Good morning. Thank you for dialing in to the Trading Update Webcast of Fugro. I'm here with Mark Heine, CEO, Barbara Geelen, CFO, Fugro. They have a presentation, short one, will last about 20 minutes or so. Afterwards, they will be able to answer your questions. I'd like to hand over to Mark now.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Catrien. I'm pleased to report some solid set of results for the Q3 . We have seen that in the volatile times that we continue to experience strong top line growth, in particular for offshore wind solutions. The EBIT margin continues on our upward trajectory. It improves in all the regions, all the business lines. Through improved pricing of our solutions, we are mitigating also the impact of the unprecedented inflation and supply chain pressures. We generated free cash flow of EUR 70 million, and with our solutions for the energy transition, climate change adaptation, sustainable infrastructure, we're well-placed to capitalize on the strength of our end markets.
Our 12-month backlog is up by 33.9%, and the clients are seeking to secure capacity also beyond the coming 12 months. Overall, we're making good progress on our path to profitable growth strategy, supported by our future-proof balance sheet after the refinancing we did in July. We're on track to deliver on our midterm targets. Next slide, please. In 2022, the energy markets globally, and specifically in Europe, were impacted by several events, most notably the war in Ukraine. This has raised some serious concerns on the security of supply of Russian gas. In addition, markets were impacted over the summer by extreme weather events and lack of hydropower due to heat waves and extreme dry periods, actually across the globe.
Various nuclear power plants in France were in plant maintenance. Altogether, this caused an enormous hike in energy prices. You see that on the right side of the picture here, what the consequences are. Hike in energy price and disruption of the value chain. We're actually experiencing that all ourselves every day. There clearly is an urgent need to rebalance markets and rebuild spare capacity. Accelerated investments in energy transition will have to be combined with energy security, leading to an increased need to invest in traditional energy markets as well. This is expected to boost LNG developments, which is already also what we experience in our activities. In any case, whatever the macro scenario, investments in the energy system will have to significantly increase over the coming years. Next slide, please.
Now what does this mean for Fugro? Overall, we believe that our market outlook for the midterm is virtually unchanged compared to what we have presented before. We anticipate ongoing demand for Fugro solutions for the energy transition and climate change adaptation work. For the renewables markets, you will not be surprised to see a strong increase in plant developments globally during the coming years. In the graph here, you see also a slight decrease in forecast for 2023 on the renewable side, which is relating to global supply chain issues. There has been some postponements of some projects and therefore some adjustment in the expectation there. For oil and gas, we see a slight delay in the 2022 project FIDs, the final investment decisions, but the growth going forward.
For the coming years, it's expected that there will be a strong demand for gas and in particular LNG, which will in turn trigger new projects. In infrastructure, we have seen a significant decrease in projections for the current year. However, the uncertainty of the Ukraine war, supply chain pressures, and potential COVID resurgence has impacted this market. Going forward, we expect a positive development, supported also by various government stimulus programs. For the water market, there's a slight increase in CapEx for infrastructure projects. This is supported by local initiatives for large-scale investments in this market, for instance, in the U.S. Next slide, please. We're talking specifically about the U.S. Here are a couple of examples how governmental stimulus programs are translating in real business for us.
We're starting to receive task orders from the U.S. federal government that are funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We have been talking about that for a few years, or for some time, and we've now seen that the several multi-year contracts that we have with the various government agencies, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the NOAA, it's probably easier to say NOAA, and the United States Geological Survey, that we have these contracts ongoing, and there's a beneficial advantage there of these funds for the next five years, and we see the first contracts coming out of those. In September, for instance, NOAA awarded Fugro a shoreline mapping project on the Gulf Coast. The project, which is located in the flood-prone state of Texas, will support their coastal mapping program.
Fugro will acquire elevation data along with aerial imagery using multispectral imaging sensors that we use out of airplanes and helicopters. This project also involves shoreline mapping. Some great examples there. As you know, I always like to talk about a few recent project awards, wins that we have. Here, a few are shown on the next slide. Within days of the Hurricane Ian making landfall in Florida, we completed damage assessments in two of the hardest hit communities. This will allow insurance companies to help their customers financially to recover from this catastrophic event as quickly as possible. Site investigation for Australia's first offshore wind development, Star of the South. This is near Melbourne. The project involves up to 200 turbines in the sea.
