Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Salmones Camanchaca First Quarter Conference Call. On behalf of BTG Pactual, we would like to thank all investors who connected to this call and the company. Representing the company, Ricardo García, company's Vice President, and Manuel Arriagada, CEO, will be presenting. At the end of the presentation, we will have a Q&A section, also linked with a survey regarding the call will be copied to the chat. We would like to ask you, please, if you can complete it. Thanks.
Thank you, Paulo, Fernando, and Alex from BTG, in organizing this call, to review the earnings report by Salmones Camanchaca, submitted yesterday. Let's start then. This is the agenda. We'll probably take 40-45 minutes, Alvaro, go ahead. On the highlights of the quarter, well, certainly, this was not a good quarter. Let's start by that. The condition for that is mainly related to some oceanographic condition in the Patagonia during the summer, actually spring and summer, that generated a lot of radiation in the area and lack of appetite in the biomass, and therefore, the growth of the biomass was lower than expected. Meaning lower weights at harvest point from several sites, particularly those that were on harvest during the quarter.
That meant that whatever we harvest had a lower weight, as well as the decision we took to delay harvest in one site for the second quarter of 2024, and therefore, there was a double impact on volumes in general. That limited our ability to sell on the first quarter, particularly on fresh formats. Yet, the operating revenues in the first quarter were higher than in the first quarter of 2023 by approximately 3%, which is a combination of higher volume sold and much lower prices. The harvest, combining the last part of the 2023-2024 Coho season, plus the harvest of Atlantic, was in the area of 11,000 metric tons WFE.
In line with our expectation for the quarter, but 19% lower than in the first quarter of 2023, but that's only because we had a lot of harvest from the 2022-2023 Coho season in January 2023, and therefore, that hides that. Prices, it's probably one of the main concern of the quarter, declined 13% for Atlantic and 27% for Coho, compared to the first quarter of 2023. This is something that will be covered later in the presentation, but it's mainly due to very unique and I would say extraordinary decline in demand in several markets globally, for the first time that I've seen. Our interpretation of that is because of inflation accumulated over the last three years.
Approximately 50% of the lower EBITDA that we are reporting this quarter is attributable to the reduction in the price of the Atlantic. The price impact on our inventory, which was -$3.5 million to -$4 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, was now positive, and we revert some of the provision in the inventory. It was a positive, close to $3 million in the first quarter of 2024, that compares with a negative in the fourth quarter of 2023, and a negative in the first quarter of 2023. Ex-cage cost increase and peaked at high levels during the quarter, mainly attributable to the lower weights, harvest weights that we had in the quarter.
Meaning that all the fixed cost of a farming site is distributed among a fewer number of kilos in the site, and therefore, that meant an increased cost. But also, we had about one quarter of the harvest during the first quarter of 2024, in one particular site that had a very high sea lice outbreak, and therefore, there was a lot of treatment, as well as incidents of lower oxygen, meaning that there was a lot of support, oxygen support, to that particular farm. Meant that that particular farm had a very high cost, and Manuel will cover that.
The good thing of the quarter, and I think that was something that pleased us a lot, was that the mortality during the quarter was extremely low, in the area of 0.5% per month, 1.5% in the quarter, on the total biomass in our sites. That's very good, particularly in a quarter where we had an El Niño phenomenon in the Chilean coast, and therefore, we were a bit afraid of the impact. That is precisely why we have invested a lot in terms of the mitigating devices and technology in our sites.
A good thing is that these technologies and devices that were implemented in our sites worked well, meaning that there was very low mortality, and yet the other side of the coin is that there was higher cost, no extraordinary mortality during the quarter. When we take a look at the sustainability indicators, in general, there was a favorable trend during the quarter in almost every indicator compared to the industry. I would mention particularly the decline in the length of the cycle, that we shorten it by about two months. That's that very good. For the 2024 estimates, we keep our estimate of around 50,000-51,000 metric tons, combining Atlantic and Coho harvest.
45, approximately 46, maybe on Atlantic, and about 4,000 in Coho, and that we will cover that during the presentation. Next, as I mentioned, the higher volume sold in the 24% level for the first quarter is attributable to the fact that we had a lot of inventories during the last quarter of the last month in 2024, and therefore we had a lot to sell. And that explain why we increase operating revenues. However, the decline in prices limited the growth in revenue.
