Ladies and getlemen, thank you for holding and welcome to the SBM Offshore Full Year 2022 earnings. At this moment, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Just to remind you, this conference is being recorded. I would like to hand over the conference to Mr. Bruno Chabas. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you very much, operator. Welcome to SBM Offshore Full Year 2022 earning calls. I'm Bruno Chabas, CEO of SBM Offshore, and I'm joined today by our CEO, Øyvind Tangen, and our CFO, Douglas Wood. Let me present SBM Offshore results, our main achievements for 2022, go through the strategic update of the company, after which Douglas would go through our financials. As always, we welcome your question after the prepared section of this call. As always also, please note on the disclaimer. Now let's start with the way we create value for all our stakeholders. The world situation has put a spotlight on the competing demands of the energy transition.
As an energy transition company, we seek to reconcile government demand for secure and affordable energy supply with sustainability by putting our oil and gas experience and our deep-water expertise at the service of a new energy era. As you know, a change like this does not happen overnight. We're pragmatic with a strategy that sets a realistic pace for change, developing innovative offshore technologies to make the transition tangible. We deliver this strategy and create value through 3 platforms. First, the ocean infrastructure platform. Based on 15 assets we lead and operate throughout the world, and the 5 FPSO under construction which will join our fleet in the coming 3 years. This platform deliver cost and carbon efficient energy to the world. It generates a record year and backlog, providing healthy, predictable cash flow up to 2050.
Next, transition to the core, supporting our FPSO business transformation, where we already are a leader. We intend to further strengthen this position by improving our competitiveness and carbon efficiency through our emissionZERO program. Finally, new energy, through which we invest in new energy technology and solutions to address this growing market sector and cover activities that leverage SBM Offshore operational experience and data through our digital solutions. Now, let's take a closer look at the highlights of the year. 2022 has been a challenging year for SBM Offshore, yet we're able to achieve a good performance. The success is once again directly driven by the talent, motivation, and dedication of all SBM employees. Starting with the operation performance, we saw the flawless delivery of Liza Unity at the beginning of last year, and a 97% fleet uptime performance over 2022, excluding FPSO Cidade de Anchieta.
Cidade de Anchieta safely resume production in December last year. Safety has always been a top priority for us. The total recordable injury frequency rate was 0.12 below the 0.16 set for the year. On the financial side, the company generated a record EBITDA of above $1 billion, and our year-end backlog reached another record of above $30 billion. Our performance is translated in our energy leading shareholder return. This year, again, we propose to up our dividends with a proposed 10% increase. If we look at our core business growth, in 2022, the award of FPSO ONE GUYANA was confirmed, and we have ordered an additional new hull for which an MOU was signed with ExxonMobil Guyana. As you will see later, the market outlook remains very positive. Finally, we are progressing in our transition journey.
Tangible results have been achieved on our floating offshore wind project, Provence Grand Large Offshore Marseille, where several milestones have been reached on our energy and several milestones have been reached on our emissionZERO program. We have set ambitious emission reduction target by 2030 using a science-based approach compatible with our net zero ambition by 2050. We de-define our strategic priorities and action plan based on the topic our stakeholders tell us matter to them. As such, environmental, societal, and governance topics drive our strategy and are embedded in its core. For 2022, SBM Offshore set targets with two particular focus on people and on emission reduction. Starting with people, we have done so by improving our safety performance with a total recordable incident frequency rate of 0.12, as already mentioned.
Secondly, by focusing on employees' well-being and the welfare of people who work through our supply chain. Likewise, on emission reduction, we have done so by achieving a fleet average of 1.42 million standard cubic feet daily, below the average target of 1.7 on gas flare. By setting intermediate targets toward 2030, including a 50% reduction on greenhouse gas intensity of Scope 3 downstream lease assets by 2030, compared with 2016, taking a science-based approach. We're pleased to see our efforts and achievement being recognized by third-party experts when they review SBM Offshore sustainability performance. For example, we improve our rating in sustainability, being ranked first in energy services. SBM Offshore was also recently ranked in the top 5% global ESGs score by S&P Global. Now over to our first value platform, our ocean infrastructure.