Star of the South has been in development for several years and is in the feasibility phase of the environmental assessments that are now on the way to support the planning and approval and the design process. Fugro will be engaged to undertake the geotechnical site investigation campaign covering 22 locations. To the right, another example, TotalEnergies, Shell, Energie Beheer Nederland, EBN, and also Gasunie formed a partnership to enable a large-scale CO2 reduction for industrial clusters. Under the name of Aramis, these parties will collaborate towards the development of a new CO2 transport infrastructure to enable offshore CO2 storage. Fugro will perform a marine and land ground investigation to assist the front-end engineering. With that, I will hand over to Barbara to talk about the finances.
Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everybody. Our Q3 revenue increased by 17.4%, which is in line with the first half of the year. We are seeing high client demand in energy and infrastructure, and in particular, offshore wind solutions. On the left-hand side of this slide, you can also see the strength of our order book, which displays a 33.9% growth in our 12-month backlog. This clearly demonstrates the strength of our end markets. The EBITDA margin improved to 17.3% compared to 15.3% a year ago, despite ongoing inflation and supply chain challenges. The improvement was broad-based and supported by all regions and business lines. Through improved pricing of our solutions, we are mitigating the impact of higher cost levels for fuel, charters, and third-party personnel.
The EBIT amounted to 10.9% compared to 7.6% in the Q3 of last year. As a result, EUR 70 million of free cash flow and a recent refinancing, our net leverage has declined to 1x EBITDA. Next slide, please. In the graph on top, you can see that the revenue growth was strong both in marine and land. The 13.4% marine revenue growth was driven by site characterization, and this was a combination of strong growth in three out of four regions, which was partly offset by a decline in Asia-Pacific. This was due to the dry docking of a vessel and a delay in the startup of MSC projects, marine site characterization projects in Korea due to permitting issues.
The 28.2% increase in land was also mostly generated in site characterization, and it is a combination of infrastructure work and nearshore wind farm activities. Finally, there was a EUR 37 million currency impact on revenue, and this is mostly U.S. dollar related. Now, on the bottom half of the slide, you can see the EBIT development. Our margin improved in all regions and business lines to 10.9% overall. In partnership with our clients, we are firmly focused on getting paid for the value that we add, resulting in improved pricing of our solutions and better terms and conditions. In the land-based activities, we realized further operational improvements, partially as a result of restructuring in multiple countries during the last couple of years. Next slide, please. Now let's talk about cash flow.
I am pleased with the improved cash flow from operating activities before working capital, which increased by EUR 20 million year-on-year. Despite the strong top-line growth, we managed to keep working capital under control. At the end of September, working capital as a percentage of revenue amounted to 14.6%, versus 15.7% in June of this year, and a relatively low level of 13% in September last year. Capital expenditure was EUR 12 million higher than during the comparable period last year. EUR 29 million compared to EUR 17 million. This quarter, other investing cash flow amounted to EUR 50 million, which includes EUR 9 million from the EUR 25 million euro proceeds from the sale and lease back of the Fugro TechCenter in the Netherlands. As a result, free cash flow was slightly below the Q3 of last year.
Next slide, please. Let's look at our future-proof capital structure. It seems a while ago, but in July, we completed a comprehensive refinancing of our balance sheet, and this has resulted in a number of things. We've extended our debt maturity profile by increasing the maturity of the bank facilities to 2025. We improved terms and conditions, which significantly reduced our cost of debt. We demonstrated a firm commitment to sustainability through the integration of sustainability-linked KPIs. Of course, we delevered our balance sheet. A couple of comments regarding our maturity profile on the top right-hand side. Following the put option of the convertible, we will repay EUR 49 million in November, and this redemption will be funded from existing cash resources.