As I mentioned, 13% and 27% decline in Atlantic price and Coho price limited the growth on revenue, negligible EBIT, as I mentioned, I would say slightly positive on Atlantic, in the $0.20 area, and substantially lower in Coho, as we will cover. Because of the price evolution in the first quarter, we reversed some of the provision made on the inventory, as I mentioned. The remaining inventories at the end of March 2024 is about 7,000 metric tons of both Coho and Atlantic, which is a manageable volume to be sold in the coming months.
Despite the fact that we are going to harvest a lot less Coho this year than the previous one, we entered 2024 with a lot of inventory of Coho that we are selling throughout the year at better conditions than those observed at the end of 2024. Next, on harvest and stocking, harvest are in line with the projections that we mentioned. As you can see here, we are projecting a much lower volume stocked by Coho during 2024, in the 4,000-5,000 fish, sorry, 4,000-5,000 Coho harvest. Basically one site will be, one farming site will be stock in 2024, or was stock, actually. It's gonna be harvested completely during 2024.
On Atlantic, we are increasing the stocking during 2023 and 2024, and therefore there will be further increase in 2024. That's why the projection for 2025 is to reach about 50,000 metric tons of Atlantic harvest. In terms of the industry, we are still, or we are yet to get the information on stocking for Coho for this season, but we envision that there will be a reduction overall for Chile. Next, Manuel?
Okay.
You can take it.
Thank you. Yeah. Okay, thank you, Ricardo. Good morning, everyone. Now, we will review the results of the company's main operation for the first quarter. First one is the Atlantic biology. As Ricardo said, in the first months of this year, we have had a very positive biological results for the sea farms. In the left graph, you can see the evolution of monthly mortality of Atlantic salmon, which was under control in the first quarter, with values far below the industry average. In the right table, you can also see that all indicators were better than the industry average for close groups, such as mortality, feed conversion, growth, cycle length, and antibiotics consumption. The only exception was the harvest weight, as Ricardo mentioned, due to the fish lack of appetite during the spring and the summer. This important effect-...
was due to oceanographic conditions of high radiation and also the presence of harmless algae in the farming sites, which caused a decrease in the fish appetite in the farming sites in general, from October last year until the end of February of this year. This situation also happened for the entire industry. As a result, this led to a lower harvest weight of 4.3 kg, and also a delay of the harvest to the second quarter to gain weight. However, the good news is that starting in March of this year, conditions improved, and appetite and feeding are normal, which is helping us improve harvest weights in the second quarter. Next one. Atlantic farming costs. This, Q1 came with an ex-cage cost at $4.91 per kilogram.
That was higher than Q1 2023 in 0.64 , and also higher than, than the comparable biological year, which is Q1 2022. The breakdown of the extra 0.64 compared with last year is the following: 0.26 due to the lower average weight, 0.09 due to mitigation measures for bloom and mainly for oxygen, 0.14 due to fish health, mainly sea lice treatment in one particular site. And finally, 0.15 in general operations due to inflation and extra services to the sites, also because of sea lice. This Q1 had been pressed mainly by incidents of sea lice and low oxygen in one particular site, that represents 24% of the total Atlantic harvest in the quarter. This particular site had an ex-cage cost very high at $6.2 per kilogram.
The remaining sites of the quarter had an average cost of $4.5 per kilo, per kilogram. All of this in a context, as we said, of low harvest weight in all of the sites harvested. Going forward, in the coming months, we expect a decrease in the ex-cage cost due to better harvest weight, and also harvest from sites with more positive sanitary and biological conditions. Next one. Total cost. Total cost for Q1, including ex-cages and processing, was $6.46 per kilogram. It was 11% above compared with the same quarter last year. Processing cost was $1.18 per kilogram, below the same quarter of the previous year, mainly due to no outsourced processing, exchange rate effects, and processing efficiencies. The devaluation of the Chilean currency in the period was 17%.