Before looking at our portfolio, I would like to highlight the exceptional performance delivered by our teams and the value we bring to our stakeholders. This is particularly visible this year with our performance in Guyana. Despite the pandemic, we safely and successfully deliver Liza Unity at the beginning of 2022, surpassing industry benchmark. This is the first unit built under our Fast4Ward program, which evolved from a concept launch in 2014 to an operational reality today with six more under construction. Both Unity and the earlier FPSO Liza Destiny are now exceeding their target production. FPSO Prosperity is on track with an expected first oil in 2023. The fourth FPSO in Guyana was awarded to us this year with FPSO ONE GUYANA.
On top of these units, the company signed an MOU with ExxonMobil Guyana for a seventh hull on our Fast4Ward program. Let's turn to our construction and fleet portfolio. First, on the execution side, despite the COVID-19 crisis and the current inflationary environment, we saw solid progress on our project portfolio. I'm proud of our teams, which have put enormous effort into seeking to mitigate this impact to the extent possible. 2023 will be particularly exciting with the delivery of FPSO Sepetiba, for which integration and commissioning activities are progressing, and FPSO Prosperity, which safely departed from Singapore following the completion of integration and offshore commissioning. FPSO Almirante Tamandaré, Alexandre Gusmão, and FPSO ONE GUYANA are progressing in line with client expectation.
Those projects will be adding over one million barrel of oil per day capacity to our existing 15 units currently producing, with an installed capacity base of 1.8 million barrel, so more than 2.8 million barrel capacity per day of installed capacity controlled by SBM Offshore. Regarding the fleet, a special focus of the year was on tank repair for the Cidade de Anchieta unit. The team successfully managed the challenges of offshore work and managed to safely resume production of the unit in December of 2022. Excluding this unit, the underlying fleet uptime was 97%. Our historical uptime over the last 10 years stand at 98%. Last year, we secured several contract extension for FPSO Serpentina, FPSO Mondo, and Saxi Batuque.
These extensions, plus those of FPSO Kikeh and FPSO Espírito Santo in recent years, have contributed to a total of about $600 million backlog increase, which demonstrate the value that further extension could generate to the company. Let's turn to our second value platform, transition to the core. The market outlook in our traditional FPSO business is very positive. We foresee around 35 potential FPSO awards over the next three year period. In average, 12 FPSO per year could be awarded, of which we see at least 40% being in our niche market of large and complex FPSO. The majority is expected in South America and West Africa, where we have decades of operating experience and in the basins in which our Fast4Ward solution is extremely well-suited. Our capacity remains at 2+ FPSO awards per year, or about 6 FPSO at various stages of construction.
We will continue to remain selective and disciplined in selecting which bids we pursue. Our niche market of large and complex FPSO supports double resilience with relative low breakeven prices and low greenhouse gas emission intensity. Our contribution to this double resiliency is materialized through the execution of our Fast4Ward program, focusing on better performance and faster delivery, allowing low and attractive breakeven prices between $25 and $35 per barrel. Our emissionZERO program, focusing on the decarbonization of our future producing unit. Our existing effort in this regard are already reflected in our Generation three units. The latest Fast4Ward unit, which has a greenhouse gas emission intensity of around 40% lower than the industry average. Let's zoom here on faster delivery.
In a world where our clients focus on capital discipline, going to short cycle investment, generating a return within five years rather than 10 or more previously, time to market is a key parameter for clients economics. You can see on the graph to the left that over the past 10 years, deepwater field development took an average nine years from discovery to first oil. Despite the increasing complexity of new FPSO, SBM Offshore has contributed to the acceleration of field developments with an average of seven years for project in which we have been involved. These results require discipline, experience, and strong project management, further enhanced by our own optimized and standardized FPSO design.
On the chart to the right, we have the example of the two Guyana projects currently under operation, where time to market was five years for Destiny, which targeted early production, and below seve years for Unity. To put things in perspective, around 170 million barrels of oil were produced by those two units from 2019 to 2022, which at today's price is equivalent to around $14 billion. At the same time, the majority of fields in deepwater would not be even close to be producing. The success is possible thanks to the early engagement with clients, our Fast4Ward approach, and our best-in-class EPC delivery. Looking at our emission reduction mission. As an energy transition company, in 2021, we announced our ambition to achieve net zero by no later than 2050.
