Good morning. Thank you for attending this presentation. Besides myself, Joachim Nielsen, CEO of Proximar Seafood AS, I'm joined by our new CFO, Ole Christian Willumsen today. Ole Christian has recently joined us from Equinor, where he was country manager for Japan, and has also worked in China and the Middle East, and has extensive operational experience. I'm very pleased to have him on the team as we now move into the future. The second quarter has been hectic. We have completed the land acquisition, paying the remaining amount of the seller credit, and transferring the land ownership to Proximar. The funding of this acquisition was secured through the first drawdown of our bank loan in early June, marking a major milestone in the company's history.
The remaining bank loan of JPY 7.5 billion will be released upon handover of the grow-out building, which is scheduled in third quarter. We have continued building our team with focus on production, and we have also secured more financing through a private placement and a shareholder loan totaling NOK 180 million. I'm pleased to say that we are now approaching the completion of construction and equipment installations of our 5,300 tons facility after many years of planning and more than two years of construction activities. The fundamentals for production of Atlantic salmon in Japan appear highly attractive, with transportation costs remaining at extremely high levels, which impacts the market prices for Atlantic salmon in the Japanese market.
The difference between the export price from Norway and import price to Japan for the last 12 months averages around NOK 42 per kilogram, which is up from NOK 36 per kilogram for the same period in the first quarter. This supports our positive outlook for strong production economics going forward. This also means the average market price for Atlantic salmon in Japan was around NOK 150 per kilogram for the last year. Although the extreme high prices are impacting the demand somewhat, we still see the underlying trend growing when it comes to consumption of Atlantic salmon in Japan.
The importance of local and sustainable food production has increased lately. We see this being reflected in the interest for Proximar in Japan, not only amongst the consumers, but from key stakeholders such as authorities, partners, industry participants, financial institutions, and through our distribution channels. Important drivers in this context are the ESG perspectives and securing local food supply. I therefore want to repeat what I've said before, Proximar is well-positioned for the future in terms of a robust business model and the trend favoring local food supply. From our location, 1.5 hours from Tokyo, we are centrally located in a very large market, using proven technology and currently ramping up our production. We have a strong platform in place with important partnerships, which we built over time.
These partnerships have been a key in Proximar's strategy since inception in early 2015, also reflecting the stages of the company's development. As we are now moving towards harvesting and sales, we're also very pleased to see the efforts from Marubeni in the preparations for marketing and sales in Japan. Without the support from our partners, I believe it would be very difficult to secure the important know-how and relevant experience. This has also certainly been an important part of our bank's considerations. We will continue developing our relationships, as we believe this is an important success criteria. We have been through a complex planning and construction phase. We're now able to focus on production and sales going forward. As our presence in Japan is building up, we will also seek to develop Japanese partnerships, positioning Proximar for the future.
The cost advantage we see in Japan is a strong illustration of the robustness in our business model. We are not a bet on high salmon prices, but on a significant cost advantage of local production. This also translates into attractive economics, even if our production volumes would, for some reason, not be reached. The projected production cost in steady state is around 50% of the current market prices and the expectations for 2024 in the Japanese market using the forward prices. Furthermore, we remain confident in reaching our target capacity at 80 kilograms per cubic meter once reaching full utilization, translating to 5,300 tons HOG and a strong EBIT margin potential.
We remain on track with our initial schedule, and I'm very pleased to say that our construction works are finished, and we are on track for handover of the grow-out building in September. As a company, we can now move all our focus to production, delivering our first fish to the Japanese consumers in approximately one year from now. The construction is now completed, with equipment installations from AquaMaof ongoing and continuing in the months ahead. On the picture here, you can see the grow-out building, and on the upper right, a part of the hatchery and nursery building. The grow-out building carries a size of 25,000 square meters, and the hatchery nursery building, around 3,000 square meters, meaning a total size of 28,000 square meters.
Completing the construction works is a major milestone for us. This implies that all building works are completed, both indoor and outdoor. We're able to take handover and start preparations for the first fish transfer. The equipment installations going forward are primarily related to AquaMaof, our RAS supplier, and construction risk is now removed, enabling us to focus fully dedicated towards production. The critical installations of fish tanks and piping works were completed early July, and this has been more time-consuming than expected. We therefore also needed to add more resources than planned, also to avoid delay. Our CapEx is therefore slightly revised upwards to NOK 1.195 billion, up NOK 45 million from our previous report. This increase has been driven by some additional installation costs and some additional construction-related costs towards the end of construction.
