Okay. Seems like everyone is on, in particular, the key people here from SalMar. Welcome to this Q4 presentation with SalMar, represented by CEO and President Gustav Witzøe, CFO Trine S. Romuld and IR Håkon Husby. The company will do a short presentation of the Q4 results before we turn to Q&A. It seems like everyone is muted. That's good. We ask that everyone do the Q&A either by raising your hands or pose questions in the chat. With that, I leave the word to SalMar, and congratulations with the NTS transaction.
Thank you. I will just share our presentation, and then Trine can start with the highlights for Q4 before we can take some more details on the transaction of NTS afterwards.
Yes. I guess at least some of you already have seen the report and maybe also seen the presentation on the webcast. Anyway, some key headlines from what we communicated today, starting with the central part of Norway farming. We have harvested a record high volume. We have had some additional cost which we try to explain today. It's additional cost amounting to about NOK 50. If you take that into consideration, we will cost at same level as quarter three. We also communicated that we expect to be back on quarter three level in this quarter. The main reason for having higher costs in quarter four was explained to be two main reasons.
The one is that we had ISA on one location, meaning that we harvested out fish at a lower size and thus higher cost, and also achieved the lower prices. In addition, we had some other companies with the ISA, and we had a license or location close to those, and we decided to also harvest out ours, even we didn't have ISA, but to take out any risk. That together also involved some additional costs with wellboats and cleaning, et cetera. That is one explanation. The other one is related to sea lice. We have had more sea lice than normally in the central part of Norway this year, and we was very eager to do our utmost before the winter season started in quarter four.
Therefore, we decided not only to use our own sea lice capacity, but also to hire in external capacity to reduce that risk and to have more treatments. Also, as we have said before, we are all the time working to have more tools to actually work to remove sea lice in a best possible way from a fish welfare point of view. It's it has done some new treatment, a Clean Treat in the quarter where we experienced some higher costs, but done by purpose. That is the main explanation for higher cost in the quarter. When it comes to northern part of Norway, we are very pleased with the result. We continue with stable cost.
We have a good growth, good physical conversion rate, low mortality, which all together also gives good cost figure. We also highlighted the fact that we still are harvesting. We're using seven different harvesting plants. That adds about 1% higher cost if you're comparing to the cost in Central Norway, and that is cost that we hope to get rid of during 2020, when we have our own processing and harvesting plant in full capacity at Senja. In the sales industry, we said that we are very pleased from an operational point of view that the organization has managed to harvest huge volume in many weeks, and some weeks double the volume compared to a normal week.
That also has challenged, of course, the sales organization to actually sell all the fish to the market. All in all, we have not as good prices as we would like to have. Of course, that is partly related to fixed price contracts, which is contracts that is entered into last year, and also at the time when we were more pessimistic than we should have been if we had knew the current spot prices. There we have some negative contribution from those contracts compared to spot price. In addition, we have this, in general, some lower spot price achievement than normally, and also due to this, ISA harvesting with a lower average weight, but also due to extremely high volume in some weeks.
When it comes to Iceland, I think everything is going quite smoothly. We are reducing cost significantly compared to 2020. We also already have seen positive effect of the branding that was launched in August, together with more and more fish is actually sold to U.S. by boat, reducing transportation, cost. We also just started to have value-added processing also from Iceland, started with some fillet production. All in all, we are on schedule there, and the efficiency is a very good quality. We expect a significant high volume in 2022. Scottish Sea Farms, as you probably have seen, we have bought the Grieg Shetland operation, and that transaction was finally concluded on mid-December.
We had some cost, NOK 33 million that was expensed in the quarter. That makes that we actually have a negative contribution in quarter four. If you take that out, we have a slightly positive EBIT margin also in quarter four. We have had experience on gill health issues, both in quarter three and quarter four. We know the explanation that is due to some genetics and from the eggs. We have changed the egg provider. That should be solved going forward. Also the operation report that the status of the fish in sea currently seems to be a much better quality. I think that was very fast some highlights from the operation this quarter.
When it comes to the balance sheet, we still have a very solid balance sheet, high equity and quite low debt versus EBITDA. We still have a good headroom of credit lines that is not used, NOK 4.4 billion as of year-end, and we have proposed a dividend of 20 NOK per share. That is I think the most important. Also as Gustav mentioned here, I also should mention the volume, that we expect increased volume in all regions in 2022, both in Norway, Iceland and also the Scottish operation. Then we have the transaction. You've probably seen that we have this voluntary offer for all outstanding shares in NTS ASA. That was important step for us.
