Thank you. Good morning. My name is Catrien van Buttingha Wichers, Investor Relations, Fugro. Thank you so much for dialing into this webcast. We're going to present the half year results, which we issued last night after closing. I'm here with Mark Heine, CEO, Barbara Geelen, CFO. They will present the results and also about the refinancing. That will take around 40 minutes in total. Afterwards we'll try to answer your questions as best as we can. Mark, please go ahead.
Thank you, Catrien. Also welcome from me. Maybe good to say that in the past half year we have experienced growth actually in all our markets, our key markets. And that is also really particularly supported that growth by the offshore wind, the renewable services. At the same time, we also have to say that the uncertain macroeconomic environment, which is obviously intensified by the tragic war in Ukraine, has resulted in a sharp increase in inflationary and supply chain pressures during the past few months, and specifically visible in the second quarter. Still, our EBIT margin shows a solid improvement. I'm also particularly pleased that now, in addition to Europe, Africa, the other three regions are contributing to the group performance.
Would like to draw the attention to the step up in operational performance of our land business. Obviously, we worked on that for a number of years, very hard, and it's good to see the result of that. In good cooperation with our customers, our clients there, we have managed to partially mitigate the impact of the unprecedented price increases. We'll talk a bit more about that a little bit later. As a result, we are now able to reconfirm our full year outlook of growth and further margin expansion. Before we go on, maybe a few words about why we published our results earlier, our half year results earlier, than originally planned, because we would have come out on Thursday, two days early.
During the past few months, we have communicated about that before, we have conducted an in-depth review of our capital structure, and we spoke about that also in the first quarter results. Basically by trying to extend our debt maturity profile to obviously the best terms available to us. That is particularly interesting, obviously, and we'll talk about that in these current market environments. I'm pleased to say that we have been able to secure now an attractive and comprehensive refinancing consisting of a debt part, bank debt, but also a 10% capital raise in share issuance.
That also enables us to address the upcoming put option that is available in the 2024 convertible bond that is out there, and that would be there in November 2022. The refinancing is supported, and that's important to mention, by our key long-term shareholders, who have committed to participate and have participated in this capital increase. The long-term shareholders explicitly encourage our continued diversification. It's good to mention toward our various markets, where we can both support and benefit from the energy transition, the climate change adaptation type of work, and also the sustainable infrastructure development. Barbara will talk more about the refinancing a little bit later.
If we look at our markets and the growth in the markets, you can see here on the graph that we now generate 61% of our revenue in offshore wind, renewables, infrastructure and water markets. Again, the energy transition, climate change adaptation type of work, but also sustainable infrastructure are at the heart of our strategy, as you know, and we are well positioned to support clients in their transformation in the light of these urgent global themes. At the same time, due to the war in Ukraine, energy security is now firmly also on the agenda of countries actually worldwide, which also supports our traditional energy services.
As you can see here in the graph, revenue from renewables, which is offshore wind, sustained its growth trajectory with an increase of 31% for the first half of this year. Infrastructure and water were up respectively 11% and 9%. Also pretty steep growth, obviously compared to a COVID period last year. Traditional energy revenue was up by 16%, and that's primarily attributed to the second quarter or to the first quarter, because the second quarter, the growth was actually flat compared to last year. If we then move over to the markets in general, I think that's good to say a few things about that, because obviously markets in general are very much affected by yeah the macroeconomic factors.
Despite the fact that our markets are growing, I think it's good to say that the post-COVID recovery has been somewhat counterbalanced by rising inflation. No surprise, in particular, if we talk about fuel and gas prices. COVID obviously has led to persistent supply chain pressure that we experience, especially in the marine business and also specifically in the second quarter. As we all know, the war in Ukraine has actually increased these challenges, leading to a greater increase and even economic instability, which will also continue in the upcoming period. At the same time, the uncertainty around gas supplies have increased the awareness also and the importance of available energy at a decent price. Energy security is really important there.
Looking into the near future, the forecast shows that these impacts are beginning to weaken, and that's what you can see also here on the graphs. That is expectation. Nobody knows exactly what will happen, but this is what these market reports tell us today. If we then go back to our key markets in Fugro and what is the result there on the key markets there. We are obviously in the key markets also impacted there. This is market data that is shown on these graphs. It's always good to emphasize that. We compare the forecast here in the dark blue and the light blue from half a year ago towards the latest forecast from end of the second quarter. What do we then see? A few things to mention there.
On the renewables market, we see a stable projection for also 2022. That increase will result in a higher CapEx for the upcoming years. That's already visible somewhat in 2022, and it's still there also, compared to half a year ago. But moving forward, actually, the projections have actually increased and stepped up somewhat, obviously, because the energy transition is higher on the agenda for many governments. If we look at the traditional energy market, the oil and gas market, we see a slight delay in 2022, especially around the new FIDs, the final investment decisions. But we also see in total a steady growth of new FIDs.
That's important, especially if you look at the years to come, then, obviously the war in Ukraine has put, as I said, the energy security back on the board, and especially gas. Natural gas will be very important as transition fuel, and that will come from the U.S., for instance. LNG will be very important, and this is what you see in these prognosis for the upcoming years. That will trigger new projects that Fugro also will support. In the infrastructure market, we have seen significant decrease, specifically in this current year, that has obviously dampened the growth somewhat in this market. The uncertainty of the Ukraine war and the supply chain pressures and potential COVID-related effects have obviously impacted this market.