To create a clear path for this ambition, last year, we defined intermediate targets toward 2030 using a science-based approach with the following milestones. Reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of Scope three downstream lease assets by 50% by 2030 from the 2016 as a base year. Achieve zero routine flaring by 2030. Reach net zero emission on Scope one and two by no later than 2025, and toward 100% green energy by 2030. Offer the market the near zero emission FPSO by 2025. These will help us to stay focused and on track to meet our net zero ambition by 2050. One of the first target we have to achieve, and one of the key pillars in our energy transition, is the delivery of our emissionZERO roadmap.
Through this, we aim to offer near zero CO2 emission FPSO to the market by 2025. The program started in 2020, and since then we have made good progress with in-house concept, design, and technology developments supported by development with clients and partners. To mention a few achievements in lowering emission, we now include close flare in project tenders. We have matured what we call our smart operation approach, digitalizing our fleet to monitor and reduce emission. We have issued and validated a generic design for go- combined cycle with related energy efficiency being offered on our firm tender. On the electrification journey, key components have been validated through Technology Readiness Level and full electric drive FPSO can be offered on some tender. Finally, on the carbon capture development, feasibility study has started and is progressing, and we have initiated engagement with technology providers.
We are therefore remaining on track with our ambition for 2025. The company is progressing on its energy, new energy value platform. Starting with the most tangible results, we have seen very good progress on the Provence Grand Large project. The company's first pilot project in the floating offshore wind market. All major construction milestones have been achieved, and the three floaters of 8.4 MW each are scheduled to be commissioned this year. This will account for around 10% of the installed floating wind electricity generation capacity in the world by 2023. This will be the first project worldwide to be installed using tension leg mooring technology, which has minimal motion and seabed footprint. Capitalizing on this experience, we have delivered further improvements for future design, which are captured by your Float4Wind concept, the second generation of SBM Offshore floating wind technology.
We are also co-developing floating offshore wind projects and securing seabed rights and relevant permits together with partners to better understand the market and accelerate new technology deployments. Turning to the floating offshore wind market, we see that it continued to develop worldwide. We know that it will take time to materialize as the economics remain challenging. The current market outlook of capacity to be sanctioned remains high, although the max of the range has been revised downward from six-16 GW to six-12 GW expected to be installed by 2030, with some form of the prospect being delayed beyond 2030. Within this market, which remains promising, the company's ambition remains. To become a major player as a floating wind technology provider, leveraging the company's EPCI experience. We target at least two GW by 2030 of installed capacity or under construction.
The company will remain selective and disciplined in this market, targeting only projects that are adding value to all stakeholders. Finally, we see several potential new energy markets where SBM Offshore can leverage its know-how, strengths, and experience in floating solutions to bring new products to support the energy transition. Our business model involves the full life cycle of project development and operations. We have been doing this for more than 60 years. During this period, we have delivered more than 500 floating anchored assets, including circa 30% of all offloading terminals delivered and installed, as well as developed unique engineering capabilities, technology expertise, and operational data. We are monitoring the dynamic of various alternative energy markets to bring technological solutions when appropriate and timely.
Hydrogen and ammonia technology, floating offshore wind or digital solutions are just few examples where technology, know-how, and experience can be transferred in the fastest way to contribute to the energy transition. As an example, we are currently working on providing offloading solutions for carbon dioxide and the development of terminals to adapt for the future fluids such ammonia. In summary, we are well positioned to be able to participate and capitalize on the variety of existing and future market opportunities when these are attractive from a risk and reward standpoint. Now over to Douglas to go through over the financials. Douglas?
Thank you, Bruno, and good morning, everybody. For 2022, we delivered results in line with our revised guidance, with EBITDA of just over $1 billion. That's a record for underlying EBITDA. This reflects the growing size of our business, a 20-vessel portfolio with 15 vessels in operation and five more under construction, to which, as Bruno mentioned, we see potential to add more. The locked-in cash potential of this growing business is represented by our backlog of $30.5 billion. This puts us in the pretty unique position of being able to provide guidance on a base level of cash flow for around the next 30 years.