We tried to buy both SalmoNor and NTS previously, actually, NRS earlier. We have a quite good knowledge about those companies. We also know that we have a lot of synergies when this is fully implemented. We have, as you probably already have seen, 50.1% of the shareholders have already accepted the offer. We are now, just this morning, actually, we have sent an invitation to have this extraordinary general assembly meeting in SalMar to have the authority to have the shares available. We have started to work with the documents, the offer document that has to be approved by the stock exchange. We will do our utmost to have that finalized as soon as possible. Anyway, a good time before end of March.
We also started to work with the competition authorities when it comes to documentation to be sent. The rationale for doing this is that SalMar, we are farming in the central part of Norway and the northern part of Norway, which are regions that we think is the best farming regions in Norway. Both SalmoNor and NRS, they are in the same region and have much of the same culture and values as we have in SalMar. From a farming point of view, we think this is perfect. When it comes to Iceland, our company there, Arnarlax, we are already doing some work for Arctic Fish. We're actually doing all the harvesting for them. We are also in a close from operation point of view.
That is obvious also that we have a lot of synergies. When it come to offshore, we have SalMar Ocean, and they have a similar, not similar, but also offshore project, which is the Arctic Offshore Farming, where they currently have four development licenses. That is. The overview is really that we really think this is a good fit, that we are building an even stronger company, and it's more like a merger than an acquisition. That we also make this as an even bigger as an industry company. We also could offer our customers an even more stable volume every week. We think this is a win-win for both the shareholders in SalMar, but also for the shareholders in NTS ASA.
I just wonder, maybe we should then just open for questions. Yeah.
Yes. If anyone have any questions, please raise your hand or just post them in the chat. I am happy to start off. Maybe you can comment on the synergy potential on NTS and also timeline for taking out synergies. I know that's been a question among some of our investors.
Yeah. Of course, we have done our calculation in-house here in SalMar. As Trine has pointed out, we see clear synergies across all parts of our value chains in all regions. The strategic fit is quite strong, and it's quite easy to see a lot of the synergies. In terms of figures and numbers, we will announce this after the completion we get the full approval from the authorities regarding this transaction. We expect finalizing everything somewhere in Q3. In Q3, Q4, we will communicate more on that. There are some clear synergies. Take one in Northern Norway, our new harvesting processing plant is built with a capacity that can handle all the volume from Norway Royal Salmon up there as well. Together, we get a better capacity utilization.
In Iceland, we know that Arctic Fish is contemplating building a harvesting plant. Together we can do something better together in the west coast of Iceland. In central Norway, we are operating in the same areas as they are doing today. We can utilize them at the production capacity even better, the sites, the zones. We have a lot of smoke capacity in SalMar. We could provide them with the optimal smoke during the year. Together, we can achieve something even greater. Not talking about the market potential in terms of the industry segment, in terms of gaining access to new customers worldwide, the distribution network, the other companies have strong sales organizations, and together with the one we have, we will be even better.
We see synergies as all across. We think this is very good. I would just like to add that, as you know, 80% of the transaction is in SalMar shares, 20% is in cash. We also bring them on board on our journey going forward. I think that is very important when we succeed because we need to gain all the people on their side of the organization on board on this going forward. Already internally to us, we see very positive signals from all, from biology to industry, to sales, to our support staff, and also we get signs on the other side of this as well. We think this is a great potential together.
For us, this is. SalMar has been very. Gustav started 31 years ago in 1991. We have had a history as a growth company, where we have done smaller M&A activities or organic growth throughout the years to bring us where we are today. This is the single largest transaction SalMar has done in our history, and then it will bring us into another ball game, and we think it's a perfect match for us at this moment in time.
In addition, we would, of course, also increase our purchasing power.
Super. Thanks for that. As a reminder, please raise your hand or post any questions in the chat. Since this seems to be a quiet audience, I have more questions from my side. Maybe a bit on the competitive authority and the progress or the process there.
Yes.
Yeah. I can, as you've seen that we have taken some kind of condition when it comes to competition authority in Norway, but not in Iceland. We also said that we have all this condition up to end of October. Whatever is not cleared before October, it's really at our risk. We think this should be okay. It's a lot of work to be done, of course. If there are something, we are quite sure that we will handle that with doing some transactions. We don't see a huge risk involved in that one. We also have noted that when Mowi sent their offer, which was afterwards withdrawn, it was no condition at all.