Yeah, the stabilization of this decrease is expected to kick in very soon. Therefore, we believe that there will be further growth in 2023 onwards. It's good to see that our own revenues have actually grown in the infrastructure business. In that sense, we have not seen that directly in our own business. For the water market, there's a slight increase expected in CapEx in the water infrastructure projects, and that is supported by a local announcement by several large-scale investments in this market. For example, in the U.S., where, you know, the governments are really allocating big pots of money to certain developments just to keep the economy going.
Now, maybe zooming back a little bit on what happened after the war in Ukraine kicked in. Fugro had to respond very quickly and adequately. I think it's good to mention two things here on the board, the unprecedented inflation, that is one of the items, and then the war in Ukraine, the direct result that has impacted us as well. If we look at the unprecedented inflation, that was really countered by us by really talking to our customers and amending our terms and conditions with special circumstances, escalation clause, for instance, in these contracts. Also we have limited our bid validity just to make sure that we don't end up executing contracts or proposals that we send out many, many months ago.
We have limited that specifically to ensure that the increase in cost is well embedded in all the proposals that actually go out. On top of that, we have mitigated the fuel price risk for most of our new contracts, and we have also broken open some of the existing contracts. This is obviously very important because fuel price was really sky high, and that meant that in some areas in the second quarter, we were really hit by probably double the fuel price in some areas. This will not directly impact our project margin moving forward as much as we have seen in the second quarter of this year. The war in Ukraine, as I spoke about already, it has impacted us directly.
We immediately actually set up some teams to help out with tangible support, and we spoke about that before. For our Ukrainian colleagues and their families, so we helped them to actually leave the country, to find a place to stay and to really continue to work for us, which was a very well-organized operation, I think. We have taken that very seriously, and we acted very swiftly. We also completely ceased our operation, which was quite minor in Russia itself. We stopped all the projects that we had going on there. That's now behind us.
We have really focused on making sure that we have sufficient staff to keep our vessels going because there are quite a few Ukrainian, but also Russian crew that actually were operating on our vessels. That is now secured, and I think we are in a good shape there to continue our operations moving forward. Despite all these actions that we have taken, these swift actions and adequate response, we have to realize that obviously, we still need to be cautious around the macroeconomic environment and the consequences thereof. That will continue also for the remainder of the year, albeit we have mitigated already all these things mentioned here on the slide. A last stretch for myself before I hand over to Barbara to talk about results.
Maybe a few examples of projects that were recently awarded to us, which is always nice to talk about. Very much in the theme of the key trends in the world, the sustainable infrastructure, the energy transition, but also the climate change adaptation type of work that we do. Various examples. You see the dots on the world map here. I would like to zoom in three projects and highlight those. This is a great example of what we do in New Zealand for Waipā Networks. We delivered a digitized power network management system. Yeah, quite a complex mouthful, but basically you see here also on the screen, digitalized digital twin of the real environment.
That allows the client to really improve their safety and reliability across their entire distribution network, power line network. This is using our Roames technology that we have acquired a number of years ago, and it really enhanced the network insights that the client actually gets. These are consecutively used in the network risk model that they have developed in Waipā to visualize and mitigate ground clearance threats, but also vegetation management, structural safety, distance risk, dangerous poles that are leaning over, and any other asset defects that they have. Great example of what we do there. If you zoom in to another project here. This is on the U.S. coast.
For the third year, we are actually performing an integrated site characterization service project for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind on the East Coast of the U.S. After first collecting high resolution geophysical data, also benthic data, shallow geotechnical data within the lease area that is there being developed, we followed with provision of real-time wind and met ocean measurements, and also building and managing a cloud-hosted geodata repository for the client. We will deliver Atlantic Shores' timely results, high quality soil information that is really needed to optimize their foundation and cable design ahead of their target 2024 construction date. This is just a typical example of what we do in the offshore wind environment.
It's a number of steps that we take in that initial phase for the building of these wind farms. Then the last example is an example of the Irish coastline there. We have performed for the Irish Office of Public Works a project where we acquired, processed, and also published high-resolution geodata of Ireland's west and north coasts. These baseline surveys will deliver a 3D elevation model to support the country's coastal resilience strategy, which is really important nowadays. You get more and more requests around coastal resilience, and that's really identifying the areas at current or future risks for coastal change and flooding.
Flood risk is a really important element there, especially related to the sea level rise, related to climate change adaptation or climate change in general. These are the examples I wanted to give. I think they're really spot on in what we do nowadays. As I said before, 61% of our work today is in wind, infra, and water. It's really changing rapidly and Fugro has diversified over the last couple of years. I hand over to Barbara for the results of the first half of this year. Barbara, over to you.
Thank you, Mark. Mark already provided background to the 17.2% growth in revenue. On the left hand of this slide, you can also see the strength of our 12 months backlog, which shows an increase of 21.7%. The unique positioning and the development of the backlog is further emphasized by developments we see in the markets by clients actually seeking to secure capacity more early on, also beyond the tenor of what we're showing of the coming 12 months. We believe that underpins the robust demand for our services also in years to come. If we look at the right-hand side of the slide, we see EBITDA and the margin and the EBIT margin.