Indexation and reimbursable features of our contracts provide protection for this cash flow. Our model brings the advantage that we're able to factor in the latest supply chain dynamics and financial market environment at the time when we bid and win new orders. On the financing front, despite a challenging macro environment, the strong relationships we've built across a broad range of financial institutions enabled us to close the record $1.75 billion financing for ONE GUYANA. Our model, the financial optionality this gives us, coupled with our ability to access a network of different pools of capital, gives us a good deal of resilience and the ability to fund significant growth, plus, at the same time, offer attractive long-term cash returns to our shareholders.
On the subject of growth, we've been able to maintain a very decent level of gross margin at project portfolio level, as highlighted by the 18% turnkey gross margin for 2022 that you can see under IFRS. Our ability to mitigate the combined effects of the pandemic and the indirect impact from the war in Ukraine vary from project to project. As we've highlighted before, in any event, the larger units we're building these days require more investment, and I'll provide some guidance on where we stand here in a moment. On shareholder returns, in line with our policy of paying a stable dividend which grows over time, where we link this growth with growth in the backlog, we're proposing to increase our dividend by 10% to $1.1 per share. That's nearly $200 million in aggregate.
Next, to review the key metrics for the year on a directional basis, starting with our order book or backlog. This speaks to the significant long-term cash potential of the company, therefore making it the most important metric to focus on in our view. The award of the FPSO ONE GUYANA drove the increase in the backlog to $35 billion. From the lease and operate and BOT components of the backlog, we expect to receive an aggregate net cash flow of around $9.4 billion over the next 28 years, with a third of this expected to come over the next six years. Moving to net debt, this increased by around $700 million to $6.1 billion as we drew on project financing to fund the large construction portfolio. To the P&L metrics.
Total revenue was around $3.3 billion. That's a 42% increase versus underlying revenue of around $2.3 billion for the same period in 2021. The largest part of this increase came from the turnkey segment, where revenue increased to over $1.5 billion from over $700 million in 2021. We had a ramp-up in activities, five FPSOs under construction, and then the impact of the partial divestment of two FPSOs, which allowed us to catch up the EPC revenue on our partner's share for the work done to date. We also saw an increase in lease and operate revenue to around $1.8 billion from around 1.6 billion in 2021.
The key points to note here are the impact of Liza Unity during the fleet in early 2022, mainly offset by Capixaba leaving the fleet in the first half of 2022 and the end of the Deep Panuke contract in 2021. Turning to underlying EBITDA, this increased to just over $1 billion. That's up 8% from the underlying result of $931 million in 2021. Lease and operate EBITDA was the main driver of the increase based on the same factors for revenue that I just mentioned. Turnkey saw a decrease to $7 million from $19 million in the prior period. For turnkey, you don't see the same kind of impact from EBITDA as for revenue, and there are three main factors at play here.
The fact that direct payments for the Guyana projects, which are 100% owned, are recognized as revenue without contributing to gross margin. Following the partial 45% divestment in FPSOs Alexandre de Gusmão and Almirante Tamandaré, the first 25% progress on the EPCI-related work has been recognized without associated margin, and that's as per our stage gates of completion policy. We have impacts in some projects resulting from pressure on the global supply chain and the pandemic that could not be mitigated so far. To mention, as advised in November as part of the Q3 trading update, we've implemented an impairment related to the shutdown of Cidade de Anchieta of $92 million, which impacts net profit.
There was a minimal impact on revenue and EBITDA from the shutdown due to the fact that the contract has been extended for a period commensurate with the shutdown. That means revenue and margin gonna be recognized on a linear basis over the contract duration, and that's applying IFRS operating lease standards. If we go to cash flow on a directional basis, the cash from operations was sufficient to cover debt service tax and the dividend. The drawdown on the project loans plus cash covered expenditure on the construction portfolio. As you can see here, cash consumption related to the divestment of the two FPSOs. You may remember that at the end of last year, we drew down about $1.3 billion from two bridge loans for these projects.
At the date of divestment, only a part of that cash had been consumed through investment in CapEx. Following the divestment, we deconsolidated the partner share of the remaining debt and excess cash. Looking at liquidity at the end of December, we had $3 billion. We had a $1.4 billion from the undrawn portion of project debt, the RCF was undrawn at the end of the period. Since the end of June, as I mentioned, we closed the ONE GUYANA financing and are progressing the financings for Almirante Tamandaré and FPSO Alexandre de Gusmão. Moving to the details of the backlog and the forecast net cash flow going forward. As I mentioned already, the main change on the backlog for the year end 2021 was the impact of the ONE GUYANA award.
