Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Worley Half Year 2024 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press * one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press * one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Chief Executive Officer, Chris Ashton.
Thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. Apologies for slight delay to the start. Clearly, a busy day at the ASX. But welcome to the half-year results for Worley. I'm pleased to be presenting them here with Tiernan O'Rourke. Many of you know Tiernan, and those who don't, Tiernan is our CFO. Just moving to slide two and our disclaimer, just remind everyone to review what is said here. Moving on to slide three, I want to begin by acknowledging the Cammeraygal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet today, and recognize their strength, resilience and capacity, and we pay our respect to the elders, past and present, and to all First Nations people here today.
On our call today, I'll provide an overview of our business performance and strategic progress over the period as we continue to deliver growth. Tiernan will add further detail on our half-year results, and I'll share some key market trends before providing our outlook. We'll then open for any questions. Turning to slide four. Today, I want to leave you with three key messages. First, we've delivered consistently with a strong growth in revenue, earnings and margins. Second, our disciplined strategy execution resulted in a strong cash result and sustained growth in backlog and pipeline. And third, as a leading global provider of sustainability solutions, we expect long-term growth from structural changes in our end markets. Turning to slide five. I'd like to take you through our business performance, and so moving on to slide six.
It's important that we keep our people safe and well, and this remains our highest priority and lies at the heart of our culture. We're creating a secure and supportive environment which enables our people to be their best, leading to better mental health, greater engagement, innovation, and productivity. This half, we launched our Wellbeing Hub, providing resources and mental health support for all of our people around the world. In addition, we published our global Respectful Workplace Behavior policy, which underpins our Respected at Work program. Our code of conduct is core to our values and underpins who we are and everything we do. We invest in training annually, and we don't tolerate any action which undermines the trust we've all worked hard to build. Moving on to slide seven. I'm pleased with the progress we've made across our ESG business commitments.
This half, we've reduced our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 7% and remain ahead of our planned reduction targets. We've improved the gender balance of our graduates, and our intake in half 1 FY 2024 is 58%, up 48% from last year. In our ESG ratings, we've achieved a double A rating by MSCI in our new industrials peer group, maintaining a leading position among our new peers. For the second consecutive year, our leadership has been recognized by our inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for Australia, and we recently received an A rating from Monash University for our FY 2022 modern slavery statement. Modern slavery remains a focus for our business.
We undertake a high level of diligence checks on suppliers and customers, and we're committed to increasing our level of transparency through our recently issued third modern slavery statement, supported by an active program of work. Moving on to slide 8. We continue to deliver consistently with strong growth in revenue, earnings and margins. Our aggregated revenue was up 14% on the H1 FY 2023, with increases across the regions and all three segments of energy, chemicals, and resources. Our underlying EBITDA of AUD 340 million is up 28% compared to the prior corresponding period, and this was achieved despite a more limited contribution from Venture Global and Northvolt contracts than that was expected.
In line with our expectations, margins, excluding procurement, have grown to 7.5%, which is up from 6.6% at the prior corresponding period and is in line with our forecast range for FY 2024. Our ongoing project awards signify our customers' long-term trust in our relationship and their expertise for their asset build. Sustainability revenue has reached a milestone, now accounting for over half of our total aggregated revenue. As you look to our leading indicators, sustainability in our sales pipeline is now 83%, and there's 51% in our backlog. This indicates we're on track to deliver our ambition to derive 75% of our aggregated revenue from sustainability-related work by the end of FY 2026. I'm pleased to say, the Worley board is determined to pay an interim dividend of AUD 0.25 per share, unfranked.
I want to recognize these results have been achieved because of our highly capable people, led by a dedicated and experienced group executive team. Moving to slide 9. I want to say a few words about how I've dealt with the Ecuador issue. In January, together with Tiernan, we leaned into the issue to address those concerns raised by many of you. We did an extensive roadshow, we made additional releases, and importantly, we spoke about how Worley has matured as an organization in relation to monitoring and compliance. It's a regret, and we apologize for the way the issue was raised, but we're confident in our legal position from the inception.
We were confident in our legal position from the inception of the arbitration process, and we worked hard across January to clarify the matter, as well as in February, to rebuild the trust you have in our excellent business. We finished an extensive stakeholder management plan in the middle of February, and today I'm focused on what is, I consider to be, a great set of results. The lessons of Ecuador, however, will not be lost. Let me remind you of a critical fact. Worley has not breached any corruption or bribery laws. Our business has robust business practices, and as the CEO, I ensure we uphold the highest standards of ethical behavior. We have a zero tolerance for deviation from this.
