Hexicon AB (publ)

and thank you for tuning in and listening. I'm here today to provide an update of our business in relation to us this morning releasing our Q3 report. My name is Marcus Thor, and I'm the CEO of HexiCom. Very much welcome. What I'll do today is to go through a couple of items. I will start to give an update on the floating offshore wind industry, both from a global perspective, but also touch base on Sweden, where there's a lot that has happened over the last period. I'll present a brief on Hexacon before going into the highlights over the last period, which for us has been a lot about our project over in South Korea, Munmubarang. And then I'll end by looking ahead. So let's get to it. To start off with, floating offshore wind, an industry that has enormous potential. And to recall, what I've mentioned a few times previously, the way we look at it, the basis for the enormous potential of floating offshore wind is that most offshore wind areas from a global perspective are in deep waters. Now, by the end of 2023, there were 20, sorry, 270 megawatts of floating offshore wind installed globally. And just to put that in perspective, compared to bottom fixed offshore wind, which is around 75 gigawatts or 75,000 megawatts, it's a huge difference. And this acceleration of deploying floating wind has been delayed over the last couple of years and the sentiment of the industry. So what we're seeing today now in forecasts is that this acceleration of the installations of offshore wind will really take off towards the end of this decade. That will be led, as we see it, by Europe and Asia.

Now looking at Sweden in particular, a lot has happened here.

So I will start to note what happened on November 4th here, when the Swedish government rejected 13 offshore wind projects in the Baltic Sea. So basically all applications and all projects that were in the Baltic Sea south of Åland were affected. For us, that meant that two of our projects that were in Sweden developing under the brand Freya Offshore together with Mainstream Renewable Power were also affected. Those were the two project series and Dyning. Now this was quite the drastic measure. It was a measure that None of us ourselves nor our industry colleagues were given a heads up upon. And I think there's a lot of things to reflect on this. And one thing that I will conclude is that Sweden is in no way unique in needing to make sure and prioritize that our defensibility is not jeopardized. Where we are unique, however, is in taking such drastic measures like this against the entire offshore wind industry for a complete region there's a lot of examples and a lot of other markets around the globe both near us and further away from us that are developing offshore wind in synergy with defense strategies however On a more positive note, I have to say is that Sweden and the government approved the first ever floating offshore wind project, which is our neighbor on the West Coast, Poseidon, which is developed by Vattenfall. And that's a very good signal because that's the first time we've seen a floating offshore wind being awarded. And the whole West Coast is large areas of high electricity needs with very deep waters. What also happened, which was made public by the energy minister herself, is that on November 19, there were a number of developers, including ourselves, that were invited to discuss offshore wind with the Swedish energy minister. I was part of that meeting together with a lot of industry colleagues and can just conclude that it was a constructive meeting. My view of the Swedish offshore wind market, although it's a longer term market than some other markets, I remain optimistic. We have challenges, but the fundamental power need in certain regions are such that it can only be satisfied by offshore wind during the time that it's needed. Not the least, again, looking at certain regions, including the west coast of Sweden. What's furthermore we're looking forward to in the Swedish market is that the government has sent out an inquiry. In Swedish, it was called en ordnad prövning av havsbaserad vindkraft. This was decided upon in May 23, and it aims to analyze the regulatory framework for use of sea for offshore wind and how that can be improved and how permitting process can be made more efficient. This was originally supposed to have been concluded and released already, but that's been pushed back further now. Latest I've heard is in January next year. So this is something to really look forward to as well. And a final note on Sweden is given everything that's happened and if anything good to say about it, and it's my own personal view, is that the decision to reject 13 wind farms in the Baltic Sea makes me at least hope that it puts additional pressure on the government to expedite the remaining wind farms that are in process to be approved. And our project Marält of the west coast of Sweden is one of the most advanced amongst this category that are still not approved.