We think that this is a work we have to go through, but we don't see a significant risk into that.
Very clear. Thank you. Antoine de Brabant , you raised your hand.
Hi. Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me well?
Yes.
Yep.
Great. I was just wanting to ask a question about minority shareholders in NTS. Do you expect this to be an issue in integrating the company? As a second question, do you expect to do with the non-farming assets of NTS? Thank you.
In terms of the minority shareholders in, or the shareholders outside of the 50.1, which has already pre-accepted the offer, we are open for a very good and constructive dialogue with all partners there. This offer is for everybody. It's for all outstanding shares in the company. We are open for discussions in all manners there. We think this is doable. As we have said, we are willing to be a 50.1% shareholder, and we are willing to be a 100% shareholder. We will go out with open arms and take the dialogue with them.
I think it's quite obvious that a lot of people see the synergy potential as we see as well.
Hopefully we will know the answer mid-April because our offer will be sent before end of March, and we start with two weeks. I guess you have a very good indication mid-April.
Yes. In terms of the non-farming assets, I guess you mean the Frøy company, mostly there. Of course, they are a very great company which has a lot of crucial service provider to us as our aquaculture company in terms of service vessels, wellboats and so forth. This is something which we believe is fits well into us. Of course, in terms of structure of the company at the end, we will need to look into this going forward.
Mm-hmm.
If somebody else could do this job better than we can, it's easy to sell.
It's something we will consider down the line. Our ambition in the first term now is to succeed this transaction of NTS. Then in the meantime, when we are awaiting the final regulatory approvals, competition and everything, we will of course do our integration plans internally here, and then we can announce more when that is finalized to you guys, what we will want to do with the company.
Okay. Thank you.
There was a question on the chat from Pierre Budo asking on Aqua Service. I guess you just developed that question, but also in offshore development. Can we make an update on change versus expectations, outlook and the competition in offshore?
I guess that's a general question not related to this acquisition.
Yes, I guess so.
Yeah. In offshore development, if you then are talking about SalMar Aker Ocean, we gave an update on the presentation today. We are now preparing to prepare what we can do to prepare before we take a final investment decision, both on Ocean Farm 2, which should be improved version of the existing Ocean Farm 1, but also Smart Fish Farm, the one to be in the very open sea. We also mentioned that we are waiting to have a commitment from the government. What should be the location for a Smart Fish Farm? We also sent a request whether we could have approval to put more fish into sea than the current eight development licenses give us permission to do.
I think that there is not very much that has changed since the last quarter, but we are continuing to prepare ourselves to be ready, and we are waiting to have some more concrete timelines from the government. If you ask about competition offshore, I think nothing much has changed. We are still in the lead. It's only we that has actually produced two generation in the Ocean Farm 1. I think that we are still in the lead position.
Thanks. It's Alex Jones, unless you have something to add.
Excellent. Thank you. Two questions if I may. First one following up on Antoine's point on minority shareholders. Does the synergy potential change if you own 100% of NTS versus if you own just over half of it? The second question on sort of your past acquisition track record, could you give us some sort of details on how you've integrated previous assets that you've purchased, and the synergy potential you created there? Thank you.
I think the easiest is to take the most recent transaction. That was actually Refsnes and Nekton, where we bought licenses in 2021, and they are many months ago, fully integrated as part of the organization, and we are utilizing the biomass .
100%.
As 100%. The people are a part of our organization. I think that is the most recent acquisition, which was about almost NOK 1 billion. That was not a small acquisition either.
When it comes to your first point, Alex, in terms of if you don't get access to all other minorities and are we able to take out the synergy potentials, of course, it's easier with 100% stake than you are in full control. Over 50%, you are in the position you are managing the company. In both areas, we are able to take out synergies because of course, easier done in-
Yeah.
It's more complicated when you have only 50.1%.
Yeah. It's basically that it's more complicated at 50.1 in terms of all like agreements that need to be put in place and so forth, but 100% is easier.
Right. Another question on the chat here. Can you develop on production and feed costs?
Could you please elaborate a little bit on that in terms are you meaning in terms of what we were expecting the cost levels or meaning that we will be start our own.
