Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining. I am Kristiina Tamberg, and I welcome you all to today's Tallinna Vesi webinar. This webinar will be hosted by Aleksandr Timofejev, CEO, and Taavi Gröön, CFO. Firstly, Aleksandr Timofejev and Taavi Gröön will introduce the highlights of the third quarter of 2025. The presenters will also speak about Tallinna Vesi's operational and financial results of nine months. Aleksandr will give you an overview about some of the investments made in the third quarter of 2025. Right after the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. It is also possible to type in your question during the presentation, but this will be answered in any part of the webinar. To submit your question, please use the question box on the right side of the screen. Now I will hand over to Aleksandr and Taavi. Here you go.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining. A little bit about the highlights of the third quarter 2025. Our results are very good. If we speak about the financial results, then some highlights are on the screen. The sales are higher than last year during the third quarter. In the first quarter, our sales were EUR 90.4 million. If we speak about the net profit, then it was almost EUR 5 million in the third quarter. A lot of investments done in our assets during the third quarter. We invested EUR 11.3 million, and by the end of the year, we plan to invest approximately EUR 60 million. Approximately half of that goes to the underground assets or pipes, and the rest we spend on our treatment facilities, our IT technologies, and so on. The water quality was high. In the third quarter, it was 98%.
If we speak about wastewater treatment, then it was also at a very high level. All effluent we discharged to the Baltic Sea was according to all the standards. If we speak about energy production, then as you remember, starting from last year, we installed two CHP engines at the wastewater treatment plant. During the third quarter, we produced almost 2.8 gigawatt-hours electrical energy. At the same time, we do a lot of cooperation with our customers, and one of our objectives for that year is the installation of the smart meters. By the end of the third quarter, 78.8% of our customers already used the smart meter. If we speak about today, then 80% of our customers actually use a smart meter every day. It helps them to save their time. They do not have to submit their reading to us.
Of course, we can see the consumption online. If there is anything strange, for example, the leakage at the customer's pipe, then our system gives us information, and we can notify the customer. During the third quarter, we had also two working accidents. One of them happened at the wastewater treatment plant when the person just stepped badly and injured his leg. The second one happened at the water treatment plant where the person also injured his leg when he stepped into the open manhole. We did some lessons learned from these occasions and our health and safety department to do everything to improve the health and safety on the sites. If we move on to the next slide, then I will introduce you to some investments we did during that year. By today, approximately 32 km of pipes are constructed in the City of Tallinn.
By the end of the year, our aim is to reconstruct approximately 45 km of pipes. Approximately 40%-45% we reconstruct using the no-dig method that is environmentally friendly and impacts our customers not as much as the reconstruction with the trench method. You can observe also some streets where we do works at the moment. A couple of sites have been completed by today as well. There is a Kopli Street in the Tammsaare Road, and our aim is that the construction works will be completed by the end of November. If we speak about the plants, then a lot of investments are done in these areas as well. So in the water treatment plant, we completed the reconstruction of the filters. And at the wastewater treatment plant, we did some changes in the greenhouse.
We installed the new screens, and also preliminary screens for the main pumping station have been installed as well. This will improve the mechanical treatment of our processes. And if the mechanical treatment is working on the high level, then the biological and the chemical treatment is working perfectly as well. As I mentioned on our previous webinar, we install electrical generators into strategic pumping stations. And by the end of this year, approximately 40 pumping stations would have the electrical generator in case of energy cuts. Last year, we started with the reconstruction of the sedimentation tanks. And during this year, we reconstructed four of them. Two have been completed last- year, and in total, we have 12 of them.
By today, half of the project is completed, and the full cost of that project is a little bit over EUR 9 million that we will complete in 2027. We do also some preparations for a couple of new projects that will take place next- year. One of them is the optimization of the wastewater treatment plant process. The idea of that is to use some more sensors that will show the information online. Due to that, we can get better information that will help us to take better and faster decisions that potentially should save some resources such as energy, chemicals, and will impact positively on the water types. Also, the preparations for the ozone treatment stage reconstruction is ongoing. If we move on, then I would speak a little bit about our operational results.
As I mentioned about the water quality, it is on the high level. During the third quarter, we took over 800 samples, and only 16 of them were not according to the standard. That is a very good result for the third quarter as the water temperature and the air temperature is high, and this impacts the water quality a lot. The wastewater treatment plant is working very well. We take tons and tons of different materials out from the wastewater, and due to that, the treated effluent is according to all the standards. We pretty much treat wastewater twice better than the standard foreseen. The customer satisfaction is high, so in the third quarter, it was 4.1 out of five.