Still, our CapEx per kilogram is around NOK 225, which we still believe is very attractive and competitive. We're also very pleased about the quality of works done by our construction company, Daiwa House, and this is also a general feedback we receive from many of our visitors, both from Japan and overseas, from the industry and from outside. The positive feedback from people familiar with the aquaculture industry is also confirming our view on this. Again, here you see the grow-out building from different angles and the office and processing part of the big building on the lower right on the two stories. Before the handover can be completed, we are waiting for the inspection by the Japanese authorities. Consequently, the handover can take place along with the drawdown of the remaining loan from the banks.
Here on the pictures shown, the inside of the grow-out building, with the production tanks lined up. We have a total of 22 large tanks of 18 meters diameters and 12 smaller tanks of 9 meters diameter. The total amount of water volume in the production tanks will be approximately 33,000 cubic meters in the grow-out building, and in addition to this, we will have approximately the same amount in the water treatment, in the sedimentation tanks and biofilter tanks, which you see here on the lower left. When it comes to the production, we see encouraging performance. As depicted on the graph here, you can see that batch one is growing well ahead of our production plan, and we also see the coming batches performing very well.
We have also, as also stated in the first quarter report, experienced some startup-related issues, which has resulted in mortality in some batches. The issues have been resolved, and despite these incidents, we are still in line with our production plan and targeted volumes for the first 12 months of harvest. As we have communicated previously, we have taken operational startup issues into our production planning and increased the number of eggs for, in each batch for the first 12 months to secure a buffer to handle startup occurrences. The water quality is very stable and good, which we also see resulting in good growth performance from the previous slide. Our water is continuously being monitored to secure optimal growth conditions, and on the graph here, you can see the temperatures in the nursery over time in the production tanks.
Despite high and sharp rises in the outdoor temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, our production water is maintained at steady temperatures around 12 degrees Celsius, which we think is very promising. We are currently 23 employees, and more to join going forward. I'm very pleased to see the strong enthusiasm across our team and the strong dedication to Proximar. Our production team is doing a great job, and we have also secured more experienced colleagues with background from the industry to make sure that we are less vulnerable and have extra capacities to train our people and to contribute with know-how and insights where needed. In Proximar, we consider this to be an insurance to secure the best results possible in our production and delivering on our goals. I will now hand over to Ole Christian for a presentation of our financial results.
Thanks, Joachim, and good morning, all. Let's start with the profit and loss, where we report a quarterly loss of NOK 13.7 million. This result is in line with our expectations, reflecting the increased activity in Japan, including added personnel costs. These personnel costs make out about 60% of the operating expenses, with depreciation, amortization, and other operating expenses representing the bulk of the remaining cost. Moving over to the balance sheet, our assets have roughly doubled in value since we reported a year ago, making Proximar a NOK 1 billion company by asset value. At the end of June, more than 90% of this NOK 1.1 billion is related to land, asset under construction, and associated equipment. The remaining 7.5% of our assets consist of biological mass, other short-term receivables, mainly VAT refunds, and cash.
Looking at the debt side, the increase in current liabilities to NOK 277 million reflect that the JAML loan is of about NOK 240 million, is maturing within the next 12 months, in March 2024. The other main parts of the current liabilities are trade payables and other short-term liabilities. The non-current liabilities consist of three main components: the convertible loan, the loan to Grieg Kapital, and the first tranche of the syndicated loan in Japan. The total is NOK 401 million. Finally, on the equity side, the equity has risen through the share issue in April, and the converts from the convertible loan during the quarter, whilst being reduced by the net loss. The net effect is an increase in equity of NOK 32 million in the second quarter.
With that, I'd like to hand it back to Joachim to run through the summary and outlook session.
Wrapping up, the construction works are completed, and the handover of the grow-out building is on track for September. We continue to see stable water quality and good growth conditions, which is also demonstrated in the growth curves of our fish. Our team is further strengthened, and we're well on track to meet our planned production growth. Going forward, we will continue building our team and focusing increasingly on construction, sorry, on production, as we now can leave the construction behind us. We completed the land acquisition and made the first drawdown of our Japanese bank loan in second quarter, and the remaining to be drawn upon the handover of the grow-out building, scheduled in third quarter.