What we can say, like, Kristy was pointing out, is that in terms of our forecast going forward, we have a high feed price in our budget in 2022 compared to 2021. We see the inflation pressure on raw materials like all of the industries around the world is doing. For us, it's so we see we have a higher cost on feed in our budget in 2022 compared to 2021. Also we have other cost elements which we have lower because we, you know, expect to be even more efficient and better.
An easy example is InnovaNor, our harvesting plant in Northern Norway, where like Line mentioned, seven different harvesting plants we utilized in Q4 by just having one harvesting plant to send our fish in Northern Norway. I know that there is a lot of gain on the distribution side, the logistical side. So we are doing a lot of other elements in order to gain on that. So if you can, in terms of cost picture going into 2022, we believe we have the plans to be on the same level as we delivered in 2021.
Thank you. There's Marco Sormani.
Hello. Nice to meet you, sir.
Hello.
First of all, my compliments are for the outstanding results you are achieving for so many years. I have a question more concerning your consolidation on NTS. In the case you succeed, what about Norway Royal Salmon? Do you plan to get private or to Norway Royal Salmon, or you think it could remain listed since NTS is a majority shareholder? Norway, some of my question was on the control chain. Maybe a bit early, but what is your plan midterm?
I think it's. Of course, we didn't need to look into the structure for both this, and then this is something, like, you know, that NTS has a 68% owner share in Norway Royal Salmon after acquisition they did last fall. Of course, we need to look into this and, despite this, we're able to do a lot together in terms of synergy potential, with 68% share NTS has in Norway Royal Salmon. Norway Royal Salmon is in both Northern Norway and Iceland. That is something we need to look into in terms of structure, what is more optimal and everything.
We need to know more about how large percentage of NTS we are able to get in terms of how many shareholders are accepting our offer.
Of course, it's allowed to have some wishes and some long-term ambition and game plan. What is the kind of priority aim? Of course, it's easy to see that it would be good maybe also to combine some farming companies instead of having a lot of different listed companies. That also depends on what is possible to do when. That's a natural thinking that maybe some of the farming companies could be merged.
The main question is that with the 50.1% of NTS, we control and can utilize 100% the NTS in NRS, and that's the most important question. The next one is, will be for the future, what will be the best for the structure in total after.
Thank you very much. Very interesting. I have an additional question concerning sea lice. We see an increase in sea lice issues, but not only in Norway and Europe, but also in Chile, everywhere. It depends on temperature of the water going up. What is your point of view concerning sea lice? First question, second question, in terms of treatment, is it still chemical, water plus chemical, maybe some new products to treat the salmon and the sea lice in a more environmental and healthy way also for the customers. What are your thoughts about? Thank you.
In terms of the sea lice is a natural parasite of the water, so we need to live with it, not take it away. That's basically it's farming in the correct areas where we see the sea lice pressure is not so high. We see differences from our sites, from our areas where we operate in terms of the sea lice pressure. As Tine pointed out in presentation, in Q4, we had a higher sea lice pressure, especially in some regions in central Norway, where there was a need to do more treatments in order to reduce the levels going into the winter season, because we don't want to do the treatments when the cold temperatures kicks in in the seawater, because then it's we basically get more mortality. It's not good for the fish welfare.
In terms of treatment methods, we don't use a lot of chemical treatment methods here in Norway. We utilize non-medicinal treatment methods. It's basically flushing of water, either normal temperature or a bit warmer water. That is our main capacity we have on sea lice treatment. As you, in terms of new treatment methods, and that was part of the cost picture in Q4, we have used this agent called Clean Treat. It's a new treatment method. Our experience with it is very good at reducing the level of sea lice at all stages from maturity in the beginning. We get the sea lice levels down.
A challenge with it has been a capacity to rinse the water afterwards because we cannot put this agent out into the open ocean. We need to take and rinse the water and treat it after we have done the treatment. That has been challenging in terms of the wellboat capacity on those boats who do this, since we are able to maybe treat one net pen, then we need to rinse the water, wait a little bit, but then the other net pen has sea lice, and in the meantime, it's transferred sea lice from the other net pen to the other one. That is something we need to work together with. It's not only a SalMar thing, this is something we as an industry need to work together with to have this capacity in place.
