Hello. Good afternoon. This is Joaquín Pérez de Ayala. Welcome to this full year 2021 results presentation that will be conducted by our Chairman, Juan Lladó and Eduardo San Miguel, new CEO. It will take around 20 minutes, and you can pose your questions after that. Now, I give the floor to Mr. Juan Lladó.
Hi, everyone. Let me go, you know, go through a brief summary of today's presentation. First of all, I'll do myself an overview of the scenario that we have faced over the last year and how we managed to overcome it. After that, secondly, Eduardo will review 2021 results, our performance under COVID, and an update for 2022. I'll finalize this presentation reviewing the pipeline and giving some guidance for the midterm. Okay. What are the three main accomplishments of this year? Obviously, it has been extremely challenging year. It is no secret to anyone. We have achieved three very important goals. The first one, we have organized ourselves, and we start 2022 with a much stronger organization.
You know, a skilled management team is gonna drive recovery to this new growth scenario that we'll talk afterwards. Secondly, and extremely important, you know, we have to strengthen our balance sheet. We have to strengthen our financial profile. We have done so with the European funds for strategic companies, which is important now. It's also very important to have the Spanish government as partner. Our balance sheet is stronger, and we have the government working with us together as a partner, which is, again, a very important accomplishment. Third, in the middle of extremely difficult and challenging year, we have revealed a backlog with EUR 4.8 billion of new awards. It has been extremely successful year.
Towards the end, I have to say, where we have a more diversified and really far more de-risked backlog than the one that we had two years ago. Let me tell you, two years ago, at the end of 2019, we had a good backlog, and we were facing 2020 before COVID, you know, with a rather optimistic guidance. Well, today, I have to say we're stronger. Let me start with how we had to strengthen the organization. Let me introduce my team, and let me start with Eduardo. Many of you know him. He joined TR about seventeen years ago, first of all, as Deputy CEO, and now he became the CFO, and today he's Técnicas Reunidas CEO. He's the CEO, and he's managing the Executive Committee. He's a full empowered CEO.
Obviously, working with him and with me, we have Arturo Cros. Arturo Cros, he has worked in his young years with our competitors. I'm not gonna say whom, but many, and very successfully. Obviously, he has always been, you know, thank God, you know, he came to TR about 18 years ago. He has been extremely successful on the commercial side. Today, he's the Deputy CEO, and at the same time, he's Chief Commercial Officer and supporting TR, myself, and Eduardo with TR's strategy. Promoted from a deputy CFO, Javier de Acevedo, you know, has managed extremely successfully over the last years. In the last 2 years he has been key. He has proven himself and to TR to be extremely successful, bright and diligent. Today, Javier is TR's CFO.
I do believe with these changes, you know, few changes, but extremely important changes together, you know, with the executive management team, we're gonna be able to manage very successfully the recovery of operations and prepare the company for this new investment wave that is already coming, that we were already seeing with the awards, and move into this new low-carbon industry scenario. The very important thing that we have accomplished this year and towards the end is the strengthening TR balance sheet. We're back where we were, but this time with the support of the Spanish government, this time with the support of the European funds. You know, to get those funds, you know, we have to fulfill European requirements. Obviously, those requirements are and were that we had been heavily impacted by the COVID-19, probably more than others.
That has to do, you know, how you were caught in the middle of this disaster. Obviously, to be, you know, to have the opportunity to get these funds, you had to be, and we are, a solvent company. Very important, you have to be, and we are, a strategic company for the country that grants the funds. We are strategic. Why are we a strategic? Some of you may wonder. Obviously, because of the quality of our franchise and our technology. We're strategic because we happen to be a strategic for our customers and for the strategic investors. We're strategic because we are strategic for traditional and for new energies, for both. For the development and the successful development of both sources of energy, they have to live together within the next few years.