The current leverage of 1 is the combination of increased operational performance of EUR 222 million, coming from EUR 157 million a year ago and a lower net debt. As a result, we have significantly strengthened our financial position, providing us the financial flexibility to execute our path to profitable growth. With that, I would like to hand back to Mark for the outlook.
Thank you very much, Barbara. The outlook for 2022. Given the year-to-date realization and the strong backlog, Fugro expects to continue revenue growth. For the EBIT margin, Fugro confirms the full year outlook continued expansion there. In addition, we have added now also free cash flow that is expected to be positive. We will continue to actively manage any impact of geopolitical uncertainties, inflationary and supply chain pressures, and remain very focused on further margin expansion towards our midterm targets, 2023, 2024. These are an EBIT margin of 8%-12% and a free cash flow of 4%-7% of revenue. The main drivers for reaching these targets are higher pricing, increasing asset utilization, disciplined cost management, operational excellence, and digital transformation.
Full year CapEx is now estimated at around EUR 125 million, and this has been increased from the previous guidance of EUR 110 million for two reasons. General increase in cost and ongoing supply chain challenges. We need to cater for the steeper growth and the future opportunities that we see. With that, we close out our presentation and open up for questions.
Thank you once again. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question at this time, please press the star or asterisk key followed by the digit one on your telephone. Please ensure the mute function on your telephone is switched off to avoid feedback to reach your equipment. If you find your question has already been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. Once again, please press star one to ask a question. We'll pause just a moment to everybody, give everybody a chance to signal. Today's first question is coming from Luuk van Beek. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning. I have two questions. First of all, you have a very strong growth in backlog, which is obviously positive. Can you indicate if you have any worries about your ability to attract sufficient people and equipment to execute all of it? How is the supply side looking? The second question is on CapEx, which you increased this year. How should we look at CapEx for the coming years? Do you expect any step up in CapEx to expand capacity and also to rejuvenate the fleet and lower the emissions profile?
Okay. Thank you, Luke, for your questions. Maybe related to the first question, the backlog is indeed up with yeah, 33.9%, which is quite steep. I think it's important to realize that a large component of the backlog increase is also price. It's not all volume and more work. That is, I think, important to realize. I cannot be very exact about that because I don't have that split very exactly, and that obviously differs across the world quite a bit. But it's important to realize that the pricing is a large component. Now, if you talk about the supply, obviously that's a concern.
A concern that everybody has in this current market environment to be able to find enough expertise and people to execute the work. That is obviously also in Fugro's case. We are actually quite fortunate that we are able to attract good people. I think year-to-date, and I don't have the exact numbers, but roughly, we have hired already 1,500+ people year-to-date. It's quite a lot. Obviously, there's also attrition, but it is indicating that we are able to attract people with expertise that we need where we need. A lot of the people there are the operational people to complement the operations there.
Obviously, on the equipment side, there will be a supply issue at some point in time, and we do see our assets being filled up quickly for the period to come. Albeit, I have to always say that before we get too enthusiastic right now about our results and the high backlogs, we are going into winter months. It's also important to emphasize that Q4 and Q1 is an off season where we will always have lower activity, and we should take that on board as well. You're very familiar with that, but it's, I think, important to emphasize that. We will continue to expand on our capabilities.
We have been already working on that over the last couple of months, and you know about some of these things. For instance, the Fugro Quest, an additional vessel that we will have for next year, fully available to us. There's also additional mobilizations that we have done in other regions to be able to to serve the marine market, for instance. The second question around CapEx, maybe, I hand over to Barbara for that one.
Yeah. As we have indeed revised the amount from EUR 110 to EUR 125. We have, as part of our midterm target guidance, we have indicated an amount of EUR 80-EUR 110 through the years, through the cycles, and we have in the last years also spent less. On balance, we are now indeed gonna spend a little bit more also in view of the reasons that Mark has given. Having said that, also, we have to indeed take a look at the growth and the required assets that will be needed to execute on further growth in the end market.