As Mark already explained, we have experienced high inflationary pressures and supply chain issues mainly in Q2. Despite this, we have been able to keep the EBITDA margin stable and our EBIT margin improved both in the first and in the second quarter. Overall, our margin increased to 4.6%. Now let's turn to the next slide for more granularity on the revenue and margin development. On top of the page, you can see the revenue split between marine and land, and the development in the first half of the year. The percentage-wise growth was quite similar in marine with 18% and land with 16%. You can notice the positive exchange rate effect, which was mostly related to the U.S. dollar, which actually achieved parity in the last few weeks.
Now, the bottom graph shows that in particular Land contributed to the margin improvement, and Mark already alluded to that. This is a positive development. If we go to the next slide, let's look at Marine and zoom in by region. Overall activity levels were clearly higher than in the comparable period last year, which still was significantly impacted by COVID. At the same time, as said before, we were impacted by significant price increases for fuel, charters, and third-party personnel, and also supply chain challenges. The latter mainly resulted in some delays in vessel mobilizations, and this was visible in the results of, in particular, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and India. Overall, the utilization of our owned and long-term chartered fleet was 67% in the first half year, versus 69% in the comparable period last year.
This was the result of a relatively large number of scheduled drydockings in the first quarter and the related increase in the number of short-term charters. This can also be seen in the light of the increased revenue and the higher activity levels that we have and higher activity levels that we need to actually execute the projects that we have in the backlog. If we look at land. Land reported a pretty positive improvement in its results. After a couple of challenging years, it's very encouraging to see this development. You can see also that it's not only one region. It's actually, you see that from an EBIT contribution perspective, it's Americas, Asia Pacific and Middle East and India that have presented to the margin increase.
The improvements that we made and the restructurings that we've done are now started to yield results. Let's look at cash flow. I am pleased with the improved cash flow from operating activities before working capital, which increased by EUR 28 million - EUR 71 million. The growth in working capital was related to the 17% revenue growth. You see there an uptick in receivables. CapEx was EUR 38 million higher than the last year, and this was due to a number of scheduled drydockings, which was higher, and a major conversion of the Fugro Quest to a geotechnical vessel. Due to the seasonality of our business, as you can see, the first half year cash flow is typically negative. However, we clearly cannot be satisfied with this, and this has my full attention.
Let's have a look at CapEx and working capital. On the left-hand side of the slide, you can see that CapEx was significantly higher, as I just also showed on the last slide, than last year, due to a higher number of scheduled drydockings and the Quest. At the same time, CapEx in the comparable period last year was relatively low due to the phasing. I think that we have done better in the low season, typically Q1, to get the dry docks executed. Typically, around half of our CapEx is spent on maintenance of existing assets and the other half on expansion and transformation. That also has a sustaining element in it.
With transformation to be a little bit more specific, we refer to investments in future technology and solutions, digitalization, conversion of vessels, and the design and construction of uncrewed vessels. This is really where we believe the future is going, and that is important to invest in that. These investments need to be sustained by the cash flow that is generated also by the existing operations. As you can see in the graphs on the right-hand side, working capital as a percentage of twelve months revenue was 15.7x at the end of June, and this was below 16.1% a year ago. Yes, in absolute terms, working capital was up. It increased, but it can be fully explained by the combined effect of revenue growth and seasonality. We are fully focused on working capital.
You can also see that by the DRO, days revenues outstanding, it was 89 at first half year versus 92 a year ago. Now let's have a look at the refinancing that we've well just announced last night. We launched after trading an accelerated bookbuild transaction. This, to be clear, is part of a comprehensive, sustainability-linked financing package. We did not embark on raising equity at the start, as you can imagine, as it's well appreciated and understood that equity is the most expensive piece of the capital structure. Having said that, and Mark alluded already to that, we have been working on a study of the capital structure for quite a while.
Due to the situation in the Ukraine and the war, that meant that the debt capital markets have been closed for the majority of the first half of this year. With the looming put option of the convertible, with the increasing interest rates on our existing term loan, and with the upcoming maturity in 2023, it was only prudent that the company has pursued a complete refinancing. Bringing future-proof capital structure to Fugro. I'm very pleased that we have actually been able to realize this and achieve this. Even though at the face of it, you may have questions on the equity risk, and hopefully that's explained by this as it's really truly part of an overall package. What does that mean?
It means that we have been able to reduce our interest rates because we are no longer paying 650 basis points on our debt. We're paying 350 basis points on our debt. The 6.5% was gonna increase to 8%, and we felt that was no longer representative for the risk profile and the situation Fugro is in at the moment. Furthermore, with the upcoming investor put, potentially that can be exercised, it's an investor put, so it's only prudent to cater for that put. That is also what we've done by now raising the equity. If we then look at it, what does that mean pro forma for the capital structure?
That means that on a pro forma basis, and that's no longer pro forma because it actually happened last night, we have a leverage of 1.5x . It means that we've extended our maturities to 2025, with the lender's option of one year to 2026. Also, with the sustainability-linked feature, it demonstrates Fugro's commitment to sustainability through including the measurement of three KPIs. Let me briefly move into that. What do these KPIs look like? We have a framework put in place, and we have there included three ambitious sustainability targets. We have included 20% reduction in vessel CO2 emissions intensity by 2025 versus 2020. We have included 50% growth in revenue from renewables by 2024 versus 2021. We've included 25% women in senior management positions by 2025.