We happen to be a strategic for Spain, working here from Madrid, because we have the center of excellence of engineering. From here, we do export goods, and obviously, know-how. Let's move to the strategy, which is as important or probably more, you know, in a business case further than the first two, which means awards. In the middle of probably the more challenging year we have ever suffered, we have ended up the year with a rather successful awards. Let's go, you know, I'm not gonna go one by one, but sector by sector. We ended up year-to-date, and let me make it clear, it's not year-end, it's year-to-date, EUR 4.8 billion of awards. Out of which slightly above EUR 2 billion has to do with petrochemicals. Petrochemicals with Orlen.
petrochemicals: Orlen in Poland, SASA in Turkey, Rönesans and Sonatrach working together and working with us also in Turkey. This demonstrates the growing importance of petrochemicals. It demonstrates that we're gonna see and we're gonna continue seeing, and we're gonna continue developing big petrochemical investments, and that TR is fully recognized as one of its players. We have been awarded in the second half of the year as well, above EUR 1 billion in natural gas. For both ADNOC, that we are working together and de-risking the job with Target, a partner in Abu Dhabi, and for Qatargas. For Qatargas, we had worked before, but only doing FEEDs and engineering works. This is the first time that we move with Qatargas to its large investment programs. You know that probably Qatargas is the largest LNG player in the world.
Now, we do work with them in its programs. There is very, you know, continuity and repeating business with ADNOC. But moving to its large program for Qatargas. Very important, and it's a very important award. Third, our division of power and water. Power and water, some of you know, and I got calls, and we read that when you have these awards. We had problems with that division, but when we try to diversify, when we move into the areas of know-how that are new. In fact, they're more renewable. In fact, they had to do with biomass. I'm not gonna give you too many details, we haven't done well. I think we're one of the best and most complete players in the traditional power business. This is the result.
I mean, the three technologists, which are the three turbine fabricators, GE, Siemens and Mitsubishi, are calling us to partner with them because in this case, in the three cases, we partner with them to develop large combined cycles. In one case, it's in Poland, and in the other case, for Siemens and Mitsubishi, it's in Mexico. All three of them rely on TR because of its quality of engineering and its project management skills. Finally, clean fuels. When we talk about clean fuels, we talk about improving the quality of the fuels of the refineries. In other times, it would have been maybe 50% of the backlog or 50% of the awards. Today, it's about 10%. What are we doing here? Here we're working with YPF, and in Argentina and Gazprom.
In both cases, they're jobs without construction. The construction is managed by the client, by the investor. Being here, and some of you may be wondering, you know, what are you doing with Gazprom. Well, Gazprom, we have worked with them, we have developed with them two front-end designs. This is the EPCM or one of the front-end designs that we have done with them years ago before pandemic. Obviously, the job with early work has started towards the very end of the summer. Contract came into force in December, and we have a contract with them, which is at this stage, we have very little risks and very few commitments, and we have to explore within recent regulations how we're going to continue.
If you want to wonder how much risk do we have, well, we have to realize that it's 4% of the backlog, and it's no more than 2% of our 2022 revenue. Finally, let's move to energy transitions. Energy transitions for us, you know, if we had to write a business case, you know, petrochemicals and traditional energies, oil and gas in a business case would be via cash cow. They're gonna be huge investments, and we're gonna cash from that. They're gonna be huge investments within the next five years, and we're very, very good at it. But we're gonna see huge investments as well, if no more, in nontraditional sources of energy. Biofuels, biochemicals, green hydrogens, green ammonia, and we're following all of them. Today, it's very difficult to put it in the backlog.
It's easier to put it in the pipeline. Sort of we've been called and demanded by investors, our traditional customers, and others to sit down with them and develop project. What we have in this slide is the one solid project that was awarded to us in 2021. This is a project with G.I. Dynamics, you know, ask us to design, execute, and standardize a waste to methanol plant in Amsterdam. Again, it reflects that we have the resources, the creativity, and the means to profit for this great opportunity, which is these new sources of our energy. All these awards together, you know, we move into a backlog again year to date of EUR 11.1 billion. Here we're talking, and we have to manage EUR 11 billion backlog. We can split it in three parts.
It's a good way to see it in terms of how risky is this backlog, how risky in terms of construction, in terms of new prices, in terms of resources, in terms of diversification. 12% of the backlog is the backlog that is older and is the last stages of delivery. It's in construction stage, and we're gonna be finishing within the next 12 months, 18 months. We have, I have to say, happy customers with good satisfaction, even we have to go through extremely difficult times over the last two years, fully affected by COVID. 47% of the backlog, almost half, are all the jobs that has been reprogrammed.