Our business has made significant progress on governance and compliance matters, and I'm confident we have the necessary controls in place, but always have an eye for improvement as opportunity presents itself. On this slide, we show a range of the measures we've put in place in the last few years to continue to improve our governance processes, controls and monitoring. Turning to slide 10. We've evolved our sustainability definition to align more closely with international taxonomies, allocating our sustainability-related revenue across the two categories of transitional and sustainable. Our ambition to derive 75% of our aggregated revenue from sustainability-related work by FY 2026 remains in place, with sustainability-related revenue, the sum of transitional and sustainable revenue. Moving on to page 11. Our factored sales pipeline and backlog are signposts of the strength of our business and continue to show growth in the near to medium term.
Our pipeline is up 35% on the prior corresponding period, including Venture Global, and about 12% without it. The project remains in our pipeline until after FID, in line with our usual booking practices. Our backlog continues to grow and is up 11% on the prior corresponding period. We've also included this time, gross margin trends that indicate new work is routinely being won at higher than average margins. Moving to slide 12. We continue to win a mix of traditional and sustainability-related work and have been awarded a number of significant wins across strategic growth areas, both in the half and since January. For example, we're supporting the acceleration of battery materials, delivering EPCM services for Umicore's large-scale battery materials facility.
Our work in hydrogen is growing with a number of wins across the front end, through to fabrication and construction services. These wins signify we're building on our long-term relationships and trusted relationships with customers, as well as expanding into new markets. Moving on to slide 13. We're working on the development of a groundbreaking carbon capture facility at Heidelberg Materials Cement Works in North Wales. As a first-of-its-kind, this is a further expansion into a new adjacent market in CCUS, and with this, an incremental growth opportunity for us. We work with BP as a trusted partner on the new EPCM services, covering BP's global refinery assets, as well as their new energy portfolio, including green and blue hydrogen, low carbon fuels, and sustainable aviation fuels.
We have a strong presence in the Middle East, and we've worked alongside QatarEnergy LNG for over a decade, and this project award further supports Qatar on its sustainability journey and presents an opportunity to use our in-depth knowledge of the region and global expertise across the carbon capture utilization and sequestration sector. Moving on to slide 14. In line with our last ASX announcement, we've signed the reimbursable EPC agreement for Venture Global CP2 LNG export facility in Louisiana, the USA. We continue to provide engineering, procurement, and construction support services required to prepare the project for construction commencement under the limited notice to proceed. As shared before, we'll notify the market when Venture Global receives its FERC approval. Moving on to slide 15. Our strategic investment has provided Worley with first mover advantage in many emerging sustainability markets.
It has also delivered accretive returns. Since the beginning of the program, we've won $6.1 billion of new work associated with seven of our featured growth areas. This program is set to conclude at the end of this financial year, and we'll advise at the Full Year Results on a continuation of the program. However, for clarity, our margin ambitions beyond FY 2024 include the continuation of a similar level of investment going forward, given the accretive nature of the returns that that investment has generated.... I'm now going to hand over to Tiernan, who will provide further detail on our Half Year Resultss. Tiernan?
Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Our half year financial results today demonstrate momentum in delivering our strategy, as Chris has already said. Our earnings increased, and margins and operating cash flow are in their target ranges. Worley's capital management position is even stronger this half, with leverage and liquidity at very supportive levels. I'll turn now to slide 17. Our aggregated revenue of AUD 5.6 billion is up 22% on first half FY 2023 pro forma. Remember, the pro forma reference relates to the divestment of the predominantly blue collar North American turnaround and maintenance business last May. We continue to see strong growth in our procurement revenue at margin, in line with our expectations and reflective of our current project mix. When you exclude procurement, growth in revenue is up 14%.
Looking at group profit, we delivered an underlying EBITDA of AUD 345 million, up 28% on first half FY 2023 pro forma. Our professional services revenue has increased 26% over the same period, reflecting the quality of our underlying order book and the commitment of our customers to invest in the energy transition, and also on their journey towards net zero in the next decades. This fundamental trend in our addressable market has been evident in our results for a few years now. As expected, this Half Year Results is delivered from the phasing contribution of around 45% of full year earnings. Our underlying NPATA is AUD 188 million, up 30% on first half FY 2023 pro forma. We did not anticipate any one-off items being booked below the line in FY 2024.