Fugro's sustainability linked financing framework has been reviewed by Sustainalytics, an independent ESG rating firm, and they have provided a second-party opinion on this framework. Fugro's performance on the selected KPIs will be disclosed in our annual report and verified to a limited level of assurance by our external auditor. If we do well on the scores, we will get a reduction of 10 basis points on our financing. If we do not do well, we have to pay more. It's really included and ingrained in the structure of the financing. Now let's look at the bottom of the P&L. Net profit was up, of course, because of the improved EBIT, but there are a couple of other P&L items that are also interesting to briefly highlight. First of all, we have specific items.
Those were limited actually in 2022 year to date. It amounts to EUR 3.8 million on EBIT and was mainly related to restructuring costs and asset impairments. You can see that the interest expense, number two, decreased by EUR 5.1 million as a result of lower loans and borrowings, resulting from the repayment of the remaining EUR 59 million of the 2021 convertible bond in October of last year. In addition, there was an exchange rate gain of EUR 18.6 million compared to the net foreign exchange loss of EUR 5.6 million last year. This rate, as I mentioned before, is primarily the result of the appreciation of the U.S. dollar. Then lastly, there was an income tax expense of EUR 12.3 million compared to a gain of EUR 1.5 million in 2021.
This variance is the result of increased taxation due to better results in various geographies. With that, I would like to hand back to Mark.
Thank you, Barbara. Two more slides for me, and then we move over to questions. Just to emphasize the outlook for 2022 as a whole, we can reconfirm that full year guidance of continued revenue growth, in fact, in all our markets that we operate in, and also further margin expansion. If we look at the midterm targets, I will say a few more words about that. We want to end up in 8%-12% EBIT margin in the midterm, so 2023, 2024, and also a free cash flow of 4%-7% of revenue.
That needs to be achieved by on the back of growth, obviously, higher pricing, increased asset utilization, and there's still some room there. Disciplined cost management, as we have been focusing on over the last couple of years, but also operational excellence, no leakage, reducing the leakage, but also the digital transformation, technology transformation in general. At the same time, we obviously will continue to focus on the instability in the world, the geopolitical uncertainties, inflationary and supply chain pressures. That will continue. We have, as I spoke about, already taken quite some actions there, swift actions to include certain clauses in our contracts, but that doesn't mean that it's all gone by now.
To support the anticipated growth and also to talk about the major conversion of the Fugro Quest vessel. That's a vessel that stayed within Fugro after the sale of Seabed Geosolutions, which was a conscious decision to keep the vessel, a really good vessel for us, and that's now being transformed into a geotech platform. We have decided in the first half of the year to do this a bit more thoroughly, which means that we also overhaul the whole drilling setup, and some additional works on the vessel. That has meant that we spent additional money on the transformation there on the Fugro Quest. That's also the reason why we now have guided for EUR 110 million CapEx for the full year of 2022.
Now, the last slide before we go over to questions, the midterm targets. Maybe good to highlight a few more things there. I already spoke about the midterm targets, so the EBIT target, and also the free cash flow target of 4%-7% of revenue, and also obviously return on capital employed more than 10%, 10%-15% in all our businesses. I think despite the fact, and that's maybe good to emphasize, that we see an improvement now in the first half of the year for the results of 2022 compared to last year. Now, there is still clearly a gap between the current performance and the targets that we have in the midterm. We are very aware of that, and obviously we're doing a lot to to achieve that.
That also means that this year needs to be a step up towards those midterm targets that we actually aim for in 2023, 2024. This is obviously, as I said before, really supported by the volume growth, but also better pricing, recovering the costs that are increasing. This is obviously a challenge, but we're working on that, as I spoke about. It's also really supported by the growth in renewables, the real steep growth in the offshore wind sector there, but also infrastructure and water. We're very much focused on the value-based pricing, integrated digital solutions, and operational excellence in general. We have a strong focus on these things. We believe that this is really feasible, these midterm targets in 2023, 2024.
Obviously, 2022 then needs to be a step up year, and we cannot be satisfied with the current performance of today. I think under the circumstances that we are in right now, understanding also what we have seen in the second quarter after the sudden increase in cost due to the war in Ukraine, I think we have done quite okay. It obviously needs to go a lot better to really get where we want to be. With that, I would like to close this presentation and hand over back to Catrien, who will coordinate the questions that you might have.
Yes. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, we're doing it a little bit differently than usually. There is the option on the bottom right of your screen to ask a question. First, the one question that I have right now is from Rob Sweers, who asked us, "Can you confirm that your order intake was more than 50% up in the first half 2022 compared to the first half of 2021, and can you give any guidance going forward?"
The order intake. I'm not 100% sure if I fully understand the question because our backlog is up compared to last year with 22%. That is our 12-month backlog. That is the order intake of the secured work that we see that has increased to EUR 1.1 billion and a little bit more. In that sense, a real step up. I don't really understand where the 50% reference comes from.
Okay. Thank you for that. I hope we answered your question, Rob. I don't have any other questions at this point in time, but maybe I need to repeat what I just said. There is the option to ask a question via the Ask a Question button, which you can find on the bottom right of your screen if you hover over it. We'll just wait a little bit to see if there might be another question. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much. We have two questions right now from Quirijn Mulder and Andre Mulder. We will start with Quirijn's question, came in just a little bit earlier. He asks, "The backlog is EUR 1,104 million compared with EUR 1,164 million at the end of March.