Some of them they were awarded at the end of 2019 or end of 2018, and they were so affected they had to be reprogrammed or rephased or renegotiated with customers. We're back on track. With most of our customers, we have succeeded in those negotiations, and with others, we continue in an ongoing phase. Always in extremely good terms, which again is an opportunity to de-risk the management of our projects. Finally, very important, 41% of the backlog are the awards that I just mentioned, which are obviously, because they're new, because they have just came into force a few months ago, and some of them a few days ago. Pricing obviously includes the changes of prices in today's new environment, having to do with raw materials and having to do with inflation.
also reflects how well we're positioned in natural gas, petrochemical, and energy transition. After having done the split of the backlog, you know, as the floor. In this case, it's not a floor, it's a table. Eduardo.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Juan. Good afternoon, everyone. I feel very honored to be here with you in my new position, and I want to thank publicly Juan and the board for their confidence. I am sure working together, we will get Técnicas Reunidas back to the level it deserves for the benefit of the shareholders and the rest of the stakeholders. Let me move now to briefly explain the performance of the company in 2021 and what we see for the coming year. In this slide, you have the main figures for 2021. They are heavily affected in many different ways by COVID.
Starting with sales, we see that they dropped to EUR 2.8 billion, far from our pre-COVID levels, which were around EUR 4.5 billion. This 40% fall was unavoidable, since about half of our backlog was not fully active as it was paused and reprogrammed by our clients. Also, on top of that, the rest of the backlog advanced quite slowly due to COVID restrictions. Missing 40% sales in any business means missing 40% of expected margins. Regarding the costs, COVID generates lower productivity and higher operational costs, as we have explained with some detail in previous webcasts.
Obviously, we have been hit by the Teesside project, with a financial client terminating a contract with a percentage of completion of 99.3%, dismissing any COVID claims and executing our warranties despite having achieved first firing of the plant. All that in the middle of the huge Alpha COVID wave in northern England. Adjusted EBIT is a figure I like very little. In these years, everything has been so extraordinary, I think it makes sense to analyze it. An adjusted EBIT of EUR 48 million, something like 1.7% of the sales, shows we have still an underlying profitability of our business despite a 40% sales fall. Finally, the cash. For the first time, we have a negative figure at year-end. There are three reasons. First, the impact of Teesside.
Second, the slow pace in project execution and milestone recognition. Third, and not last, the difficulties in arriving to agreements with clients without face-to-face interaction. Before entering into what we expect from 2022, I would like to devote a minute to explain how the company has crossed 2020 and 2021, the two COVID years. Because here in TR, we are disappointed, very disappointed, with the results we have delivered. We also believe we need to analyze the performance of the company with some fairness. The fact is, and you can see it on the left, we have missed around EUR 4 billion of revenues in two years. Despite that, and you can see it on the right, if we remove the impact of Teesside termination, EBIT in those two years is very close to breakeven. As I said before, we are very disappointed.
What I can assure you is this quasi-breakeven is the result of implementing many tough management actions. One of the actions we have implemented, this one without impact in our P&L, is the agreement with SEPI. Most of you already know the details, but let me share with you the main terms and conditions. There are two tranches. The first one, of EUR 175 million, is a participative loan that enables us to book it as equity. Its average cost is EURIBOR plus four hundred and fifty basis points. The second tranche is an ordinary loan for EUR 165 million with a 2% fixed cost over four and a half years. You would agree with us that the terms are fair, considering its equity features. Let me just make four specific remarks that I think are important to highlight.
The disbursement was completed 4 days ago, last Friday. A potential option to convert the participative tranche into capital has not eventually been included in the final agreement. Dividends cannot be paid until loans are fully repaid. Finally, let me stress, this cash will be devoted to accelerate the working capital cycle and speed up project execution. Let's move now to 2022. We expect that removing the impact of COVID will progressively translate into better sales and margins, more in the second half than in the first half of the year.
EUR 4 billion revenues shouldn't be a challenge, considering the higher speed in project execution once COVID restrictions soften, the restart of the reprogrammed projects already agreed with clients, and the new sales coming from recent awards. Achieving a 2% EBIT margin is a reasonable target as well, given the growth of sales no less than EUR 1.2 billion, the reduction, and hopefully the ending, of extraordinary COVID costs, and our continuous effort in optimizing costs following our efficiency plan, Transforma. I will elaborate a bit about this plan later. With all this in our mind, we can confirm the guidance for 2022 that we provided in our last November presentation. Two issues are critical to achieve our targets this year, 2022. Improve our working capital and manage properly the raw material inflation. Let's start with the cash.
