With this summary, we would like to open for questions. If you should have any questions after this session, please do not hesitate to contact us.
With a two-part question. The first part of this is, how much of the total CapEx is currently remaining?
Well, we have not been sharing these details previously. We do report on the progress, and we would definitely say that the remaining CapEx is fairly reflected in the progress of the construction. We haven't shared the details of this yet before, and we are not planning to do that now either.
A second question. If we could elaborate apart on how the credit approval process is moving forward with the bank syndicate, and whether we see it as probable to get the first disbursement in March 2023?
Hey, Joachim, would you?
Yeah, I can, the process is moving forward, and according to our expectations, and as we have already informed in the press release, we do expect the conclusion by the end of March. Could you say a bit more about the interest from the other regions, in Asia, let's say Japan?
Yeah.
We have interest from several markets. It's not one market only. We are having visitors also from abroad to site. We've also had visitors from Japan to the site in the recent year. When do you expect the first confirmed sales orders, and if you can already at this point see interest from potential future customers?
Yeah. We don't have a exact timing of the first sales. There's still some time to go. What we are now working on is building the interest from larger potential buyers. We're also seeing these contacting and also visiting sites. We're making progress but still early stage.
When do you realistically see another land-based competitor in Japan?
It's difficult for us to say, but we know there is another project which we assume is approximately 3 years behind us. That's at least the information we have.
Okay. I think this rounds up the Q&A session. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Thank you.