Given the delays plus the currency effect, the order intake's take looks a bit modest in the second quarter. Well, it seems to be a comment, but I guess there are a couple of things that we can say to this."
Of course, Quirijn, thank you very much, for the question. Obviously Catrien meant EUR 1.1 billion
Oh.
Not million, but that's fine. I think everybody picked that up.
Obviously.
Anyway, thanks for the question. If you compare quarter-to-quarter, you're absolutely right, Quirijn, that there is obviously a small decrease even. The comparison with last year is 22% increase. There's obviously just where you compare it with. What is important to note is that this is not very uncommon, because we pick up our backlog primarily in the beginning of the year and end of the previous year. When we are starting really in the execution mode, we are actually already fully booked, so our vessels are well booked now into Q3 and even in Q4.
There's also only limited capacity available, for instance, if you look at the marine work that we can still take on. You know also that our backlog is normally quite short, six to nine months. It's not very uncommon that we actually, while we execute work, we also fill it up with the same amount of work. We eat up, so to say, the backlog of the first quarter, and we added the same amount of work again on top of that. The growth of backlog in the first quarter was quite steep as well, and also if you compare it to end of last year. There is a step up from Q4 to Q1.
We have eaten up some of the backlog in the second quarter, and we obviously filled it up nicely with some new work. Moving forward, we are well positioned for the remainder of the year in seeing how well our assets are booked and secured for the upcoming period.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. I think that is very, very clear. Andre Mulder has handed in two questions. The first one is about the split of CapEx. He says, "The split of CapEx seems weird, with an unchanged number for transformation and a much higher number for maintenance." That is question one from Andre. The second question is, "Can you remind us of the details of the put option for the convertible?"
Yeah, maybe the last one, Barbara. You can do first. The put option on the convertible, and I will take a little bit on the CapEx. You can also say a few words about that if you like.
Sorry, can you repeat the,
The CapEx?
No, the convertible.
The convertible. Can you remind us of the details of the put option of the convertible?
It's an investor put, and there will be a window opening for this convertible investor put, and that will run from mid-August, off the top of my head, until mid-September. That gives the window for investors to exercise the put, so to give it back at par to the company, and then the company will need to repay the investors. That will happen on the second of November for the investors that have actually exercised that put.
Conversion price.
Conversion price of is at the moment around EUR 19.50.
Maybe jumping back to the first question on the split of CapEx that we see in a step up in maintenance compared to transformation, which is actually exactly what Barbara already explained. What we have seen in the first half of this year is that we have had quite a lot of maintenance on our vessels. The way this is actually working is the following: every vessel every five years needs to be twice going through certification tests and maintenance. This is an intermediate survey and a special survey. The special survey is larger than an intermediate one. Very often they need to go into dry dock, for sure in the special survey, sometimes also in the intermediate survey.
If you just look at the whole fleet that we have, the 25 vessels, then it's just a matter of calculating when which vessel needs to be in dry dock. In which year? This year we knew that already at the end of last year, and that's why we guided for higher CapEx from EUR 80 million towards EUR 100 million because we saw an additional, roughly EUR 20 million, additional spend required for maintenance of our vessels. That's just because we have a higher number of dry docks, scheduled dry docks, as Barbara also called them, to go through. Then obviously as an effect of that and the supply chain pressures as Barbara spoke about, also we saw in a number of occasions that this took longer and was delayed here and there.
That also had an effect on our cost base. Because some of the cost is obviously capitalized because it's CapEx, but other cost is also expensed and it's therefore in your OpEx. You also see a higher cost and especially if you delay and have no revenues because you couldn't start at the right time, then obviously that has an effect as well. Now, that's the key reason. Transformation is very well scheduled at what we want to do. We can always do more, but we obviously keep a very tight handle on how much we spend there and what is possible. We have that under our own control how fast we go in certain areas.
We obviously want to go through a transformation as Fugro as well, not only in the markets that we serve, but also in the way we operate. Do it more remotely, as you know, with uncrewed platforms, but also with more technology, more data-driven, more digitalized, and that will over time really drive our margins up as well. That is really the focus for the transformation. Then the maintenance CapEx is just simply higher because we have a higher number of dry docks to go through because just by coincidence this year has a number of surveys, intermediate and special surveys added together a much larger number of vessels that had to go through that.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. That seems very clear. We actually have another question about CapEx from Quirijn, this time. Given the CFO's comments on CapEx, I'm interested to know whether CapEx has entered a new phase, in fact, leaving the EUR 80 million-EUR 100 million range, that's our midterm, that's midterm guidance, into EUR 100+ million for the coming years.
Thanks, Quirijn. Well, actually, we don't provide guidance beyond year-end. We've just increased our guidance to EUR 110, as Mark mentioned. In terms of phasing and growth, that comes also back to the backlog and the continued top line growth and the opportunities we see in the market. We will have to act accordingly. We are on a path of a lighter model, I said. However, for years to come, we will still, especially for the geotech activities that we do, which is in high demand for offshore wind, we will need to have assets.