I don't want to simplify my message, but we expect cash levels to recover because the reasons that have contributed to its deterioration in 2020 and 2021 should not last for long. We do not expect losses. We anticipate new awards with some payments, and more important, we foresee, and we have to work hard, in improving the cycle of working capital. Deterioration of working capital in our business has become a trend, and we should revert it by three ways. First, recovering the ordinary pace of execution, which allows us to achieve milestones quicker, and then invoice and collect from our clients. Second, accelerating our negotiations with clients to solve change orders and claims. We are going to be as proactive as we could be during the pandemic because of travel restrictions.
A large part of our working capital needs has to do with two years without clients' approvals of change orders. In the last three months, we have closed more than half of all those pending issues. We have to be confident about this trend will persist in 2022. Third, improving our payment conditions. Better payment terms will help to speed up project execution and to shorten billing cycles. This will create a positive cycle that could end up favoring our clients and suppliers. With all this, we are sure to recover our historical positive net cash position through the first half of the year. Let me move to the impact of raw material inflation, a topic that worries all of us.
My main message is that although we expect an impact, that's obvious, it is already included in our result estimates, and thus in our guidance. It is a fact that most projects that were in the backlog when the pandemic started have almost bought all the relevant equipment during the last two years. It is also true that in the recently awarded projects, our prices to clients were based on updated costs of raw materials. Moreover, we are reaching agreement with some clients that are willing to compensate us when projects were reprogrammed or slowed down. Obviously, not every client is doing it. We know raw materials will probably be the issue of the year, and that's why we are very focused on maximizing the impact of all the measures we implemented in our efficiency plan, Transformer.
The plan, the plan was ready by the end of 2019, but the low level of activity during COVID has not allowed it to produce all its potential impacts. Some measures, to give you some example of the Transforma plan are concentration of procurement in Madrid headquarters instead of procuring project by project. Searching for suppliers in new markets. Obtaining from clients authorization to open the list of accepted suppliers. The standardization of projects to buy similar equipment for different projects produces economies of scale. Engineering work focused on designing lighter structures, less intensive in raw materials. Selection of purchasing windows when prices are expected to be lower. Those are some measures. In sum, we are facing this issue in a limited part of our backlog, and we are dealing with it together with customers and suppliers. Now Juan, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Eduardo. Let me finish with the final midterm guidance and outlook. Let me do so, you know, talking about the pipeline. It is true that we have a strong pipeline. I think that is, again, one of the strongest pipelines we ever had in terms of a quality of pipeline, diversification of the pipeline, and the certainty of that pipeline. Obviously, the strong demand today on energies, on different sources of energy, is translated in very high prices, which are supporting the rise in investment activity. Rising investment activity for next year, for this year now, 2022, and beyond. We've seen it in the past. Our backlog has come into force. In this business, from the time you get a letter of award and a contract gets signed, comes into force, sometimes takes years or a year.
Now it's just an issue of weeks. There is the necessity of investment. This translates, and let me start with transition, energy transition. Obviously, we're gonna be seeing energy transition investments. Energy transition investments, they are going to become more than projects. They're going to be tangible and material investments. We're gonna benefit from that. We already have in the pipeline some very important projects that we hope to benefit in 2022. This is our star, talking about business case, that we have also the cash cow. The cash cow are for big opportunities in natural gas and petrochemicals. Big opportunities have come, and we have already benefited from them, and big opportunities are gonna be coming in 2022 and far beyond. Today, we're extremely well-positioned and well-placed to benefit from this market, investment.
TR quality, TR franchise is best placed, and we have maintained the quality of engineering and the quality of the execution. Today we're seeing how worldwide customers come here, or we go there, now the travel restrictions are over, to talk to them and present bids. Now it's time to, obviously, recover. It's also time to be selective. It's time to profit for the quality of the business we're running. Profit means going back to the normal, if not better, margins that we had in the past. If you translate that into numbers, it should be in the midterm 2023, you know, going to normal level of awards of EUR 5 billion. This year, all of a sudden, we ended up with EUR 4.8 billion.
If we have EUR 5 billion sales or awards that will translate in EUR 5 billion sales, obviously in our objective, it shouldn't be a challenge. It is the margin that we have, that we deserve, and we're gonna work for it, and we're gonna get it, of 4%. Let me finish by recapping the initial message of this presentation. We have the strength in the organization, we have the support of the European fund, and we have a very strong pipeline, which is going to be managed, you know, within a very strong franchise. We'll be back very soon to normality. Thank you very much. Now Eduardo and I will stay here to answer any questions that you may want to pose.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you for holding until we have the first question. The first question comes from Mick Pickup from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. Couple of questions, if you may. Can I just first go back to what Eduardo said about the reprogrammed backlog? Clearly, those projects are starting again against inflation. Can you just talk through exactly how you are covered on those projects for margin? I know you did a lot of the procurement previously, but some of those were stalled at the very, very early stages. Just give us some, say, reassurance around that reprogrammed workload.