It's important to mention that in the processing area, during 2023, we implemented a productivity and efficiency project, through which we anticipate reducing costs for this year by 5%-10% in an annual basis. Next slide. Sustainability indicators. The sustainability metrics presented in the table are related to two sites that were closed in this first quarter. For those sites, the fish-in, fish-out ratio, FIFO, was maintained below 0.5. That was a good level and also consistent with our sustainability linked loan target. The farming's length of the cycle was in average level, lowering risks and extending the fallow periods. In relation to the ASC certified harvested biomass, it was in a very good level, reaching at 95% in the quarter. Antibiotic usage were higher than previous year, used for fish wellness in one sea farm.
That site, as we explained, also experienced an important sea lice pressure, so it was used a higher amount of antiparasitic treatments. Finally, and unfortunately, we reported in the quarter fish escapes, 1,700, due to a fish net cutting sabotage that we had in January of this year at our waiting cages at the primary processing plant. Because of this situation, we filed a criminal claim to the Chilean prosecutor authority, which is now in process. Let's go to the markets. Okay, Atlantic salmon price. The table shows the evolution of the Urner Barry reference market price in the U.S. market during the year. As you can see, after a peak in the beginning of the year, the price declined and remained stable and below previous year in Q1, on a context of a weaker U.S. demand.
Currently, prices are in line with 2023. In Q1, the total global harvest for Atlantic were below previous year in 5%, and for Chile, the supply drops 16%. For the full year, Kontali expects a 6% drop in the Chilean supply. For global supply, Kontali expect a 1% increase for this year. So limited supply for Chile and for the industry. Atlantic price achievement. As we said, market prices had a sharp increase in January, then prices remained stable. At the same time, Salmones Camanchaca price remained stable since more or less July last year. Our raw material was returned $0.32 under the Urner Barry reference during the last quarter. In general, whenever price rise, we tend to lag behind in the short term.
Our company's ability to react to market changes by changing formats and markets to capture the best opportunities in the market helps us in the long term to achieve above market prices. The company's strategy also involves increasing the value added of our products and sales with medium to large term commercial agreements that mitigate volatility. In other words, we have more stable prices, less volatility, and higher prices than the market, but in the long term. Atlantic sales value added strategy and mix. In relation to the Atlantic sales distribution, the American market continues to be the largest one, and most important market with 51% of market share, followed by Mexico sales with 15%. American market increased the shares versus Q1 of last year. The value added was 85% and above previous quarters.
H ON sales were at low levels due to harvest weight because they were below 4.5 kilos. In general, H ON is a market with a premium price and higher sizes. Let's go to Coho. Coho price development. So the graph presents the key metrics pertinent to the sales performance of Coho. It features a blue line that illustrates a 7% depreciation of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar throughout 2024, with a cumulative devaluation of 14% in the last 12 months and 24% over the past two years. This currency shift has influenced the U.S. price of Coho in its principal market, which is Japan. The ripple effect of this devaluation and price reduction has extended to all Coho markets. Currently, the yen is over the 150 level against the dollar.
The graph also present the volume sold for Salmones Camanchaca in columns and Coho price, the orange line. A decrease of price can be observed starting from August 2023. Salmones Camanchaca price in the first quarter increased $1.10, but it, it was still $1.60 below Q1 2023. The Chilean industry increased the Coho production since 2020, with an increase in the production of 20% during last year. It's important to mention that Japanese market still represent two-thirds of the total sales for the Chilean industry. In relation to the formats and markets, sales distribution for Coho, Japan and Korea were the largest market in Q1, with a 37% market share, followed by LATAM, which is mostly Mexico, with 28%, and then the American market with 18%.
Latin America and North America reduced the share in the first quarter due to the high production volume in the last season. That requires new markets. Value added was 74% in the quarter, which is below previous quarters, due to the high production, production of the last season, which increased the production and sales in the HG format.
... Thank you. Thank you, Manuel. Let's review whatever is out of the EBITDA. I guess the conclusion on the EBITDA, which was, as you mentioned, Manuel, more than $20 million below 2023, was a consequence of mainly Atlantic price and Atlantic and Coho price, and also the higher cost ex cage of Atlantic. Yeah. The conclusion of Manuel's comments on the operation is mainly that the higher cost is a consequence of this higher radiation during the spring and the summer, which caused the biomass to grow slower than expected, and therefore, the lower harvest weights and for the higher cost of the good of salt. That's one of the main reasons.