We are looking into that at the moment, also as part of the next year's budget process. That is what I could say about that. We do indeed clearly have the net zero strategy roadmap. We do have vessels, and vessels are required to also take benefit from the market developments. We will be back on that at a later stage.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you much, sir. We'll now move on to Henk Veerman. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi, good morning, all. Three questions from my side, if I may. First one was on the margin development. In the first half of the year, marine was lacking a bit, whereas land stepped up in terms of margins quite steeply. Yeah, you haven't disclosed margins per division, but can you give us any color on how that sort of developed into the Q3 ? Do we still see the same trend? The second question is on working capital. You obviously have very high levels versus last year. To what extent do you see normalization towards year-end? Is it too early to tell like where you will end up? Or do you expect a significant cash inflow into the Q4 ?
The third question is on the commentary in the press release where you say that in some areas you see already clients booking ahead of the next 12 months, the booking capacity. I was curious, in which areas do you see that, where you really see people booking for 2024 and perhaps even yeah, beyond that? Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Henk, for these questions. I will answer the question one and three, and then I'll hand over the cash inflow to Barbara. What we can say about the margin developments, I think it's important to note that we see margin improvement in all regions and all business lines globally. I think it's important to emphasize that for the Q3 this is clearly visible in all the elements of the business. That's what I can say about it, because we don't release indeed the details there per region and per business line. That gives some indication.
On your question number three, you were asking about booking of assets further ahead. That is visible, obviously primarily in the markets that are growing so steeply. It's also something that we don't release in detail on a quarterly basis now, but we have already in the wording indicated that we see steeper growth on the renewable side. That is the steep growth area, offshore wind. That's obviously also where our clients are concerned not to have capacity available and are thinking about longer contracts as well. These contracts also tend to become larger than what we have seen over the last couple of years.
They are pretty comprehensive if you look at what needs to be done in the early phases of these wind farm projects, because all the locations require geotechnical and geophysical investigation. There's quite a lot of work involved in the development of a wind farm, and therefore it requires a capacity. That also means that these projects are a bit longer, sometimes, running over a particular year. We're going into 2023 and 2024, for instance. Then you see that the clients actually now already are looking at okay, how can we secure for the second half of 2023, for instance, capacity, and sometimes longer contracts also run into 2024 for multiple months.
That's where we see this very clearly. It also means that obviously as our assets are independent of our end markets, that obviously other clients that are operating, for instance, more in the traditional energy fields, and that might want to develop or have some surveys done in their fields, existing fields, for instance, that then they need to step up and also book well in advance because assets will be scarce moving forward. For the last or the second question you had on the cash inflow, I hand over to Barbara.
Thanks, Mark. Yeah, on the working capital, you asked about the normalization towards the year-end. We have seen, given the seasonality in the business, an unwind in previous years of working capital. You can also see that in the presentation I have given. Now, clearly, with the revenue growth and more capital gets locked up in working capital, so as a percentage, the absolute number also goes up. If you think about the DRO, the days of revenue outstanding, there's the unbilled component and the billed component that if you compare that to last year, we're now at 91 days. This is something that continues clearly to have our attention to make sure that we bring it down before year-end. We will try to do that.
Having said that, also in the revenue outlook and the backlog we have to execute. We have to really remain very focused on it, on decreasing the working capital, even though I'm not unhappy how we've managed it today, given the growth that we've been dealing with. There's clearly again attention and the unwind. I expect some unwinding towards year-end, absolutely. The extent to which will also be determined by the revenue growth that we will be able to show in Q4.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, [mister]. We now move to Thijs Berkelder. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. First question on Q3. Can you maybe give us a rough estimate on what percentage of cost inflation has been offset by your price mitigation measures? Is that 70% or so, or maybe more? Second question is on the outlook for Q4. Looking at the very strong order backlog for Q4, can we expect Q4 revenues, despite being the lower season, to be higher than in Q3? Can you explain whether the Korea project is now scheduled for 2023?
Okay. Thijs, good morning. First and foremost, cost inflation. It is difficult to give you a percentage there. I think what we have said in the press release is that we have largely mitigated the effect of the high inflation and the supply chain pressures that we experience, and the longer lead times on certain things as well. Those kind of things are largely mitigated. You have to realize that we're also executing still in Q3 some projects that were tendered before, for instance, the Ukraine war started. Because we always tender for the next season.