As we say, it's not a new holy grail, this Clean Treat agent, but it's part of our toolbox, and it has been a good part of our toolbox going into the winter season. Because when the temperatures goes down, we can use this with a quite gentle treatment method, meaning that we have less mortality when we do the treatments. Also of course, we are testing out new type of technologies, new type of net pens, and we have this closed net pen in southern parts of central Norway testing out. We are always pushing to utilize the technology so it's better for the salmon and to live together with the sea lice.
Everything we are doing offshore is directly on that because on Ocean Farm 1 we haven't had done a single sea lice treatment for two production cycles, which we have completed. Going out into the open ocean or going offshore, the strategy for SalMar Aker Ocean is part of that to eradicate the issues we have with sea lice. I think we would like to say that we have been good at handling the situation despite there is a higher sea lice pressure in salmon. This year or at the end of 2021. The status of our fish in the sea now going into 2022 is very good. We have a higher biomass both in Norway and Iceland, and it looks very promising.
We are very content with that we have a good status of our biomass going into the 2022.
Okay, very interesting. Maybe an additional and final question from my side. In terms of industry consolidation, you're for sure one of the main actor in this consolidation. How do you see mid-term the consolidation in your industry? Thank you.
I think, Ola, the requirements to us as an industry to operate, to do salmon production gets stricter and stricter. With size, we have some scale benefits compared to smaller competitors. With size, we have some scale benefits when it comes to access to customers, signing contracts with large retailers in terms of volume and everything. I have seen different figures from Norway, but there is quite a big proportion of Norwegian salmon production which is from smaller producers, if you can call it like that, not as large as we are. There are also a lot of good small farmers operating around the coast of Norway, having strong operations. In the longer term, yes, it's natural, it will become more consolidation.
Remember, this is a quite young industry, if you think historically. It started on the neighbor island here in central Norway in the '60s, '70s. We are, we're only like 40, 50 years after that, and we are still a young industry, a lot to learn. For all industries, in the beginning, there is a lot of players, and after a while, there is some certain larger ones who succeed. We think it would be a mix of both smaller and larger. If there are people willing to come in dialogue that we can do something together, we bring them here to our head office with open arms, and we can take a good dialogue with that.
Also be aware of that, NRS, in the beginning, there was a company with independent farmers started there. After maybe 10, 15 years, they sold them out and become a listed company called NRS.
Yeah.
I think the consolidation in the future will be based on bigger companies.
Thank you very
Could I maybe jump in? Sorry. It's Alex Sloane from Barclays. Apologies I'm not on the video to raise my hand. If it's okay to ask one question, just on the sales and industry, apologies if I kind of missed it. In terms of how we should think about that business into 2022, obviously, it's you know quite a sizable drag on the group profits in 2021 after being you know kind of nicely profitable [crosstalk] in 2020. Yeah, just wondering you know can you get back to profit in that area in 2022? Thanks.
I think that the question is, first of all, you need to have a more like a longer view on the salmon industry and not only look into the quarter. I think if you look into whole years, you will see that it's very much close to 0% or 1% in margin. And the whole ambition to salmon industry is actually to gain some additional value on top of the farming. That's really how it's organized. I think that for every NOK they are able to earn above farming, that is additional value generated. And when it comes to 2022, we have entered into some fixed price contract. That is a part of kind of risk planning, that we need to have something that is fixed.
Last year, we were too pessimistic when it comes to the spot prices this year, which I mentioned. If you take the average of the contracts we have entered into for this year, that is quite close to the average Fish Pool prices for the entire 2022. However, it's a huge difference between Fish Pool prices the first and second part of the year. If you even out, we expect, and based on the current spot prices, we expect to have some losses on the contract in the first half of the year and opposite, have some gain on the contracts on the second part. I think it's more important, actually how good are we in selling the spot price every day. Then we should have just the same opportunities as everybody else.
Also fair to say that, with InnovaNor in Northern Norway coming up, gradually ramping up volume and harvesting and value-added processing activity in 2022, I know there is a lot of people in our organization which is glad for that because it's easier in terms of logistics, distribution and everything, knowing that we can utilize the fish in the correct manner instead of using it at the 7 different harvesting plants. We will have some gains there as well. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that we will have a negative contribution from our contracts in Q1 when the spot prices we are experiencing these days. For us this is a part of our strategy. As you know, in SalMar, this is a. This can be a little bit different from different farming companies.
In SalMar, farming gets the spot price with some cost and logistical elements. In other companies, they could take contracts all the way down to farming segment. It differs, but for us, we are very open and transparent on that. Farming gets spot. Sales and industry get the hit if there is something on contracts.