This plus a material increase linked to contractual escalation and reimbursable features of our lease and operate contracts, the extensions on the three units Bruno mentioned, plus other turnkey activity, was more than sufficient to offset turnover during the period. As we show on the large bar on the left, we expect the lease and operate part of the backlog to generate $8.8 billion aggregate net cash after tax and the BOT sales to generate $0.6 billion. As usual, we played out this net cash backlog over the lifetime of the backlog, where average expected net lease and operate cash flow from the blue bars has grown to $320 million per annum for the 28-year period above the $300 million average at year end 2021.
It's important to note that this cash flow is underpinned by contracts from premium clients supporting carbon efficient projects with very low operating break-evens and strong protection against inflation through escalation and reimbursable provisions. Updating our discounted cash flow analysis of lease and operate and BOT sales cash flows to include ONE GUYANA, keeping the discount rates consistent with previous periods, see a big increase in the range, now EUR 23-27 per share. That compares with EUR 19-23 at year-end 2021. To look at the various elements of our model for capital allocation and shareholder returns. Based on the updated backlog we just discussed, this is expected to generate $9.4 billion of net cash, including the BOT sales.
Zooming in as usual on average enhanced net cash from lease and operate after tax and debt service for the next six years, we have $450 million. It's an increase of $85 million versus last year. Net of an assumed annual 75 million for corporate overheads, this gives average in-hand net cash for the period of $375 million. On top of this, we expect to receive an aggregate of around $600 million contribution to the turnkey cash flow from the BOT sales. On average, another 100 million per year. This last amount would be more than sufficient to cover turnkey overheads plus R&D, including the remaining $100 million from the three year 150 million renewables pilot spend we guided for last year.
Of course, we would anticipate to bring in more cash flow in turnkey from new projects secured during the period. As we consistently mentioned in recent years, larger FPSOs require higher absolute net equity investment. In our cash planning for project funding, we typically look to prioritize financing facilities, deferring our equity investment. The significant part of the cash net equity investment for the five projects under construction is still to come. We've decided to guide for this net equity spend, where we expect to invest roughly $850 million in the coming years, noting the significant cash balance we had at the end of the year, of which around $400 million was unrestricted. Net of this would mean a draw on future cash of around 450 million.
We've maintained provision for up to $200 million in our forward planning to support our floating offshore wind co-developer ambition. This amount is assumed to be covered by a working capital facility where we would expect our aggregate investment to be recovered as a minimum as projects are sold down. Cash flow neutral overall. Finally, the last element of our model, equity cash flow acceleration, can help mitigate the impacts from this gross investment phase on the overall cash flow equation. This acceleration could take the form of further equity sell down plus equity cash flow acceleration from project refinancings.
While the volatility in pricing levels that we saw last year caused us to pause some of the acceleration transactions we have in mind, as announced today, we've entered into a pre-funding agreement relating to the future potential financing of the holding company of FPSO Cidade de Ilhabela, for which we've received a $125 million payment in 2023. The final funding agreement is expected to be signed during the course of the year. We're also continuing to work on a number of other options to be ready to the extent the appropriate window of opportunity opens. Now to look at what these updates on capital allocation mean for shareholder returns.
Driven by the increase in the backlog and net cash in lease and operates, we are proposing to increase the dividend by 10% on a per share basis to $1.1 per share, around $200 million in aggregate. This represents a yield of 7% versus year end 2022 share price.
As you can see from the chart, it continues the trajectory of dividend growth with a compound increase of 27% since we restarted the dividend in 2016, including the proposed dividend, would make for an aggregate $1.6 billion in returns to shareholders from dividends and buybacks over the period. The use of buybacks remains part of the equation, but as we have said previously, buybacks have the advantage of allowing flexibility to balance investment in growth through turnkey with additional shareholder returns in conjunction with the execution of equity acceleration transactions. As just discussed, we're in a period of sizable growth with less opportunity in the past year for equity acceleration transactions. However, we maintain our ambition to do buybacks in the future, subject to growth investment requirements and our ability to deliver further equity cash flow acceleration. That's it for me.