However, we have decided to write off the net exposure of $58 million relating to historic services provided in Ecuador, and this has been treated as a one-off amount, separate to our underlying EBITDA. The finalization of these accounting entries for the net exposure, as well as general provisioning of 31 December 2023, addresses all known financial exposures relating to these historic services. While we have taken the decision to remove the net exposure from our balance sheet, we are still considering the options for further legal proceedings. While we believe we have provided adequate disclosures in the past, we continue on the journey we started a few years ago to improve our reporting packs. This period end, we have provided more detail in the contingent liability note in the half year report, specifically around Ecuador and other project-related risks.
In regard to the four state-owned enterprise amounts owing, reported some years ago, with the write-off of the Ecuador net exposure and the adequate provisioning for remaining liabilities associated with it, the only outstanding SOE is now Poland Gas. This receivable, some $28 million, has a $5 million provision against it, but remains, in our view, a legitimate receivable. Worley delivered value to its customer, and the legal case to recover it is well underway. Changes to control processes, including a requirement to get approval from the CFO to continue to work on a project when two months of WIP remains unbilled and unpaid, has ensured that Worley has not accumulated amounts owed of similar magnitude to these old SOE balances.
Together with project provisioning, appropriate bidding of margins, and oversight by our project assurance team, mature governance and compliance processes, some of which Chris has outlined, help to ensure that material liabilities do not accumulate on any one project. Our outlook for FY 2024 indicated margins would reach between 7.5% and 8%, while EBITDA grows. This half year, EBITDA margin was 7.5%, as we continue our journey towards generating high single-digit margins in the medium term from the mix of projects we undertake. Moving to slide 18. The EBITDA walks presented here show our progress in expanding margins, excluding procurement, compared to first half 2023 and second half 2023. In both these walks, you can see that the margin is predominantly driven by rate improvements that continue to flow through from backlog.
The other key contributor to our margin is our project mix, with professional services now making up 90% of our EBITDA. Jumping on to slide 19. We previously said that we expect to deliver double-digit EBITDA CAGR over the medium term. We continue to execute our strategy to achieve this, and what gives us confidence in further margin expansion from here is the following. First, the trend towards increased gross margins in our factored sales pipeline and backlog, and that's being maintained, that trend. This means that we're continuing to work to win work at higher margins, which then flows through to revenue. Second, we're maintaining our disciplined approach to managing our cost base as we grow. In the half, this is evidenced by our increased productivity, whereby profit is growing faster than overheads.
Finally, the world is allocating more investment towards achieving net zero, $1.6 trillion in the last twelve months, up from $1 trillion last year, and this is supporting the growth in volume in our pipeline and backlog and reinforcing the margin growth thematic. From all of this, the key message is that we're seeing increased margins and profit in FY 2024. Moving to my favorite slide, capital management. We continue to strengthen our capital management position, which is structured around funding our growth and delivering increased value to shareholders. We present our capital management plan in a consistent way, so you can see the decisions we're making regarding our free cash flow.
Our reported cash conversion ratio for the half is 141%, which reflects strong underlying cash flows, but also a transition to increased advanced billings on some new contracts like CP2 and Umicore, as we strive to achieve better terms and conditions in this market. The transition to better terms can be changeable and can obscure the underlying cash performance in the period in which they occur. Accordingly, we also provide today underlying cash conversion ratios, normalized for the impact of the effect of advanced billings this period. This ratio is 96%, at the top of our target range and demonstrating a focus on converting profit to cash, while also allowing adequate investment in working capital for growth. DSO has reduced from 63 to 55 days, with a contribution from the write-off of Ecuador. We maintain an appropriate level of liquidity for our business.
Our leverage has continued to trend down and is now at 1.8 times below our target range, but creating a very strong capital base for the company. Our weighted average cost of debt in the half is 4.5%, up from 3.9% last year because of rate hikes, and we expect it to be in the range of 4.4%-4.6% at FY 2024. Our underlying tax rate was 33.9% at the first half 2024, consistent with our target range, and we expect this to be similar for the rest of FY 2024. Turning to slide 21. We've got a strong customer base and have worked with many of our customers for decades. In addition, we're forging new partnerships and emerging customers - with emerging customers in high growth markets.