If that makes that we're gonna change guidance, as I mentioned, and also just mentioned by Mark, the transformation CapEx is something that we can decide on the pace and how much we invest. At the end of the day, technological developments and innovations are happening, and we will, you know, remain, for the moment, very vigilant on where we spend the money. At the end of the day, it's also about capital allocation, capital discipline, and the return we can realize with the investments that we make. That is really the key focus that I am focused on.
Okay. Thank you, Barbara. I have two questions here from Thijs Berkelder. On marine EBIT in the first half, can you explain in euros what the fuel price rise has cost above expectations and what kind of missed EBIT has come from project delays, et cetera? That would be the first question. Thijs has two other questions, but maybe let's address this one first.
Yeah, Thijs, thank you for the question. I cannot answer both questions very specifically. I can give you an answer on the fuel cost. Just to give you one example, because we have discussed that very recently, in Europe, fuel prices were double over the last quarter. We have most of our vessels and operations running in Europe, Africa. You can imagine that it has quite some impact directly on the Europe, Africa marine business over the last period of time. Managing this out of the contract being a risk to Fugro has been very important and a strong focus for us.
We're talking about quite a few EUR millions extra cost that we have encountered in the second quarter. We do not specifically have those numbers for you to say, "Well, this is so much for fuel, this is so much for project delays." We see in various regions, we have seen that in Middle East, in Americas, and in Europe, Africa, delays in starting up and in mobilizing, but also in the dry docks, simply because things took longer in certain periods, not on all the assets, not on all the vessels and so on, but it's just a general theme that certainly impacted the business there.
I cannot say a specific number for this project delays, so to say. Yeah, on the fuel side, I give you some guidance there. Double the fuel price has quite some impact.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. Another question from Thijs about land. The margins in the first half were much higher than the recent past. Can you say anything on expected margins going forward?
Yeah, we can, and maybe Barbara wants to answer that or add a few lines there as well. We have always communicated in the mid-term a difference in the past between land and marine. Land has to go towards a 6%-9% EBIT margin. That is the goal. Whereas marine 10%-13% to actually overall for the whole group end up in the 8%-12% EBIT range. For land, it needs to be above the 6%. Now you have seen for the first half of the year that we are above 6%, so quite a jump compared to where we come from, which is, yeah, well spotted.
This has to do with multiple factors, but the most important one, and I think that's the one to highlight, is that we have been working very hard on land and all the land businesses across the world, everywhere in every region, has been improving. In the past, as you know, we were not firing on all the cylinders. We actually had a few areas where they were dragging the result down. Instead of having, you know, something dragging down the result and in land, obviously, the numbers are a little bit smaller. If you have all the regions contributing to a plus, so to say, in all the countries, then you really get the effect that you see today that we get into the range of 6%-9%. Is that the rate moving forward?
Well, at least we have committed towards that rate and that margin in the midterm, 2023, 2024. More than that, I will not say, but in the midterm, yes, between 6%-9%. Today, we have showed that for the first half of the year, which is great, and we will end up there as well as a minimum in the midterm as well.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. Another question from Thijs. Can we expect this year a remaining cash receipt from the divestment of Global Marine?
Yes, you can. Although as this is playing in China, you know that there's still an element of ownership of Fugro in remainder of the Chinese joint venture, very complex, but I think we still have 19% in that area, and there's still the last part there. Yes, there can be a cash income. The documents are now in principle agreed on, and now it's a matter of completing it. This is all related to Chinese government, how fast they move, giving all the approvals to finalize this. In principle, I expect that this year.
All right. Thank you for that. Actually, I do have another, a couple of questions from Thijs. The marine order backlog for the remainder of the year is up 34% compared to a year ago. Backlog for half year 2023 is up 33%. Is it logical to indeed expect 30% revenue growth in marine going forward?
Well, we obviously don't commit to other numbers than have been presented. I think it's a good review and analysis of the results there. It should not be a surprise with what we just presented to you with the market developments, the enormous uptake in offshore wind projects, but also moving forward that there is a need in this world to actually get natural gas supplies going, obviously refraining from using the Russian supply there. This is not strange that both markets will continue to grow, and that specifically affects our marine activities, and also some of the water markets will also affect marine activities. In principle, all these markets are growing.
We have seen that in our backlog. We have presented that. You do not see that necessarily coming back already in the first half of the year, fully in the revenue growth. Fully understand that this is always a slight delay there. As you also know, and we just spoke about, we have had some delays in startup and so on. We are pleased with what we have shown for the first half of the year. Obviously, this backlog is secured and will come in. We have seen in previous years as well that especially on an element of the marine business, marine site characterization, you can have steep growth numbers.
In general, if the market picks up in the various markets at the same time, then you can see indeed a growth in particular months of maybe 30%. You will see some swings here and there. Obviously, for the full year, that is a different number because we will also have to deal with the idle times and the winter months and the maintenance months, so to say.
Yeah, maybe if I can add to that, Mark, is also that it's about converting the top line into EBIT margins and into free cash. It's not only the top line growth. We need to really there get the mix right, so we're very focused on high-quality backlog. That also will enable us actually to meet the midterm targets that we have committed ourselves to.
Question from Andre Mulder. What is the planned path for introducing uncrewed vessels? Can you give an indication of the cost per vessel?