When it comes to the outlook, the market outlook remains promising in terms of economics and market growth. We believe Proximar is well-positioned for the future, with the first-mover advantage several years ahead of competition and with very attractive economics. Again, thank you for listening to our presentation this morning. We will now open up for questions. Here, with regards to phase II and progress. Until now, we are, as said before, focusing on stage one, and we will start looking forward to stage two in the next first half of 2024. We'll get back when we have the more specific plans for this. So far, focusing on stage one. There's also a question related to batch two underperformance versus the model.
This is just, it's too early to, to, to put too much into these numbers at this early stage. We see that batch two has caught up and is, actually, as we speak, slightly above the, the model. In terms of, also a question here about the intake water. The water source is a well water, 100 meters down into the ground on site. The temperature is around 15 degrees all year round, and what we do in terms of treatment is degassing, and apart from that, it will also be ozonized and UV treated. But in principle, the, the water quality is very good, so degassing is the main treatment or necessary treatment. There's also a question to the OpEx level.
We have the OpEx that we have provided in the presentation is based on the assumed volumes, and that those are updated according to the latest input we have so far.
Yes, I can make a quick comment there. Of course, the, the OpEx will rise, going forward with increased manning. However, the, the land, which is also part of this question, whether the cost will increase with the land that has already been, paid and taken over. Increases in OpEx are forecast due to increased manning.
There's also a question about final inspection of the grow-out facility by the authorities, if it's scheduled in September, and that is the schedule. This is to be done in September. In terms of questioning related to CapEx expected in Q3, we have not provided any guidance on this previously. The CapEx guidance we have given is the overall CapEx, and then there are timing issues. We have primarily milestone-related payments. One is, of course, also the handover of the building, which will be in Q3. Another question: When do we expect to see the first, first sales agreement signed?
Still a bit too early, but I assume that as we get closer to harvest, third quarter next year, we will, well ahead of this, see contracts being signed. Still a bit early stage. This is, sales and marketing activities are coordinated with Marubeni, and this is ongoing work. We have a lot of interest from different potential buyers, but still, we are working on a broader level and not entering into any fixed contracts at this stage. Also interest, any interest from local, Japanese investors. I would say in general, we receive a lot of positive interest in Japan for Proximar. We have had several, quite broad coverage in the media.
We also after the completion of the bank loan agreement, we have further seen the strengthening of the interest on a general level in Japan. There's also a question related to plans of listing in the Japanese stock market. This is something we have not on the agenda at the current moment, but we will always work on, see what are the options for the company going forward. Another question, any indication from consumers, restaurants, that the fish will be of interest? Well, generally speaking, we have interest and visitors from supermarket chains, restaurant chains, et cetera. Yes, we see a good interest for the product.
I'm happy to say that the interest is quite broad and has been quite high for a long, a long time. We are very confident in selling the fish and getting it to the right channels. The last question: Are you planning to export some volumes in 2024 to other Asian countries, or will all volumes be sold in Japan? We do have interest from abroad, from several countries in the Asian region, from supermarket chains. It is possible that some of the volumes will also be exported.
The main market and the main volumes will, will be to the Japanese consumers, we, we also, we do, we do want to take advantage of the demand from the from abroad and, and also develop the market, not only for stage one, but also for the stage two facility.
Good. That was the end of the questions so far. We'll wait just 15 more seconds to see if there are any more coming in.
There's one question: What are the milestones or decision-making for going into phase II? The, the milestone, I would say, is to, to complete. Now we are completing the, the stage one, getting the production up and running. That's where we are focusing our efforts. I think, after that, this is the milestone that we, we, we are passing, and then we can look into the, the future and the growth opportunities. It's a, it's a stepwise exercise, I would say. Focus on stage one, getting this up and running as we expect, and then we can look into the, the, the next stage.
Yep. That was the end of the questions that have come in. With that, I think we can thank you all for attending the presentation. Also remind you that we will report our third quarter on the tenth of November, and wish you to see you back then. In the meantime, have a nice day and weekend. Thank you very much.
Thank you.