For the majority of our top 20 customers, we're delivering both traditional and sustainability-related work. Our results reflect our customers' confidence in our capabilities and experience, and a growing demand for our services. Recent multi-year contract wins reaffirms this. When we consider Worley's competitive advantages, we ask ourselves, why do customers choose Worley over our competition? And why invest in Worley? The answers to these questions are worth reflecting on and include: We have a greater diversity across end markets than our global peers, with a strong margin profile in backlog and pipeline. We have over 49,000 highly capable people, 88% of whom provide professional services. That's around 43,000 highly skilled engineers across multiple disciplines. We've a higher proportion of sustainability-related revenue, now at $2.9 billion, through our early mover advantage in new high growth markets.
Worley has a low risk contract style, with about 80% of our work reimbursable. We don't take on material loss on turnkey work. Our balance sheet is strong, with high cash generation and appropriate liquidity, which supports our strategic investments in growth. All our key information is disclosed in our Broker Toolkit, allowing analysts to compare the Worley position against those of others. There are many more, but you get the point. I hope you use this list to do the comparison yourselves. In summary, as the CFO, I can say it's been a big year, with some bumps along the way, but we have a strong business with results in line with outlook and a focused team to execute our strategy. I'll hand back to Chris to finish the presentation.
Thanks, Tim, and before I take you through the outlook, I'd like to briefly focus on the emerging thematics and our strategic response to global trends. This will start on slide 23. At a macro level, you know, Worley is managing three risks, but also opportunities. That's the attraction and retention of highly skilled resources to meet the demand that we're facing into, inflation and supply chain disruption and their impact to the economies of the business, and ongoing geopolitical tensions affecting normal operations of global markets. We're actively focused on mitigating these risks every day, recognizing they will remain an ongoing challenge for businesses globally, not just Worley. However, the fundamental structural shifts in our market remain. Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently reported global spending on the clean energy transition has hit a record, as Tiernan noted, of $1.6 trillion.
But this is still not enough to get the world on track to meet its net zero emissions targets by 2050. To date, supportive government policies and incentives have been influencing sustainable spending and supporting the economics of some of these early-stage technologies. New sustainable finance taxonomies, inclusive of transition taxonomies, are expected to accelerate investment. For example, releasing spend under the EU Green Deal. However, there's been recent instances of governments, such as the U.K., softening short-term targets while maintaining their longer-term commitments. This is influencing where customers invest, not what they invest, but where they invest, and this can have an impact on the timing of their projects. Worley's global footprint and diversified business means we can support our customers and deliver their projects across the regions, and we're working with our customers to drive down the levelized cost of their projects.
This year, there are gonna be over 40 countries around the world set to hold national elections, creating, obviously, the potential for change. And while we don't anticipate these changes will have an adverse impact on the business, we're closely monitoring the outcomes and are prepared for a wide range of scenarios. Moving on to slide 24. The outlook presented at the time of our FY 2023 results remains consistent with that which we're expecting for FY 2024, subject to no deterioration in the current market conditions. We expect FY 2024 aggregate revenue, excluding procurement, to grow on an FY 2023 pro forma basis, as new and emerging customers generate further upside with additional volume from major projects. We also expect procurement volumes to grow further on FY 2023.
We expect the underlying EBITDA margin, excluding the impact of procurement, to be within the range of 7.5%-8% in FY 2024, and that's as we've discussed previously. The impact of the delay in Venture Global CP2 project achieving final investment decision has been primarily offset by accelerating associated engineering work to prepare the project for construction commencement. In addition, new work has been won across our global business, and prudent provisioning for project delays, an ongoing challenge for managing a global business, has also allowed us to remain in line with our original forecast. As a leading global solution provider in the markets we serve, we're encouraged by the volume of new work we continue to win in our strategic growth areas. Moving on to slide 25. Before moving into Q&A, I'd like to just go back and remind everyone of our key messages.
First, we've delivered consistently with strong growth in revenue, earnings, and margins. Second, our disciplined strategy execution has resulted in strong cash result and a sustained growth in backlog and future pipeline. And third, as a leading global provider of sustainable energy solutions, we expect long-term growth from structural changes in our end markets. So just moving on to the Q&A slide, that concludes the presentation. I appreciate, appreciate everyone for joining the webcast, and Tim and I will now take questions from those of you who have joined the call today. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press * one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press * one one again. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question. One moment for questions, please. Our first question comes from John Purtell with Macquarie. You may proceed. John Purtell, your line is now open.