Now back to Bruno.
Thank you, Douglas. Finally, our guidance for 2023. Revenue is expected to be above $2.9 billion, with lease and operate revenue at around $1.9 billion and turnkey revenue at above $1 billion. EBITDA is expected to be above $1 billion. In conclusion, our financial results for this year are good, especially considering the challenges we face. Our organization continuously evolve to leverage our expertise and extend our competencies. The solid performance comes down to the quality, talent, and commitment of the people in the company. I would like to pay tribute to the resilience of SBM Offshore employees working in our project and operation all over the world.
While driving progress toward our 30 target of reducing emission intensity by 50% per barrel of oil produced and developing innovative lower carbon new energy and digital technology. Industry pacesetting and doing things right at all levels of the organization is what SBM Offshore does and will continue to do as an energy transition company. Thank you for your attention. Now the floor is yours for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will start the question and answer session now. To be registered for the question and answer queue, please press star 1 on your keypad. The first question comes from the line of Mr. Luuk van Beek of Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Two questions. First of all, on your policy to order new hulls. The second one has now already been insured by ExxonMobil. The outlook for new order intake is very strong. Can you indicate what will determine when you will order new hulls? My second question is on wave energy, which you no longer mention. Can you update us on the progress and prospects there?
Thank you for your question, Luke. On the new hull, as always, we're looking at the market, we're looking at opportunities, we're looking at how all of these fit into the capacity of the company, and if and when we're gonna make a new, order, we're gonna make an announcement. With regard to the wave energy, it's a project which is progressing, probably, not as fast as what we wanted to have, but, we're gonna make further announcement, during the year. We're just progressing on our patent and development of technology at this stage.
Okay. Regarding the hulls, you are comfortable that you can order them quickly enough to satisfy any future projects?
I'm sorry?
Any project wins that you are expecting, you're confident that you can get the hulls in time?
Yeah. You know, I mean, you have seen this. We have done this for seven times, previously. We're looking at how the market is, the opportunity that we have, how we position the state of the supply chain, because it's not only hulls, it's also supply chain. We are making this decision based on that. Once we have made a decision, we make an announcement, but we don't say anything in advance.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Quirijn Mulder of ING. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Congratulations with crossing the 1 billion EBITDA March mark for the first time. My questions are related to the market circumstances. If we, if we are right, then of course we see some developments there that Petrobras is very cautious on tendering on the lease contracts. It's more turnkey, and it's also more aimed at, let me say, the Koreans and the Singaporese guys. Is there anything you can add to that, what the market is in your view? Also maybe on Guyana, where you have seen that MODEC is now entering with the Uaru development, that you will, let me say... And the policy of Exxon is, yeah, to design one, to build many.
Are they now in an urgent need of more vessels, or is that, is that, let me say, too premature, that you are still part of the whole process there, and that you have not to divide every project into parts with one for MODEC and the second one for you? That's one question.
Yes. Okay. Thank you. On the market side, lease and operate, as we have shown, as an industry and more specifically as SBM performance, is a model which deliver huge amount of value to our clients. It's a model whereby the performance of delivery is far above the performance of delivery of turnkey. I would say what we have brought as SBM Offshore through Fast4Ward is also the ability to accelerate even this model compared to the rest of the industry. We always have seen phases in the market where at times there is more turnkey and operate and at times more lease and operate. However, from a general trend, and we don't see this changing, there is always a balance between lease and operate and turnkey.
Lately, Petrobras was faced with a dilemma when they went to the market. There was basically no capacity of the lease and operate contractors to develop new products, so they went to the turnkey side of the market. Are they gonna change their behavior? Are they gonna go back to the lease and operate market? We believe so, but time will tell. With regard to Guyana, I mean, the only thing I can say there is that the performance that we have achieved in Guyana has been recognized by all stakeholders in Guyana and elsewhere. And really, what I've said is today we have delivered in Guyana.