Hi, Mick.
Hi yah.
How are you? I cannot be extremely specific about what projects I'm going to talk about. I think we have four projects that have been reprogrammed. Two out of those four projects we have already talked to the client, and we have agreed new prices, okay? To compensate us for any extra cost due to inflation or due just to demobilizing and remobilizing the people to the site. Those two projects are fully solved. There is our third project where the client recognizes it has an impact, this period of having the project sleeping, and we still have to negotiate with them what's going to be the impact.
There is a fourth one that probably we are still in the very initial phases, and we are talking with the client. But to be honest, the answer from the client is still a bit shy. But my feeling is if two are already right, one is about to be solved, and the fourth one, hopefully within the year, we find to solve it. Obviously, I am concerned, but I do not believe it will have a material impact in what we expect are going to be the results of the year.
Okay. You obviously, in project three and four, you have an embedded assumption of margin in there which could be different. Is that not the case?
Both projects, I have a certain level of protection in my contingencies.
Okay.
I cannot guarantee if it's enough or not, but hopefully it should be enough.
Okay. Next question is just on cost inflation and your bidding pipeline. I'm not sure yet if it happened, but I'm sure at some stage you're going to present a bid, and your clients are going to look at the number on the paper and think it's far too much. Have your clients started showing concerns about getting projects accelerated before they get too expensive?
I cannot be very precise on it. I mean, you've seen that in a space of weeks, we have negotiated and closed some very important jobs. You know, and that's obviously had to do with both, you know, the customer needed this job in 30 months, and secondly, the longer it took them to reach the agreement, the more uncertainty, you know, we both had on the closing price. It happens. In some other cases, we see that customers are saying, "Okay, let's wait a few weeks. Let's wait a few months." I don't know. The level of uncertainty today, and instead of accelerating or delaying, what it is today, what we're seeing today is a great level of concern because the investments are real.
I mean, they have to invest, and they have to find ways to reduce the cost, value engineering, opening the vendors list, finding ways to reduce the cost. At the same time, concerns about, you know, on our side, concerns about closing the price that would put us in a difficult situation once that has been closed. It is in the market. It is concerning. In some cases, it's translating to some delays that we have to think together how to do it, and in others, it has translated already in accelerating and closing the price and placing the orders, which is what we have done over the last two months. We see both, Nick.
Okay. Thank you very much, both.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kevin Roger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. The first one is related to your Q4 performance. Basically, you were guiding for EUR 3 billion+ top line in 2021. You arrived to EUR 2.8 billion. Is there any particular reason for this EUR 200 million gap that we have in Q4? That would be the first question that I have. Then, I know it may be difficult for you, but looking at 2022, you have, let's say, clear guidance. How should we think about the evolution over the upcoming quarters? With one of your slides, it seems that you expect a gradual improvement in revenue.
Should we assume that the margin will follow the same dynamic, or you expect to be at a more stable level all along the year? On the working cap, I clearly understand that you are renegotiating a lot the payments terms, et cetera, with the client. How should we think about the evolution for 2022? Should it be enough in a way to bring back Técnicas to a net cash position?
Okay. I will start with the third question for the capital evolution for this 2022. Maybe it's a bit too early to say that, but we have the feeling that things are changing. Little by little, but they are changing. We see clients. Well, obviously, the oil price or the gas price is higher than, yeah, one year ago. In many cases, they are trying to accelerate as much as they can the construction of the plant. They know and they understand that the only way is to put money into the system and to accelerate and to give flows of cash to the cycle. I see clearly the working capital improving through the year.
I also believe that some recent awards have a, not a good down payment, but a good cash in the very early stages. We will see an improvement in the cash figure quite soon. I've said in the presentation, we will see the company going back to black numbers in terms of cash within the first half of the year. I'm almost sure about it, and I also have in mind that the money coming from SEPI will be there. I mean, there are many reasons to believe working capital difficulties will be smaller, and we will see black figures when you have a look at our cash position very soon. At first, regarding the evolution of sales and margins, well, I.