The second is, one particular site, and Manuel mentioned it, 25% of the harvest of the quarter that was, impacted by an outbreak of sea lice, and lack of oxygen, that was very expensive. And last but not least, is the regulation. The regulation over the last, year and a half or maybe two years, has been, putting obstacles and, and requirements for farming in the Patagonia of Chile, not necessarily on the benefit of the environment, not necessarily on the benefit of the sustainability, but definitely putting obstacles and limitation for growth and development, and there are several of those. That is probably impacting something between $0.25 and maybe $0.40, the cost of today's performance.
Next, on the P&L, other than the things that we have already covered in the EBITDA, the prices, the cost, the volumes, and the like, I'd like to mention the performance of the trout operation, where Salmones Camanchaca is a minority partner. We contributed with four farming sites in the northern part of the Patagonia. Someone else is in charge of the operation. And this venture, which is Asociación de Cuentas en Participación or share account in English, it's something that has generated losses in the last year as a consequence of the major devaluation of Japan, which is the main market for trout, and some higher cost in the venture.
The performance of these and our intention to focus completely on our Coho development in the near future has led us to an early termination of that association, and we have stopped our participation in the stocking beginning of 2024. Meaning that the last stocking where we are going to participate is the stocking of the fourth quarter of 2023. That means that by... We estimate by the first half of 2025, there will be no more financial impact of the result of this trout. It will be gradually declining during 2024 to be completely extinguished by 2025. That's a two-year earlier termination than what we expected. And the other thing that is in the P&L, that is not on the EBITDA, is interest on our debt.
The impact of the higher rate of about 40 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2023 was about $1.3 million additional expense than 2023. Next. On the cash flow, cash flow was negative in the area of $6.2 million. Investments were lower. We have contained and limited investments in Salmones Camanchaca to the only necessary investment to keep the assets in place. The vast majority of the investments of new sites in the southern part of the Patagonia is already made. There was no borrowings nor debt payment during the quarter.
And the net interest-bearing debt reached $136 million, which is about $49 million higher than 2023, March 2023, as a consequence of the negative cash flow of the previous year, and the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2023, that, as you recall, had a negative cash flow. On the equity asset level, we are above our covenants in the sustainability-linked loan, above 40%. And on net financial debt in relation to the EBIT, we are obviously very heavy in the quarter because of the low EBITDA, but that doesn't mean anything for the debt yet, because it is measured twice a year, in June and in December. In December was fine. We will probably be reporting a much lower number than that in the second quarter of 2024.
For the Chilean, for our growth plan, I think that we have already covered that. For 2024, we expect a slight increase in the harvest of Atlantic and a much lower harvest of Coho for 2024. The reason for that, and I will recall what we mentioned in the report of the fourth quarter of 2023, is that because of the much weaker condition of demand for Coho in Japan, because of the devaluation, and the weaker demand in general for seafood in the markets at the end of 2023 and still now, we believe that with the inventories that we built up at the end of 2023 of Coho, there was no need for a high harvest in 2024, and therefore, we limited the stocking of Coho to one site.
That means that we will be harvesting something between 4,000-5,000 metric tons of Coho during 2024, including 1,000 already harvest in January 2024. The stocking plan that we show in the previous slides for Atlantic mean that we have secure, at this point, approximately 40%-40,000 metric tons of harvest in 2025, under normal productive condition, obviously. And therefore, we expect in 2025 to surpass 50,000 metric tons of Atlantic and a similar amount of Coho. So we ex- we will be in the high 50s thousand metric tons in 2025. And concluding, well, I think that it's, it's unfortunately not nice number, that- that's all, that's the case.
But I think that the good thing is that we had a much better oceanographic condition in the summer than we expected, and that is expressed in our mortality levels. Very low level of mortality in a year that we had some threats because of the El Niño. The Atlantic harvest unsold volumes were impacted by the radiation and the lack of growth in the biomass. Much lower harvest weights in the fish than expected. The Atlantic ex-cage cost, the farming cost of Atlantic was impacted by these lower weights, as well as one farming site performance affected by sea lice and oxygen incidents. And that particular site was about 25% of the total harvest for the quarter.