Also end of last year, we were already tendering for the high season this year in 2022, which means that some of the projects are being executed with the price setting that we had in the previous year, or at least anticipated for 2022 at that moment in time. How many of those projects compared to the new work that we have brought in, I cannot give you a percentage. That's why we said largely mitigated, but it is affected somewhat by projects that were tendered earlier. We're obviously running out of that, and that means that we are more up to date. This is also very important to realize, this is a continuous effort.
It will not stop because inflation is still high and nobody knows what will happen with that. We continuously follow that very carefully and make sure that the pricing that we sent into our bids for the upcoming period are reflecting that. Also the bid validity that we use is certainly shortened to be only valid for a much shorter period just to cover for the potential change there. Now, we do have larger contracts that are sometimes running longer, as we spoke about before, because that's your next question, no doubt about it, and there we have escalation fees in there that we also can basically mitigate further price increases moving forward.
You specifically ask about the outlook and the order book of Q4, which is a good try, but we're obviously not going to give you any very specific guidance on the revenues there. I think it's important, and that's why I made that comment, that everybody takes note of the fact before we all get too enthusiastic that Q4 and Q1 are off seasons and winter months and always behave differently than what we have seen in the high season. That is, I think you can see what normally the normal patterns are in previous years, even if you go back to a more successful years of Fugro in the past. There's always a change there.
Particularly on the Korea project, you might have spoken about earlier today, that is delayed. We saw some permitting issues. I think it's scheduled now for 2023, but I haven't got all the details on there. It will continue. These projects are absolutely scheduled to continue. We see and have seen over time, yeah, obviously the uptake in the Americas following Europe, but now you also very clearly see a higher activity coming in in Asia-Pacific for wind projects and many other projects. It is really in that sequence.
Okay. Maybe an additional question, not so much related with Q3 results, but with your strengthening of the balance sheet. What is needed for you to reintroduce dividends or dividend payments?
Barbara, you want to answer that one?
That is, as you know, we've stated two components with regards to payment of dividend. One is the leverage being below 1.5x , and the other one is, as it structurally allows us to pay dividend. That is something that the first is we are below 1.5x , so that is at 1x. Second part of the equation is something that we're looking into, and we will look at deployment of capital. This is a capital allocation question, as I also mentioned in the last call. That is what we will be reviewing.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions, please press star one. Next question is coming from Quirijn Mulder. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Quirijn Mulder from ING on the figures of Fugro. My first question is about the FID market and FIDs. So Mark, you see some delays here and there. Are there signals that it will pick up, that they will pick up in 2023? Is there good reason for or are there still delays until 2024? Is that somewhat slippage risk there? My second question about the Q4 . Is there anything you can say? If you look at last year, Q4 , it was quite favorable, thanks to weather conditions. Is there anything to say about the, let me say, what's happening thus far in the Q4 ?
About Fugro Quest, I understand that it's fully at work now. What was the CapEx for Fugro Quest in 2022 to give an idea about, let me say, the investments in that?
Yeah. Thanks, Quirijn. I'm at least pleased that you're asking us about Fugro results and not something else. Thank you for that. Question number one, the FIDs, obviously I'm not in control of what kind of investment decisions the energy companies are taking. We see quite a fluctuation in these reports coming out. We run these reports every quarter and I see some jumps up and down. Yeah, it's something that I have experienced looking into this for the last couple of years, where when projects are delayed, they always move to the next year.
If you look at the Rystad database, you always see a bit of a jump next year because, yeah, some clients are saying, "Well, that is delayed, that will be postponed. We're taking a decision next year." That in practice will also not happen. You will always see changes there. Now, if I look in general, what is happening, specifically on the oil and gas project side, to give you a bit more color, we saw some growth in the Q3 . As you might recall, what we said for the first half of the year, there was a big step up in Q1. Virtually no growth in the Q2 .