Thank you. Sorry. Good morning, Chris and Tim, I hope you're well. Just had a few quick questions, if I could. Chris, appreciate your comments there at the start, re Ecuador. Sorry, I missed those. I think, just in terms of how the stakeholder management plan is proceeding, so what's the status there and you know, general customer reaction and the impact on customer win rates?
Very, very, open dialogue with our customers. Very openly, very transparently, John, no negative reaction from our customer base. Continued strong support, you know, from all of the customers that we, you know, that we've engaged with. Very appreciative of the open approach. You know, obviously, in January, we went straight out with the analysts, investors, all of our key stakeholders. So, you know, very proactive on the stakeholder engagement plan, but, you know, no negative feedback from our customers. And for many of our customers who worked in some of the non-OECD countries, an understanding of the challenges associated with that. So look, we continue to win, and sign long-term contracts. You know, over the next few weeks, I'm excited by what we'll be able to announce.
But look, good, good support, very strong support from our existing customer base, as well as the, the newer customers that we've, we're working with, John.
Thank you. Just a second one. Look, at a sort of sector or macro level, we have seen a sort of shift back to more traditional spend versus sustainability. So just interested in any impact you're seeing on your growth rates within sustainability.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at our future factored pipeline, you know, it's 83% of it is sustainability related, John. So obviously that future factored pipeline then flows into backlog, that then flows into earnings delivered. But if you look, you know, 51% of our backlog is sustainable, and we crossed 50% this year, half year in the earnings, and 83%, is in the future. But you know, we're flexible. And the way I look at this, you know, the world in terms of population, absolute terms, continues to grow, and so absolute energy consumption is gonna continue to grow. What form that takes, whether it's traditional or, you know, sustainable, you know, may vary.
But the long-term trajectory continues to show, and it's reflected in our pipeline, high levels of spend in the sustainability space. I'm gonna give you an example. You know, Aramco made a statement a few weeks ago to reduce its maximum sustainable production capacity from 13 million to 12. But it's spending—it's committing over $100 billion in gas in their Jafurah field. So, you know, it's, we're still seeing strong commitment to the sustainability space, transitional as well as pure sustainable. And, you know, Aramco is an example. You know, we've—it's one of our biggest businesses.... you know, with, you know, we're doing a huge amount of work with them. They're gonna be doing gas as well as their, their, their existing oil work, but gas, green hydrogen, and blue hydrogen.
So, you know, I think the important thing is that, you know, with 88% of our workforce being professional services, we can pivot from one to the other. But the indication is from the backlog, which is obviously a leading indicator, you know, 83% remains in the sustainability space. So still seeing strong support for the strategic pivot that we're and journey we're on, John.
Thank you. And just the last one, for Tiernan. We saw global support costs up a lot in the half. What drove that, and is that expected to continue into the second half? Thank you.
John, as I mentioned in my section, that our productivity metric is very positive. So you will see overheads growing, but they're growing to support the income and top-line growth. So I'm really pleased where our overheads are going. All of the savings we made a number of years ago have been maintained, and the integrity of that savings plan has been maintained. Any increase you see, Chris and I have oversight of that. Any increase you see is generating additional productivity through the business. So you will see increases in overhead, but as we've reported today, those overheads have been absorbed in the 28% increase in EBITDA.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. And as a reminder, in the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Rohan Sundram with MST Financial. You may proceed.
Hi, Chris and Tiernan. Questions around Ecuador are largely answered, but just one follow-up on the back of John's question. Just around the amount of resourcing that you've had to apply to this, how incremental is it? And is it material, or could it be a drag to margins or not?
You mean on... to Ecuador?
Yeah, yeah, toward the Ecuador issue.
No, I mean, the resource applied to that is myself, Tiernan, and legal support. In fact, you know, my role as the CEO was to effectively allow the business, you know, all of the business to continue focusing on it. So it's not a distraction at all to them. Clearly, it's absorbed the time of myself and Tiernan, and our legal group, but from the part of the business that is market-facing, you know, generating new work and then delivering that new work, it is not a distraction at all. None at all.
Thank you, Chris.
Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from James Byrne with Citi. You may proceed.