We have produced more than 170 million barrel of oil, while in most fields for the world, they will still be building the field and in development and not producing for an additional two years. The track record that we have and the value that we have brought to all stakeholders, including local government, including all the partners of Exxon Guyana, is recognized. I think that the feedback that we're receiving is that the performance that we are having is second to none.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Thijs Berkelder of ABN AMRO, ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Thijs Berkelder, ABN AMRO, ODDO BHF. Congratulations, with the performance in the past year, countering all the supply chain struggles. A first question on floating wind projects, with Cerulean Winds in Irish Sea and California. Can you give an update there maybe, and maybe an update on the Norwegian pilot project? A second question is on, let's say, the investment climate or maybe the general climate in the Netherlands. Boskalis threatened war to potentially leave the Netherlands because of recent legislation. What's the view of SBM Offshore there? Are you also looking at potentially leaving the Netherlands from a headquarter perspective? Third question is more for Douglas, I would say. The net debt to backlog is at the high end of your normal range.
is it therefore logical to not expect a share buyback coming back before the divestment of the unit, the FPSO, early next year?
Okay. Thank you for that. Let me take the first two question. The first element is, where is the floating offshore wind market standing? With the auction which has happened in California, and there is other auction which have happened also, you can speak about Scotland and elsewhere. What we're saying is that those auction have been effective. Translating those auctions for acreage into development is gonna take time. It's gonna take time because the floating offshore wind market is not an easy market to do. I mean, we can see this only building two units. When you're gonna have to build 50 or 100 units, you're really looking at the production chain type of things. You're looking at a number of complexity which are second to none.
All of these generate a lot of uncertainty, a lot of risk, and a lot of costs which are not yet mastered by the industry at large. We're seeing that there is opportunity. We engage in a number of those opportunities. We're also looking at the risk and reward side of the equation. We don't want to be in position of what I've seen in the fixed offshore wind market, where basically nobody in the value chain has been making money. Therefore, we're not gonna engage into projects whereby it's gonna be a loss for everybody there.
In not so many words, what I'm saying there is, and it's what we provided also in the guidance, we believe that the market demand is there, but there is a lot of debugging before this market demand is gonna go and before this market demand is gonna be going ahead in a sustainable manner from an economic standpoint. More specifically on the project in Norway, we engaged with the client whereby we did a lot of desktop validation. They review what we had done on Provence and so on. Based on those validation, basically we came to the conclusion that doing another pilot project was not what was required. That's not gonna be something which we're gonna pursue at this stage.
The overall environment, I would say the overall environment with regard to energy and the Dutch environment, there we have a duty, I believe, to educate, to be mindful about what is energy transition, to mention what SBM Offshore is doing as an energy transition company, and really to provide the story that we are doing, which is a good story. Is this story gonna be acceptable in different environments in the Netherlands or in Europe? Time will tell. It's something that we're monitoring. At this stage, we don't have really any particular concern on this, obviously it's something that we need to monitor. Morning, Thijs. On the net debt to backlog, it's trending towards the top of the historical range.
I would say though, we're still in a pretty comfortable position here, and that's not kind of a hard ceiling that dictates other things that, you know, how we would look at the capital allocation overall. As you know, we're in a growth phase at the moment. As of today, we don't have any plans for a share buyback, but as I mentioned, it's still our ambition to do buybacks in the future. There we look carefully at, you know, what we need to fund growth and also equity acceleration transactions come into play here.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Andre Mulder of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Couple of questions. First one on Guyana. The government of Guyana has taken some measures in the range of their trying to take back 20% of the acreage that has been allowed to ExxonMobil. What could be the effect of that in terms of potential awards? Could we see that that will be slowing down? Next to that could be implications for your orders in that country. Second question on China. Where are we in the process of them taking a stake in the Sepetiba? What's keeping that? How long will it take do you feel?
I've seen suggested that there's also a possibility to take a stake of the Chinese in Ilhabela? Is there also a possibility they might take a stake in the whole of the portfolio? Question on sheet 24 for Douglas. This table, would you say that the biggest influence of the higher numbers for the full year is related to Guyana? Another question for Douglas. In the past, you mentioned this work in progress. First, I think it was this first half at 2.7 billion and at an average stage of the projects of around 40%. I may have missed that, but what? Can you provide new numbers on that 40%? Where are we?
Possibly a bit higher there, so that we can relate that to the work in progress of 3,650. Last question is on the lease in the backlog. I see it's a bit larger than let's say half stage, while nothing in the portfolio has really changed. What's the reason for that?