Mm-hmm.
What we are very pleased with the sales and industry segment is really that from operational point of view, effectiveness and cost, they are just on target. It's really the price achievement which we missed.
Mm-hmm.
We are very content with our employees and how they have handled the situation.
That makes sense. If I can maybe just one final one and then pass it on. And apologies I can't get my teams to work. Just on the offshore joint venture, in terms of, you know, I think you've shown on your slides that, you know, there's potential for this technology to work well beyond just Norway. You know, I guess, as we're thinking kind of longer term, you know, would you expect the joint venture itself to kind of go into geographies, you know, beyond Norway? Or is the opportunity longer term more about kind of, I guess, licensing maybe the technology and the expertise to other players?
No, I think that definitely the plan is really also to expand SalMar operation also to be out of Norway, when we are ready for it. We have also earlier given some examples for countries that it could be naturally to leap into. We have mentioned Scotland, it could be Iceland, could be out of U.S.
Yeah. East Coast, West Coast. Yeah.
East Coast, West Coast. Yeah. That's definitely the plan and also part of the strategy. Yes.
Thank you.
Yes. Still another question from me. I have a question concerning the current spot price that are very high, so between 70-80 and even more than NOK 80 per kilo. How do you explain such a high price, spot price at the moment? Maybe some elements to explain it. Thank you.
At first it's a supply.
Okay.
Lack of supply.
Mm-hmm.
As we see it, there will be no growth in the supply for 2022. Especially in the first quarter is a lack of supply.
Especially from our volume.
On the other hand, you can see the industry, especially in Europe, buying at 80 NOK or even more. That tells us that there are no
Inventory
Inventory. They, of course, have a contract maybe 10%, 15%, 20% contracted, but still, while they don't have any inventory, they have to buy at a high spot price.
Mm-hmm.
It seems like there will be even a better price for 2022 than in 2021.
Okay, thank you. Very interesting.
Hi. If I may, quick follow-up question. In terms of price realization, there's been some volatility over the past quarters, particularly in Northern Norway. Could you give us, maybe some insights on how should we think about price realization in the farming segment, going forward? Have you been affected by things like winter wounds, quality downgrades, and are these factors which we should expect to continue going forward?
If you focus on Northern Norway, in Q4, as we said in the report, most of our volume was harvested in October and November. The period, the months with, I think the average price was, high 50s compared to over 60 in December. That explains the price realization in Q4. In Q3, it was that we didn't harvest in July, we harvested in August and September, where the spot price was lower than compared to July. In SalMar, we have a saying, we harvest the fish when it's ready for harvest.
It's not the salespeople who can say to people out there in the ocean and say, "I need your fish now because we have NOK 18 per kilo this week selling to customers in Europe." I remember I talked to one person in sales here last week, and it was quite, "We don't have enough volume." That's our strategy. We wait until it's ready. That explains most of the price realization issues, both in Q3 and Q4 in Northern Norway. When it comes to winter wounds, nothing out of the ordinary that we have normally during the winter. There are always some sites which are more affected by winter wounds than others, but nothing out of the ordinary.
I think you, if you compare our sales towards others, historically, we have usually performed quite well in northern Norway in the winter months. I think it's fair to say we are quite glad that we have InnovaNor up and running, that we could do some more value-added production of our fish, because then it could be that it just have a little sore or winter wound on its skin, then it's better to sell it as a fillet or a value-added product compared as a whole fish. That is something that distribution people and sales industry always are looking at. It's nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to biology. The status of our fish is good in both regions, central Norway and northern Norway, and also in Iceland.
It's very important to say that on Iceland because if you recall, in January 2020, we had a lot of mortality caused by winter wounds and bad weather, cold temperatures. We don't have that now. There's a good status of our biomass, and we are very content with that. The reason for that is also we have changed some of our harvesting plans, stocking plans. We have less density in our cages of fish, of large size fish going into the winter season when it's too cold. We don't use the most exposed sites. That is small things which is important that gives us good status of the biology. As Trine said, we are very content with what Iceland managed to achieve year-over-year in terms of biological development on Iceland. The same goes for Northern Norway.
Super. We have time for. Yeah, Marco Sermoni.