Thank you, and good morning. So question on CP2. Look, appreciate you've accelerated some of the engineering work, which is protecting your earnings at the moment for FY24, at least. Yesterday, though, the energy advisor at the White House said that this moratorium on the export permits from the DOE could last for up to 14 months. So, you know, there's only so much work that you can do with regards to the engineering. I'm interested to understand, you know, at what point does this start to affect you, where you're remobilizing your staff elsewhere or reducing your headcount? As you said, FY24 looks okay. I think what we are worried about in equity markets is what FY25 is gonna look like.
Well, I think it's really this is a great opportunity to clarify that the DOE approval is needed for export. It is not needed to build the plant. That is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC. They are two separate approvals, and what Washington has announced is a review or a moratorium on the export of the facility. So, James, that is not an approval that the project needs to move to FID, physically build the facility. And what our customer is currently, at the moment, is working on the FERC approval, but they are separate approvals. They are not the same.
And, you know, meetings last week, you know, the customer said, "Look, the project, you know, full steam ahead, continue with engineering, procuring all the major equipment." You know, so, you know, that's important. But it's also important, James, that Venture Global doesn't define us. It's a big project. It's an important project. But the, you know, the fact is, the business outside of VG continues to grow, and if there was a slowdown, you know, then, you know, we reallocate the resource to the projects that we're winning and the growth that we've got elsewhere in the business. So, you know, it's, it's, you know, resource management is something that we have to do. You know, so that's just part of leading a global business.
I would just also add, James, that we are also, to point—Chris's point, we're also reporting our growth excluding Venture Global, because I think it's important for you to see that, that our backlog and our revenue are growing, excluding Venture Global. So don't ignore that, that we can still grow without Venture Global, because there are a lot of other projects that are in the pipeline that will come to market.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, you know-
So are you suggesting then that Venture Global would take an FID without their export permit?
... Well, that, well, what I'm saying is, Venture Global don't need DOE, the DOE approval to build the facility. Yeah, and it would not need the DOE approval till, you know, substantially after if, after a 14-month moratorium. So obviously, that's still a decision that, it's got to be made by BG. But, you know, indications in sort of discussions that we had with them last week is this project continues, their commitment continues to build the facility. So that's, I mean, that's as late as last week.
Got it. Thanks so much, Chris. Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Gordon Ramsey with RBC Capital Markets. You may proceed.
Oh, thank you very much. Chris, I'm just interested in your comments that you brought up on Saudi Aramco. And I just want to confirm that Worley's unaffected by the deferral of the expansion projects on the oil side. You implied you have business in other areas, obviously, but does that have no effect on Worley?
It actually doesn't have an effect. The two projects that have been delayed have absolutely no effect on us at all. We actually... You know, they were moving the EPC phase, and if you know, Aramco does hard money contracts, and we, we're not involved in those two. But we are involved in the gas side, so, you know, we're seeing a significant investment by Aramco on the gas side, on the Jafurah field, over $100 billion, liquid and chemicals with Aramco. So, you know, the two projects that will take the maximum sustainable production from 13 to 12, we're not involved in those, so it doesn't impact us at all.
In fact, what that does, that will release capital to support Aramco's expansion in areas of gas, blue hydrogen, green hydrogen, as examples. So yeah, I'm only seeing growth opportunities with Aramco, significant growth opportunities. In fact, our two regional leads, Mark and Mark, will be in Saudi Arabia next week to discuss with Aramco their growth needs or their needs for Worley to continue growing its resource base to support their investment.
Okay, just another quick one, if I may. Just on the CP2 project, clearly there's an issue with CP1, with contractual customers, and FERC has got involved. Isn't it possible that that could delay a decision outside of what Biden's doing right now with his deferral on export licenses? I'm just worried that this project has potential to stall for a longer period than what might just be caused because of Biden's current policy.
Yeah. Well, look, as I said in answering James's question, that Venture Global are committed to the project. We are full steam ahead on engineering and procurement. Speaking to the CEOs of the other major suppliers on the project, they're full steam ahead, full steam ahead in the manufacturing, the production of those facilities. Look, what happens with the moratorium? It's an election year. You know, you've got some big stakes politics between the Republicans and the Democrats. You know, it came out and it said one of the first things Trump will do will be lift the moratorium. So, you know, while they say the moratorium could be 14 months, it could be a lot less.
Yeah, so but look, that's a challenge that really we've got to rely on BG to manage, but their message to us is full steam ahead. The project's gonna get built. We need to continue with engineering and procurement of major equipment.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Cameron Taylor with Bank of America. You may proceed.