Okay. That's a lot of questions. Let's make sure that we're not gonna forget any of the questions. Douglas is looking at the detailed part of your question, and I'm gonna try to address your question on the market and more specifically in Guyana. One of the points which is certain at this stage is that clients are focusing on capital discipline throughout the world. They're looking for short cycle investment projects. The economics of field, which is driven by a number of aspects, obviously the technology, the nature of the reservoir, but also the fiscal side, is absolutely critical for this field to be developed. Otherwise, they're not gonna be developed. It puts pressure on all the stakeholders in the industry, including contractor, including clients, including U.S. government.
With specifically looking speaking about Guyana, I've seen like you, but I don't have any particular insight on this, the comments that the Guyanese government was looking to take a part of the acreage which had been operated or which has been under Exxon portfolio. I don't know the reason for that. The only thing I can comment on that is that the success that ExxonMobil has had in Guyana has obviously created a lot of interest from other oil companies and people are keen to be able to access this market, to be able to drill and to do some development under an economic situation which would be favorable. Douglas?
Okay. Morning, Andre. Starting with your question around China, the investment in Sepetiba. The deal there is that it only becomes effective after first oil subject to various CPs, we expect that to be concluded. And as, you know, we've consistently said, you know, it's our strategy to diversify the sources of financing. And we mentioned in the release today the fact that we have a term sheet for a holding company level financing of the Ilhabela, for which we received $125 million, and that's expected to complete during the course of the year.
We're looking at a number of alternative sources of financing from Chinese institutions, but also other institutions all over the world. On page 24,
I think your question was around the impact of Guyana. Yes, Guyana is a big driver of the increase in the backlog overall, including the lease and operate backlog. As I mentioned in lease and operate backlog, there were some also other impacts from the reimbursable indexation related part of our part of our contracts, the extensions that Bruno mentioned and some then and a few other things. That's what's driving the numbers there. I think you were referring to the average percentage of completion. It was 55% at the end of last year. You had a fifth question, which I didn't really understand.
Maybe I've answered it, Laurie, you wanna repeat that?
Yeah. That's mainly about the backlog. I'm seeing in the first half backlog lease at let's say 1.8 billion in annual turnover. It's now 1.9 billion. Maybe a small difference. What's driving that?
Yeah. I think the Liza Unity, coming into a full year worth of operation is probably the main driver there.
Okay. Thank you.
The last question comes from the line of Curry Mulder of ING. Please go ahead.
Yeah. One follow up from my side on the cost inflation, et cetera. Can you maybe quantify, let me say, what the impact was of COVID and inflation impact of your in terms of dollars for 2022? What is the outlook for 2023 with the COVID seriously retreating, especially in China, and maybe also with regard to what the impact would be of the inflation. In other words, is the situation in 2023 better than 2022? Which might be seen as an open door, but maybe you can give me somewhat strength, let me say, somewhat points here that we can work on it.
Okay. I mean, it's difficult to provide you with exact quantification of this. Now, if you look at COVID situation in China, the fact that quarantine and the approach that China has changed is really opening up the access to China, the ability to do more work and to have less disruption. I would say that the disruption we had seen in the previous 18 months were fairly damaging to the progress that we could see on project and had some impact. Now there is some other elements which are present. The war in Ukraine has led to a number of other disruption in the supply chain.
For example, the transfer of goods between Europe and China has taken much longer than it used to be, and has created more inflation. Just to give you an idea, and I'm not saying that this is applying to the project we have in portfolio, but if we were to submit an offer for exactly the same FPSO today, compared to two years ago, we would see an increase in cost of somewhere in the range of 30%.
Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's, that gives an idea. With regard to the seventh hul l, you have already started, because I understood from the third quarter reporting that you were aiming to start in the hill in the first quarter of 2022. Has it already started?
We have put the order and obviously we have started to do whatever we were doing at the beginning of the project. It's on the go.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are any additional questions or remarks, please press star one.
Good. If there is no further question, what I propose is that we conclude the call. Thank you very much all over you for attending this call. Hopefully you got a good reading on what's happening at SBM Offshore, and you can now all resume a normal activity. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending. This concludes the SBM Offshore event call. You may now disconnect your line. Have a nice day.