Yeah, if I may, an additional question. I have a question concerning organic salmon. You are the Norwegian leader for organic salmon. How do you see the market mid long term for Norwegian organic salmon? Or maybe you can do organic in other area too. What potential do you see in this sense? Thank you.
We don't talk too much about that, actually. We thought it was a silent secret when the prices was good, but then suddenly some competitors are starting to also increase their organic salmon. Actually, we have reduced a bit our production, because it's not such a huge price difference as it was previously. We still think it's important to have some, because some of the customers would like to buy both type of salmon. We do that, but we are not increasing our organic salmon versus previous years. It's quite stable. The total production has increased when you look into also the other players producing organic salmon.
We see that the price of organic salmon has been less volatile compared to
Yeah.
Conventional salmon. Like, but we have a proportion of our production is organic, and we are among the largest in the world anyhow since we have our volume. I think it's important part of our product spectrum when we send to the customers, because then we can offer both organic, conventional, yeah, and we can have value-added products in both the organic and conventional, and that is something some customers are really willing to pay for.
Okay. Concerning the more we move trying to develop also a branding for the products, so what do you think about that? Do you think a branded product can have some-
We are in Iceland, we are actually doing that. We launched a brand because it's limited volume, and we think it's a fantastic opportunity and also the same as the Faroe Islands had done. Also to a certain level, the Scottish Sea Farms in Scotland has also created a kind of brand locally because it's limited production. To create a brand with Norwegian produced salmon with 1.3 million ton that we think is a bit demanding. Maybe we should do that with the SalMar Ocean when we are producing stably there. For Icelandic, we think it's a fantastic opportunity and we are working to take more advantage of that going forward.
Okay. Why do you think Mowi decided to brand? Your competitor, Mowi, why do you think they think it's possible to establish a brand also for the main product? Or it may be marketing opinion or?
I think you have to ask them.
Okay.
I think SalMar has a kind of. The most of the focus is really on the biology and production. It could be that they have another philosophy, but I think you have to ask them.
Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much.
Could I just ask one short question? Could you just talk about how big the ISA problem is? You said that the biomass is in good condition now, but is the ISA problem been sorted out or is it an ongoing thing?
No, it was one location for the company that we acquired, actually, Nekton. It was one location in that company. That was one of, I will call it just now. Yeah.
We don't have it on any other sites in SalMar. Like Trine mentioned, we had it on some neighboring farms, but we didn't get affected. We are done with that. It was a Q1 2014.
Just one last thing. I mean, going back to the question about synergies with this deal. I mean, you painted a picture where, you know, as if you've got a clear plan for that. I mean, I'm just a generalist, but which would be the more challenging area of synergies to achieve? I mean, because obviously some things like maybe the buying of, you know, feed is easier. What would be the more challenging parts of the synergy?
Of course, Frøy is something that we are not doing. If you're talking about synergies, there we don't have any synergies. I think that is the one that is special. For the rest, we should be able to have synergies.
Thank you.
Okay, we have time for a couple more questions before we take the weekend here. Is there anyone out there?
Hi, if I may again. On the Grieg Seafood Shetland acquisition, how should we look, what kind of timeline are we looking for integration? Do you have any specific synergy targets you've set up and what kind of timeframe should we look at significant gains from combining those two businesses?
I think that the transaction was closed mid-December. I think the most easiest to think is really that we have guided on the volume, 46,000 tons. You probably know what we have reported on Scottish Sea Farms previously. If you look away from quarter three and quarter four, because there we have some special issues, but if you look into, for instance, the first half of 2020 EBIT margin, I think that if you use that and multiply the 46,000 tons, I think that is the best starting point you can have.
Mm-hmm.
Also for our team, they are now successfully starting their work integrating the company. I think it's fair to say that the status of the biology and the biomass and the assets that came from the Grieg acquisition was really good. We are very pleased with that. Of course, we see synergies both operationally and biologically, but also in the sales and distribution segment, gaining access to some customers and everything. We need to let our great team in Scotland do their job. Then I know that you talked with Jim last evening. He was not happy that Celtic, his favorite team, lost against a Norwegian team. We are quite confident that we will reach this. Historically, SSF has delivered good margins.
Probably also we could revert to this issue in the next quarterly presentation when we have more insight.
All right. It seems like all questions have been answered and time is approaching four o'clock in Norway. I guess with that, we congratulate on the NTS transaction and wish you all a good weekend, and thanks for everyone for dialing in.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Have a nice weekend.