One important thing that we have not mentioned is that this lack of growth of the biomass and about 500 g to maybe 700 g lower average weight on the fish limited our ability to sell the large fish in the markets that showed the best performance in terms of price, such as Brazil, China, and a few others. And because of this limited amount of large fish, the ability of Salmones Camanchaca to exploit these market opportunities was a lot less than what we have envisioned. Processing cost was below $23, first quarter of 2023, but yet above $1 because of the lack of volume that I mentioned. The prices are still below our expectation.
Our expectation were that because of the lower supply, that Manuel mentioned, in the first quarter and first half of 2024, the prices were going to be higher than what we have observed and observing at the moment. The reason for that is the weaker demand. My interpretation is that, that weaker demand is the consequence of three to four years of high inflation. Food inflation is about 25% in light of about 12-13% increase in salaries, in markets, in the developed markets such as the U.S. Therefore, there is a 10, maybe 12% erosion of the real salaries, and therefore, people are cutting expenses, and this is observed in many, many products, in groceries, huh? Switching to some lower cost protein, huh? We don't believe that that's, that is a structural change, but it may affect.
It is affecting demand now and was affecting demand in the second half of 2023. Good biological condition for the fish in general, in terms of the conversion factor, length of the cycle, mortality, and so on. And as mentioned by Manuel, limited supply growth or negative supply growth for this first half of 2024. I think that these are the main issues of the quarter. As I again, we were concerned on the results. We certainly were not happy, meaning not desperation, but a lot of work to make the operation more efficient. Contain cost, but without taking good care of the fish, which is the main business of Salmones Camanchaca. With that, I'd like to see if we have some questions.
Net interest-bearing debt over EBITDA ratio of 11 x. The covenants of the debt says that that indicator has to be higher than... That indicator is measured twice a year, in June and in December. And that indicator should not be higher than four times. That is, if EBITDA is, in this case, the net interest-bearing debt is $136 million, I think, was the number for March, meaning that the EBITDA need to be more than, the EBITDA of the last 12 months need to be more than $45 million. Obviously, in this particular quarter, because of the low EBITDA that we had, that number went up, huh? But that should lower because the...
You may recall that the first quarter of 2023 was an excellent record quarter for Salmones Camanchaca. This last quarter was very low, and the contrary will happen in the next quarter, the second quarter. The second quarter of 2023 was very bad for Salmones Camanchaca for reasons that were explained a year ago, and we estimate that the EBITDA in this second quarter of 2024 will be better than that. So the last 12 months, EBITDA will improved, huh? Daniel, the CFO, would you like to add something to that?
Not Ricardo, it's very precise, your comments and definitions on how it's measured.
Thanks.
Hope to Ketil, he's clear also with the answer.
Next question is: Can you please provide more details on your efficiency plan Manuel mentioned? What to expect when?
Okay. Yes, of course. Last year, we started that efficiency plan in processing. It's important to say that, also we are starting now the same project for farming, huh? But in terms of processing, that plan had several initiatives. One of them is related to productivity, other is related to some investment to obtain quick wins, also in terms of productivity, to better use the equipment, to reduce the to improve the time in the line. Some initiatives related to energy consumption efficiencies, to reduce the maintenance cost, and also there are some initiative related to optimize and improve the planning of the lines.
We expect a reduction in processing costs of about 5%-10% in this project, and the idea is to achieve most of them during 2024. We're talking about around $6 million in savings and productivity this year.
I think that that was the last question I see.
There is one question from Alfredo Dabancens also. Could you please provide insights on the current regulations in Chile and technological advancements, state-of-the-art, utilized for managing organic residues under salmon sea cages? That's another question. Alfredo, just to say in general, in some sites, depending on the oceanographic condition and in the depth of the site, you may have some temporary organic situations at the seabed, which is always temporary, never it's a permanent situation. And in those cases, there is a regulation in place in Chile that allows you to implement some preventive system, or you can also do some mitigation system to accelerate the recovery of the seabed?
Those kind of systems are mainly a system that injects a mix between ocean water, enriched in oxygen, to accelerate the recovery of the seabed. That is, the most typical way to do that under the current regulation. There is another question: What are you estimating for Atlantic price this year, considering this weak demand scenario, contrasted by the negative supply from Chile?