Yeah, Andre, thank you very much for the question. I can answer some of that and not all of it, because obviously, providing details on cost and to be very specific about that will be competitive elements in there as well. I will refrain from commenting on that. However, we have six of these vessels in the water right now. We are actually quite active, and I will ask Barbara to say a few words about it because she just came from Australia and witnessed also some work for Woodside, which I think is interesting to hear. A really successful operational commercial projects being executed right now with one of these USVs.
We also have a USV very soon in the water in the Middle East, which is being shipped at the moment. There's a lot of interest from the national oil companies there to really move on with this. As soon as that actually is in the water in the area, we will start doing the first projects with these clients to obviously prove that it can really take away some of the work that we normally do with larger assets. Then in Europe, we have also a USV in the water that is actually now performing also commercial work and is fine-tuning the setup to really be effective in what the clients actually asking.
The clients have a high demand for these solutions, so there's really a great interest for this. Now, this is all in the area of marine asset integrity, primarily, and we're now also actively looking obviously at the marine site characterization work that we do. Not so much the drilling and the CPT work, the cone penetration work. That requires larger platforms to operate from. If you look at geophysical seabed mapping, there are many opportunities there. We're expanding the fleet. We're also shipping some of the units that we have in Asia Pacific now to Europe to maintain them. Those were the first units that we had in the water, and then we'll deploy them in the area of hydrography and geophysics.
There is a pretty ambitious roadmap. I'm not going to talk about the exact details, but we're also working on a slightly larger model to actually have more capacity again to do a different kind of work. This is really top of our list to obviously learn in the journey that we have these units in the water, so we're not building 10 in one go. No, we're actually tuning them, improving them while we go along in rolling this out.
We see a high interest from our customers to really get to these platforms that are obviously significantly more effective operate out of the control centers, but also with a significant reduction of CO2 emissions, which is important for our net zero 2035 roadmap. Now I hand over to Barbara to say a few words about her visit to the remote control center in Australia.
Yeah. Thanks, Mark. I was really impressed to see that actually in a portacabin, a vessel, an uncrewed vessel was operated 2,000 km from the coast by a captain manning the vessel, and an operator actually operating the remotely operated vehicle at 60-m depth. You can imagine that such a distance from the coast, really in control, doing commercial business there, doing pipeline inspections with minimal intrusion to actually the surroundings and also the environmental surroundings by not having a large vessel there, 2,000 km off the coast of Australia, working very efficiently. That is really impressive to see. That's really next level generation of where we gonna go.
Another word I would like to add is that the effectiveness also of innovations often have need permitting, and I think that is also something that we need to keep in mind. Not all the harbor masters across the globe are ready for the USVs yet. I think there are some challenges there. Again, as Mark says, very supportive clients. When I was in Perth, it's really impressive to see it's actually happening, and it's really commercially actioned, and that was very encouraging and exciting actually to see.
Thank you, Barbara. Another question for Andre Mulder. You only show 12 months backlog. With offshore wind, the project horizon is stretching out over a few years. Do you have any indication what your backlog is beyond 12 months?
Yeah. Thank you, Andre, for that question. For the time being, we continue to report externally on the 12-month backlog. We do have some insights, but we will have to look at if there's anything additionally of value there to release. What we know and what we have seen ourselves is that those contracts are indeed longer, also go beyond the 12-month backlog period that we normally show. We do see a change in that aspect in our markets and in our revenue profile for the future, so to say. In that sense, I fully understand your question. Obviously, what you also have to realize is that we're not a construction company, so we don't have long building contracts or so, for these projects.
It's very often site characterization work that is normally done in three to six months for a project, but it is repetitive work and maybe there's more phases, or we see these clients now that have maybe multiple wind farms that they actually contract out in one go. Then you see multi-year contracts where maybe three wind farms need similar service, this one this year, another one next year, and maybe the year thereafter. Then you see a longer term backlog and security of projects as well. We will monitor that very closely ourselves and see if there's additional value to change maybe our reporting in the future. For the time being, we'll stick to the 12-month backlog externally.
Actually, a question that is vaguely related also about disclosure. Thijs asks us the following. He says oil and gas is 39% of revenues. Is gas larger than oil?
Very good question, Thijs, and I would have loved to answer that one. I do not have the full insights yet. We're working on that. It takes a bit of time to actually have all the elements of Fugro reporting in the right way to make sure that the number is really reliable. What we clearly see, and that's what I can say, a couple of things on oil and gas. First and foremost, the 39% that we see now for the first half of the year, and we also saw last year in total, is a mixture of marine site characterization, but primarily marine asset integrity work.
A lot is related to inspection work that we do on existing infrastructure, which is really important also to ensure there is no leakage, no corrosion of the pipelines, no subsidence of of platforms, so that they can start to leak and pollute the environment. I think it's very important, despite the fact that people always put a bad stamp on oil and gas, this is a really important critical role that Fugro fulfills, that we should not stop doing because otherwise the world will have serious problems. We believe in the work that we do there. Now, the next thing is that we see very clearly in the discussions with our clients that gas is really seen as a transition fuel.
Some of these key clients that we talk to as well, they see an uptake in additional projects moving forward, specifically on natural gas. It's very clearly visible that the world understands that gas is important, gas is a transition fuel, and will be there for, unfortunately, for decades to come, because we simply cannot ramp up the wind parks so fast that we can transform the energy supply so quickly. There is still a period required. Energy transition is not a switch that you can turn over, unfortunately.