In the Q3 , we see some growth, which is more high single digit growth. Significantly less steep than what we overall show as revenue growth. Then taking on board that some of the growth is also related to price. I think there's still limited growth in volume and activity on the oil and gas side. Where do we see that activity that is particularly coming in for the gas projects? It is slow because you hear that also from other peers in the industry. Everybody knows that this is coming up. Tender activity has moved up, but it takes time before these things really come to market and that you're executing work.
That's what I can say in general about the oil and gas market, I would say. That gives you at least some color. If the FIDs will go up, I certainly think that in general, the market will have to invest significantly more to keep up a certain production level and also to move production, obviously, from Russia to other places, to supply the required energy and to make sure that the security of energy and affordable energy is available. That's what I can say there. If I go to question number two, you're trying again to ask details about Q4.
Yeah, Q4 is always a bit of a question mark, especially, because I cannot determine the weather. You're absolutely right. Weather is a big influence to the final stretch of the year. If you have a bit better weather, then we can do a few more productive weeks. If not, then that won't happen. That is always the complexity that we deal with in these winter months. I'm not going to give you more color on the exact number or what we expect for Q4.
In general, I can say if you're busy in your Q4 in your Q3 and we have said that many years before as well if you're busy in Q3 obviously your start of Q4 is busy as well. That gives you some indication. Then it is really about the latter part of Q4 how is November December developing and that also determines how your first Q1 will actually be. That's all I can say. The Fugro Quest we have spoken about that before and we indicated when we increased the CapEx last time at mid-year and we added EUR 10 million. I'm not going to give a very specific number on the Fugro Quest and how much we invest in it because I also see that as competitive information.
I'm not releasing that number. We have said that we actually decided to overhaul that vessel much more significant than we initially planned. We decided to do more work on the drill rig set up, so to say, for the geotechnical drilling and want to have that vessel operational in the season next year. We are going through trials in November now. In that sense, you're right, but it's not in production mode yet. As soon as we've gone through the trials, it can go into production.
Yeah. Okay. My final question is about inflation. To what extent did the low oil price in the Q3 help you with to mitigate the inflation impact?
That is very limited, Quirijn, because obviously we see fluctuations on the fuel prices. As we have tried to actually move that risk away from us, we obviously share that risk now together with our clients. We don't make additional money or so on fuel prices that might drop a little bit or increase. Obviously, we're still concerned about increasing fuel prices. Revenues are higher also simply because we have to charge higher fuel prices to our customers. Fuel prices have absolutely, and I said that I think last time, that they were close to double in some areas, and I can confirm that that is the case.
For instance, if you look at the marine activities in Europe, we have had double the cost than maybe what we would normally have had, and we have largely mitigated that by charging it to the customers and to the projects. We don't see then an immediate benefit, so to say, if the fuel price drops a little bit, that I wouldn't take on board.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as a final reminder, if you have any questions, please press star one. We'll now go on to Mr. Andre Mulder . Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.
Yeah, good morning. One question on the split of CapEx. In the first half, you mentioned dry dockings to have an effect on maintenance part. How's that scheme looking for the second half of this year? Will we return to normal levels or how does this compare to the first half?
Well, I can take that question. We of course try to do as many dry dockings as we can in the low season. Sometimes that is not possible. Like the example we gave in Asia-Pacific, where we had in the Q3 a vessel in dry dock. For the remainder of the year, there will be dry docks, but not for the amount and the number as we had in Q1. Execution of CapEx always needs to be done in a smart way, and this is what we try to do.
This is really given the number of vessels that we have, this is really happening, also, you know, during the year.
Can you mention how the schedule is looking for next year?
Well, we're looking into the schedule, and we will again try to front load where we can. There is an element also of supply chain that we are working with the shipyards on, you know, getting capacity and making sure we are booked in. That also given the turbulence in the global economy, you can imagine there's also some shifts. We're looking into that also as part of the budgeting, and we will be able to inform you later on these plans.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We have Mr. Thijs Berkelder calling, coming back with a follow-up question. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Thijs Berkelder, ABN AMRO - ODDO BHF. Looking at the very strong backlog and demand for next year, isn't it simply logical to also expect elevated CapEx levels next year, maybe also grab an even more market in 2024? Maybe related to that, can you maybe give a bit more detail on your expected rollout of unmanned fleet, next year versus this year, and maybe the years thereafter?