Oh, good morning, Chris and Tiernan. You mentioned that, you know, we're, we're growing global spend, for, for the energy transition of $1.6 trillion. But we are seeing a, a delay in number of green projects, you know, hydrogen and, and carbon capture, on the back of tougher IRA requirements in the U.S. We've seen BP and Shell trimming their renewable spend, and we're also seeing a sort of subdued oil and gas CapEx cycle. How do you expect Worley to grow, you know, accounting for all this? Is, is market share becoming more important? That's my question. Thank you.
Well, you know, we're not-- If you look at our factored sales pipeline, it's bigger than a... We've shown a growth in it. 83% of it is in the sustainability space. So the universe that we're facing into, the markets that we're facing into, we're not seeing signs of the market shrinking. You know, the market's strong in the sectors that we're facing into. You know, we've got a differentiated strategy, and that continues to gain traction. You know, the economics, you know, without IRA or the Green Deal in Europe, always gonna be challenged. I mean, the idea of the IRA and the EU Green Deal is to accelerate investment in those spaces.
But we're not seeing the slowdown, and we're certainly not seeing a slowdown in the traditional energy space that you referenced, you know? Again, Aramco may be shifting from oil to gas, but there's a... You know, if you look at the population growth, there's gonna be a continued increase in energy, whether it's green, you know, traditional, transitional or sustainable, and that means there's got to be continued investment. You know, we're talking about a naturally depleting reserve here.... But if you look at our factored pipeline that we're showing, yeah, it's growing.
Cameron, I would add that part of our advantage is that we are a diversified business, you know, across the energy, chemicals, and resources sectors, and then a whole multiple of subsectors. That gives us a diversification benefit. We also account for delays in our projects. I mean, at any one time, you know, when I last checked our sales system, we've about 12,000 contracts live at the moment, so that spreads our risk. But when we do enter contracts, one of the reasons you're seeing our margins grow is that we take into account and factor the likelihood of contracts going ahead, but we also factor in potential delays. It's one of the reasons why we've been able to cope with Venture Global, the slowdown in Venture Global and also Northvolt in this financial year and still maintain our original forecast.
So I think we, we are very aware of the changes in markets. The other important point is that we've, we've talked about this $1.6 trillion number. That's still way too low compared to what is required to get to net zero. And whilst getting to net zero may take longer, you know, in one year, $600 billion of additional investment has occurred. And yeah, we do have a good market share. We do have a good share of that market, not only a share, maintaining our share of the existing market, but also a greater share of the new market, the new energy transition market, because of our first mover advantage.
Yeah, and I would also say, you know, we announced a shift from our GICS code from energy to industrials last year. I think it's worth just, you know, reinforcing that we're more, we do more than just energy. If you look at the resource side of what we do and the chemical side of what we do, we're more than an energy company, or support the energy sector. And clearly, the investment spend in resource continues. And while Europe is quiet on the chemicals, you know, you know, there's still continued investment in that space. So I think it's just, you know, it's worth reflecting on the fact that we're more than an energy company.
You know, we are heavy in the resource, we are heavy in the chemicals, and that was the reason, you know, for really shifting our GICS code away from energy into that of industrials. It's that diversification which gives us the level of confidence on the growth opportunity.
Thank you very much. I would now like to turn the call back over to Chris Ashton for any closing remarks.
Yeah, look, I'll just close by saying, look, this is the fifth reporting period that we've delivered what we said we would deliver. The market in which we're operating in, the sectors in which we operate, continue to show strength, and that's reflected in the forward-factored pipeline. Our strategy is differentiated and continues to gain traction, and that's reflected in the 83% sustainability in the forward-factored sales pipeline as well. We've got great customer support, incredible customer support, globally with our traditional customers, the ones we've been with for a long time, but also the emerging customers who are coming to us. Because the $100 million we committed to investing back in 2021 has allowed us to build capability and a value proposition that differentiates us.
I think it's the combination of our market being strong, our strategy being differentiated, and that great customer support, that's allowed us to deliver what I consider a great set of results. I would encourage you to go and look at the Broker Toolkit and look at typical ratios of first half, second half, of historical first half, second half performance. Our outlook remains in line with that which we shared last year at the Half Year Results at the Full Year Results and the AGM. So great set of results as a result of the great work that the team have done, and I think continued opportunity to deliver our strategy and the commitment for EBITDA growth going forward.
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