It takes time, and also the shortage in supply in a lot of these areas are and will become a problem for many governments to actually build their ambitious plans for the development of these wind parks. We have to stay realistic in that aspect. Gas is still required. We will see these projects moving on in the near future. Obviously, oil and gas will split, and we will report on that as soon as we have reliable numbers. You have asked that last time as well, and we have been working on that already since last year. We will eventually get that number right, but it's not as straightforward as it might look.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. I have two other questions about inflation. It was already briefly discussed earlier in this Q&A session. One question is from Quirijn Mulder. You have taken measures in the second quarter to counter the inflationary environment, like shortening time of bids outstanding. Are these measures implemented forever or are they temporary? That is the first question. The other one is from Andre Mulder. Can you give us a rough indication of the effect on the second quarter EBITDA of the inflation effects? What effect has there been of higher pricing and any further action you will take on this?
Okay. Yeah, the question on the inflation itself, I don't know if I can really answer that if I have that information. Inflation measures that we have taken obviously will last and will stay there as long as it's required. Obviously, there is market dynamics there. We can now tell our clients, "Sorry, this is the situation. Our bid is only valid for, let's say, three months or two months. That's it. If you don't take our services, then bad luck." If the market changes in the future, then we might not be able to say that. Now, because the demand is high and there's a shortage of supply to a certain extent in certain areas of the business, we can clearly state that.
I think, how long will these measures be there? I cannot say. That's a hypothetical question. I think they are very important right now. I don't see them being removed very quickly. Obviously, when you get towards the latter part of the year, you're tendering for the next season. I cannot say if a tender in November for the next season, your bid is only valid for three months. That doesn't work. You obviously need to also use that with some intelligence, and it will change over time based on the market dynamics. Then maybe, Barbara, you can say a few words about pricing, but I think that's a very detailed question that we probably cannot answer, Andre.
No, I agree. I mean, quantification of that is quite difficult. I mean, it's also, if you think about the backlog, I think it's fair to say that we're comfortable that we have repriced, so to speak, the backlog, but the unexpected hike in inflation in Q2 was only partially counterbalanced. I think that has already been discussed by Mark. What I will say is that price escalation clauses, you know, have been included where possible, and it also always depends on your competitive position, clearly, what your bargaining or negotiating power is. Further than that, I can't go. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Barbara. We are, by the way, nearing the end of the Q&A session. I only have, I think, two or three more here. To give an indication to everybody. Quirijn asks, "Can you mention on the developments in the Middle East, or can you comment on developments in the Middle East? In spite of weather conditions, et cetera, the improvement of EBIT by EUR 2 million was by far not what revenue increase of 48% should bring.
Yeah, I can say a few words about that, Quirijn. Obviously, you're totally right. I can only say absolutely, with an increase of revenue like this amount, you should see a significantly higher EBIT flow through. Why is that not the case? It's multiple factors. I think Land has been doing reasonably well. Marine has been doing from time to time in the whole quarter, okay-ish, but they also have had quite a few problems. Obviously, if you add all these numbers together, you get a very distorted picture because maybe the areas where you grow, you make a decent margin.
If you have a problem with other projects that or potentially an asset that we have had that in that area as well, due to delays in some projects for the national oil companies there, that we have idle time on our vessels, and these are very expensive, so it has a very big effect immediately on the bottom line. You're producing maybe very nice and you're working on some great projects that actually increase your revenues and also a decent return. However, next to that, you also have a few assets, or in this case, we had assets that were idle because of the delay in the project startup. Now, that really happened in the second quarter.
Actually, in the third quarter, beginning of the third quarter, some of these projects really started, so that helped. But we had a period of time with some idle time, fully mobilized, ready to go, and then we had a problem that the client basically delayed the start of the project. That has an immediate effect on the bottom line. This is the reason. Are we satisfied with it? Obviously not. We're working on it. The region is fully on top of it as well. This is obviously not the way we want to perform.
Okay.
In general, in the Middle East, good to say that obviously also, despite the revenue growth that you see right now, it's obviously still very dependent on oil and gas income, and we have not seen a lot of release there. We saw a lot of release and an uptake in proposals and awards as well. However, it was pushed out a little bit. Obviously, that is difficult to say when you see actually a 48% revenue increase. We're coming from a very low number, obviously. As you have seen, we also have halved our revenues over the last couple of years in the Middle East. There's a long way to climb back into where we came from.
Okay, thank you, Mark, for that elaborate explanation. I think that's very clear. Now the last question, I think for Barbara, from Thijs. "You now reduce leverage at mid-season working capital peak to 1.5x . With cash normally coming in in the second half, is it logical to assume a resumption of dividend payments next year?
Thanks, Thijs. I had expected that question. What I can say about that is, indeed, the leverage at mid-year and therefore year-end, you will see further decrease because of the unwind of working capital. Having said that, the new financing also caters, as I mentioned, for the convertible put option. Now, on a net leverage, that is no effect because we now have a cash overfund. We have always maintained to date that we will resume paying dividend if leverage is structurally below 1.5 and also structurally allows. Once we resume, we need to be sufficiently comfortable that we can resume not for one year, but for years to come after seven years of no dividend. We maintain the policy at the moment, for now. Thank you.
Okay. Well, thank you so much for answering all the questions, and thank you all very much for participating. If you might have any further questions, please let me know. Thank you so much, and have a nice rest of the day.