We expect the price to remain stable. That is, not showing any major increase due to the lack of supply, as we would have expected it if demand would have been strong. So there will be a weak demand in a context of a weak supply, and therefore, we expect rather stable. Could you give some guidance on the ex-cage cost for the rest of the year? And what would be the new ex-cage cost target of the company, considering inflation of the last two year? Thank you very much. Well, I think, Manuel, you can also cover that.
But in our view, if you compare to pre-pandemic levels, the structural cost in Chile has gone up by approximately $1 or maybe slightly more, as a consequence of the inflation that you mentioned on several elements within the cost, but mostly related to some structural things, such as the technologies and the mitigating devices that we are putting in place for algae blooms incidents and/or oxygen incidents. That's one source of structural change, which I think will continue in the future. And the second thing is the regulation that have put obstacles, as I mentioned, and requirements that many times does not add anything to the environment, but rather it's more cost for the site.
The other component of the cost, which is related to feed, that is entirely related to the ingredients of the feed and the situation or the market of those ingredients. In the case that we know better, which is the fish meal and fish oil levels, as you may know, we include about 15% of marine ingredients within the diet of the fish, approximately. And on those ingredients, marine ingredients, because of the El Niño and the lack of fishing in Peru, the price of fish oil particularly, was more than double during 2023. So that's an impact on about 7% of the ingredients of the diet. And there was about 10%-maybe 15% increase on the fish meal. That is another 7% or 8% in the diet.
On the other ingredients, such as the vegetable oils or the protein, soy protein, and the like, I think that the peak of 2022, early 2023, is already over. And, and, and therefore, we should see some relief in the cost of the feed in the coming harvest, which is a fish that had been fed with feed in 2023. Manuel?
Yes, exactly. In relation to the feed costs, there is a question on that, and of course, we are seeing a relief, fortunately. As you mentioned, Ricardo, the peak was at the end of 2022. At that time, more or less, the average cost of feed was around $1.9, $1.9 thousand dollar per feed. Now we are having a relief, since more of the majority of the vegetable components are reducing the price. So now we are in the range of $1.6 thousand dollars. So we are going to see a reduction in the feed price impact in the coming months for the harvested sites.
Yes, and last but not least, Valeria Gonzalez is asking: whether the profitability of the Chilean industry will come back, and I will answer that more with general comment rather than specifics. When? Only God knows. But I think that the trends are the following: On the cost side, we have seen an escalation of the structural cost, as you mentioned, something that was in $3.5, maybe four or five years ago, as a target, today is probably $1 more. Now, and that is because of the feed ingredients inflation, on and on the devices, technologies, and prevention taken to confront more frequent incidents of oxygen and/or algae.
Any company in any industry, when confronted to some change, on the production function, takes a few years to adjust and optimize. Manuel have just mentioned how we are optimizing the processing and how we are assessing optimization of the farming. So the first impact of a change, such as the algae blooms and oxygen incidents, is that you take prevention measures to limit the risk, and typically, these are not the most efficient one. They are effective, but not necessarily efficient. In the second round, you start to make these changes more efficient. So I think that in the coming quarters, we will show efficiencies in the farming and therefore, the ex-cage cost because of this new shift that we generate to make farming more efficient. That, that's one thing. On the regulation, it's, that's hard to answer.
I don't think that we will have any rational order or rationalization of the regulation within the year, the next year and a half. I think that, yes, in the future, because reality will prove very strong, the salmon farming is structurally critical for the southern part of Chile, and I think that in the long term, regulation will find a rational way of regulating the industry. And on the demand side, another subject on the profitability, on the demand side, I'm very optimistic. I think that the consumers, generally speaking, in the world, has been absorbing this additional inflation. Salaries are lagging behind this inflation, and therefore, people are struggling for their expenses in groceries in general, but that will find its equilibrium in the medium term.
People will recover in the main markets their purchasing capabilities, and therefore, seafood will regain its positioning as a very healthy protein. So I'm not concerned about demand in the medium term. Well, I think that with that, we covered the questions. I would appreciate if you can answer the questionnaire that is going to be given to you so that we improve our presentations in the coming quarters, huh? And thank you very much, BTG, for organizing this call. Okay, so thank you. Bye-bye.