And if we look into the details and the feedback, what we get from our customers, then pretty much it shows that the improvements we do in the network and also the changes in our processes improve the quality of our services and speed of the reaction on some emergencies. The leakage rate is lower than last year. This shows that the investments that we do into the network are right. And of course, the proactive maintenance and proactive leakage detection are working well as well. If we speak about the duration of water interruptions, then it is on the same level as last- year. And if we speak about the rehabilitation of the network, then as I said before, it is according to the plan. Good results. And I will give over to Taavi, who will cover the financial part of the third quarter. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Aleksandr. Let's start off with a quick review on volumes. Third quarter differences compared to last year are minimal, as water consumption is a very stable attribute, and we see that also on a year-to-date basis, the private customer segment is slightly lower, 0.4% lower compared to the third quarter last year. Business customers are slightly higher, 0.5%. We have slight movements in different customer segments, but nothing that would stand out, so that is also described by those zero-point differences compared to last- year. We have a higher difference in outside service area in a year-to-date perspective, 9% lower volume compared to 2024, and this is a result due to slower or lower water sales to outside areas. Water sale to outside areas depends on what water sources the outside areas are using.
And in this year, the use of water in outside areas has been lower. This segment is also impacted by stormwater that is directed through the wastewater network to Tallinn area. The main attribute here is water, so to outside area. Let's next look at sales volumes in euro values. One moment. Here we see that on the quarter basis and also on the year-to-date basis, the sales revenue has increased. The increase is a result of price adjustments, the latest of which took place 1st of May, and the price adjustments are necessary and reflect our continued investments in our assets. We are, as Aleksandr gave an overview, continuously rehabilitating our network and investing in our treatment plant assets to maintain a reliable process and high quality, and we see a higher increase for private customers, close to 20% in year-to-date perspective.
This is a result of price equalization. Business customers, as can be seen, are lower also on a quarterly basis and year-to-date basis. It's a result of price equalization required by law, which means that water price for both customer segments has to be equalized. It was also performed with the 1st of May price change. The next adjustment and final equalization will take place next year. Price increase in outside area and also in other segments is also impacted, as stated, by investments at the same time. OPEX, our operational expense, changes as well. Moving forward, let's take a look at how the cost base has changed in the third quarter. The total cost of goods sold has increased to EUR 10.3 million. It's around 8.8% compared to last- year. There are smaller changes in direct production costs. It's on the chart.
You can see that it's showing zeros. The total link, these areas make up around EUR 0.1 million. It's around 3.3% increased compared to last year. And this is a result of efficient use of chemicals in our treatment process, but also most significantly, a contribution of electricity production in our CHP engines in wastewater treatment plants. The efficiency in direct production cost has been significant, and this is something that we will continue to focus on also in coming years. We have slight increases in staff costs and more significant changes in depreciation costs. Depreciation costs directly involved as a result of the investments that we have made into our main assets. Construction service costs reflect the higher revenues in construction services. So connected to those services, we also have higher costs. And with those changes, we end up with a roughly 8.8% increase.
Now, on the next slide, let's summarize the impact on net profit level. Our net profit grew to close to EUR 5 million, which is an increase of roughly EUR 1.1 million from EUR 3.9 million in 2024 third quarter, and the most significant impact, of course, comes from sales revenue, which is then negated partly by Cost of goods sold, increased costs, and also partly by net financial expenses and financial expenses, of course, connected to the loans that we have taken to finance the capital investments. As previously mentioned, the revenue increases are connected to our investment activities, so is the profitability aspect that in our regulatory terms, we earn our profitability from the capital investments that we make, so it's reflected also on the net profit level. Next, a quick look on our cash position and movement in the third quarter.
Operating cash flow of EUR 8 million. EUR 8.1 million was used for investing activities, investment cash flows. Outflows of EUR 12.3 million were then partly financed by additional loans in the extent of EUR 7 million. And we ended up with a cash balance of EUR 5.4 million at the end of the quarter. We have sufficient financing tranches to continue our investment programs. And we continuously monitor our cash position and capital expenditure. And finally, to summarize briefly our investment perspective for the year, we have stated that we have in previous quarters stated that our annual estimate is EUR 60 million. We have slightly adjusted, sorry, EUR 61 million, and we have slightly adjusted that to EUR 60 million. It depends on the final result very much on how the investment projects progress. But we see that this is the best estimate at the moment for the year.
At the moment, in the end of third quarter, we have carried out EUR 39 million of these investments. On a very broad basis, 84% of those investments contribute towards regulatory asset base. Not 100% because part of the investments are financed by, for example, customer connection fees or by the City of Tallinn. With that, I conclude my summary of the third quarter financial aspects. Back to you, Kristiina.
Thank you. And thank you both for the presentation. Now we will proceed with the questions. So we will give a few minutes to submit your questions. Please feel free to type in any question you might have. So it seems that we don't have any questions right now. So we will end up with a meeting. Recording of the presentation will be available in the Tallinna Vesi's YouTube channel webinar playlist shortly. Presentation materials and reports can be found on Tallinna Vesi's web page. So Taavi and Aleksandr, once again, thank you for the overview. And we wish a good day for everyone.