Sure. The first question, Barbara will answer, and I will take the second one.
On CapEx, it will be indeed, I would say it's right to say that the statement that you make that we expect CapEx to be somewhat higher rather than lower in the next year. Again, we're looking at our asset base and at the growth in the markets that we see. This is something that we are reviewing carefully also for the longer term. We clearly have the midterm targets of free cash flow in which CapEx is an important component.
At the end of the day, if we make more money and we can benefit from the market opportunities, that should, you know, that will also and that may lead to increased CapEx.
Very good.
Around the uncrewed vessels, we can say the following. You know that we have various types there. The Blue Essence, the 12-meter vessels we have now one in Europe, one in the Far East, and one in the Middle East. The Middle East one has just arrived and is in the water actually now and is going to do the first test pilot projects for one of the key customers there. I think that's a very important step in our development there because there's a lot of interest to get some inspection work done with these uncrewed platforms.
We have actually already worked on the authorization to be able to deploy these systems legally in the waters and also to operate them remotely, which is I think quite an achievement from the team there locally. This is obviously different in every area of the world because you need the jurisdiction to follow. We're busy with that in many countries, and Fugro is really a leading party there that is used also as one of the guiding policies that we provide and governments really follow us in and also supporting us in allowing these things to happen.
In some countries like the UK, we're working on that already for quite some time, which has caused some delays in deployment on some projects in Europe. In general, we're moving well ahead with our plan there. We have a number of plans in place to add more of these 12-meter units, probably in the midterm, a couple more. We're also looking at a larger version, an 18-meter version, and we're also looking at more focused on geophysical work.
What you see today, I'll just give a bit more color there, Thijs. What you see today is that there are other companies supplying much smaller boats that are not capable of doing very complex survey work, so they only can do a bathymetry type of work or collect some simple data of the water currents, for instance. That is not what we focus on. There are companies with small boats up to 5 m , for instance, that are readily available in the market. Multiple companies are actually supplying these uncrewed platforms. That is becoming more common for some work.
We are focusing specifically on more complete geophysical work where also we can actually tow sensors and also look at inspection work with the remotely operated ROVs from these on-crew platforms. That's really what we are doing, and we're still on our journey there, which is a multiple year transformation that we're going through to really actually bring in totally new ways of working in these markets. Clients are very excited and also very eager to get involved in these, and that is also, I think, important to mention.
Good to hear. An add-on question for Barbara on the dry docking. I had the impression dry docking schedule early 2022 was quite full. Will it be as full early 2023 in your view, or clearly less?
No, it's dry dockings, you know, you have regular maintenance, and I would make the distinction between special surveys and then.
Mm-hmm.
Then also the distinction on reliability. I would say that we had a pretty kind of half a year in terms of a number of dry dockings this year, and this is also what we've communicated before. On the scheduled dry dockings for next year, again, reliability will be a big theme. Also towards our net zero strategy. Then you have to be smart when you bring a vessel in dry dock, what are you gonna do? And what needs to be done to ensure also reliability, given the busyness in the market, that we make the right adjustments to the vessels, because as we all know, utilization is very important.
Any day longer that we can actually be out there because we have more reliable vessels is good for Fugro.
Understood.
In that light, you need to see it, and we're going closely through the portfolio to there make the right assessments.
That more or less suggests maybe less dry dockings, but the dry dockings themselves may be more thorough and extensive than before.
Yeah. Looking at the fleet, which is still relatively young, but the demand and the usage, especially the growth in the geotech offshore wind is exactly the right conclusion. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you much, sir. Today's last question is coming from Mr. Quirijn Mulder. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, Quirijn again, on the two follow-up questions. So Barbara, you say that you expect, let me say that the CapEx next year is earlier, let me say higher than lower. But do you compare that with, let me say the EUR 125 million CapEx in 2022, in spite of, let me say the big CapEx relatively in Fugro Quest? Is that what you're saying here? That's my first question. The second question is, maybe Mark, you can give me some more flavor on what's happening in U.S., especially in the Western Hemisphere. Because I think one of the levers for increasing profitability is in that area.
You have land and marine, so maybe you can give me some distinction there, what the developments are?
Yeah. Quirijn on the CapEx and the levels, we're going through a budget. You've seen the backlog that we have. We have been able to execute the revenue with the current asset base. I'm not suggesting that will be changing dramatically. Not at all. What I will say is that two things, we need to have the assets to execute the growth. We can do that with owned, chartered or short-term chartered or long-term chartered vessels. This is exactly the challenge we also have to make sure we have the optimal mix in the market that we're looking at and that we can execute the work at hand.
That cannot be seen without the human capital that is required there. The people to execute the work, that is a component. Having said that, we also have the midterm targets that we're focused on. We will do this in a disciplined manner, in terms of also making sure that we deliver on the midterm targets going on that trajectory. In that light, we are also reviewing the capital allocation, which is part of a broader discussion. It would be, as I said, higher rather than lower, and I think it's fair to say that the EUR 125 is then the low end. That's not the higher end.
If you're asking if we're gonna rebase it, I think that we may go over that, yes.
I think maybe good to add to Quirijn, and I think it's good for everybody to realize that that EUR 100 million of the past is with inflation and cost increases today EUR 150 million already. You haven't done anything extra. I think that's important to realize for people as well, that cost increases obviously in this field are also pushed through, and therefore higher cost is a big ticket item that we have to take on board as well.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Your next question was about Americas in general. I think your statement on that the Americas provides opportunities for Fugro to further grow and improve I think is very valid, because it's a market that provides a lot of opportunities. Obviously the offshore wind market is really growing quite rapidly on the East Coast with large projects, and we have been involved already for multiple years now. We see a further uptake there, which will also ask for having the right availability of resources. It also means that the Americas, the U.S. in particular, is looking at opportunities to expand renewables also into the Gulf of Mexico.
They see the first fields being planned wind offshore in the Gulf area, which is in principle a little bit strange because there's also plenty of opportunities to place windmills on land. There's still a lot of people that argue if this is really going to happen. They have absolutely planned two wind farms now in the Gulf area. Then you also see an uptake in investigations and pilot projects and discussions around the West Coast floating wind. This is also quite active.
You see, as we mentioned and referred to also in our press release, an uptake in LNG activity in the U.S. in general, because everybody talks about that the replacement of Russian gas needs to come largely for the upcoming years from the U.S. LNG supply. So we see that already in our activity in the business that we're executing now. Some of it is floating LNG, obviously, so it's different ways of providing the gas and the LNG to the transport, as we have seen in the past, maybe. So that's happening. And then wind is now also running into South America.
There's a lot of plans, Brazil, Colombia, and other places where they want to, Curaçao, where they want to actually build wind farms. Then we haven't spoken about oil and gas, which is also indeed back on the board, and needs to further ensure that the production rate is not dropping too quickly, too fast. That's just the general depletion story that you need to replace quite quickly, quite a high number of barrels per day, because simply fields are depleting.
We have seen, last but not least, quite a lot of activity around projects that relate to climate change, specifically coastal resilience type of work. Something that our director there in the Americas is really also spearheading for Fugro, the development in coastal resilience projects. We spoke about what we've done for the catastrophic hurricane in Florida, but we also are involved now in projects to scan the coastlines there in Florida. We spoke about, in my presentation, about the coastlines in Texas and Louisiana, where we do projects for the Geological Survey for NOAA.
All these incentives based on these general U.S. acts, but also the Inflation Reduction Act that is launched not too long ago. We see opportunities for our businesses in the U.S. and the Americas in general. I think this might give a bit more color on the opportunity there for Fugro. Obviously higher demand will also mean that price levels can be decent. We have luckily already seen in the results that the Americas is also improving, growing and improving. That is obviously very important next to our high production and good performing area, Europe, Africa.
Okay. Thank you.
Mark, thank you much for your answers and Barbara as well. This concludes the Q&A session. Again, thanks so much for participating. If you might have any other additional questions, please contact Investor Relations at Fugro. Have a nice day.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.