We again have to be careful, but we have detected the willingness of the clients, and that willingness is, "please move as fast as you can." They realize that it's very difficult to come back, you know. If we demobilize our teams one year ago and, well, you know, it's very difficult to put all that people back very quickly. What we feel now is that come on, we are back to normality. We are coming back to normality. Consequently, my expectation is by the half of the year, obviously, we will not be doing EUR 2 billion, but obviously, our revenues half of EUR 4 billion.
Well, we're somewhere between what we did last year in by June and what we expect for 2023. I don't know, maybe EUR 1.8 billion should be something achievable. Regarding the fourth quarter, to be honest, it's the number it gives the system. I mean, probably we have been finishing a number of projects. We have devoted a lot of hours. Since we were in the last stages of construction, probably those projects were not delivering big volume of revenues. There is not any specific reason. I don't feel the deceleration. I mean, just the opposite. I see how the projects are little by little speeding up.
Maybe it's just one quarter, but it's not what we should expect for the first quarter of 2022.
Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, in order to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad. Thank you. The next question comes from Álvaro Lence, from Alantra Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first would be on the de-risking of the portfolio. This year, of course, you have had probably more awards of smaller size and more diversified, which in itself it implies a de-risking of the portfolio. I wanted to know whether on a contract by contract there is any lower risk than the traditional contracts that you have usually performed in the past. Maybe if it is due to a different structure, maybe shifting from EPC to cost-plus or higher percentage of feed conversions or something that is also helping to de-risk the portfolio. That would be my first question. The second question will be on the restructuring efforts. If I look at your adjusted overhead expense, it has actually increased from EUR 91 million to EUR 113 million.
I wanted to know whether the cost cutting from the Transforma plan is already reflected here, or whether we should see an improvement in going into 2022. My third question would be on the capital structure. I understand that the financial package from the SEPI does not include an option for conversion into equity. Whether a rights issue is still potentially on the table for the future, as you indicated on the last quarterly report. Also if SEPI would still be willing to contribute and become a shareholder of the company, and whether you would be okay with that. Thank you.
Hello, Álvaro. I mean, when you go through the, you know, you have the list and the presentation of most of the jobs in the awards, which is, you know, obviously, some of them is smaller size, but it's a smaller size because it hasn't got construction. If you go to the ADNOC job in gas, it would have been a job of $1.9 billion dollars or product, but are we sharing it with the construction company? That's why we call it de-risk. Obviously, if you go to SASA Polyester, $600 million, we don't include construction, and it's a cost-plus job. It goes through a balance sheet with a fee that is very much de-risked.
In Orlen, we have a partner, and it's not a construction partner, it's an engineering partner, but it is the result of a competitive bid. It's not the result of a fierce competition. It's more a technology battle than a price battle. That's why sometimes we can say it has been de-risked, and we feel comfortable with the risk.
If you go into the three jobs that we're doing within power, the three of them, we're now running the risk of the technology, which, you know, or the delays or the problems or the efficiency of the power plant. That risk, which sometimes is quite dangerous for an EPC contractor, is being run either by GE, Siemens or Mitsubishi. Really, if you go on the clean fuels, both of them having got construction risk. Well, it's very much the risk instead of awards. Obviously, the size of the awards, if we had to include construction in this case, it would have been closer to EUR 7 billion. It's a good, believe me, it's very much the risk. Now it's for us to manage it, but it's very much the risk.
Eduardo will try to answer the second question, has to do with the Transforma.
Yeah. You know, Transforma was a plan that was focused simultaneously both in overheads and operating costs. We did our work a couple of years ago, and well, regarding overhead, I think the savings were already last year in the result. This year, 2021, we have been very focused in how to be efficient in the operation. There are some impacts, but you can see them easily because they are hidden in the global result of the operation. We have. Originally this project was called Plan cien, Plan hundred. That was the money we were targeting for a standard year. Obviously, it has been impossible to achieve this kind of savings because the lack of activity has not allow us to be effective in terms of applying this Plan Transforma.
This plan will come back, and next year will be clearly profitable and useful for the company. Regarding the question about our equity, the fact is that the policy of SEPI is to help the companies to go back to the equity they had when the COVID started. The money they have given us at least is purely that. The target is let's move back to late 2019. At that time, for us, that volume of equity was enough to operate. It has to be enough now. Obviously, what it's clear is that, well, if by any specific reason in the future, we detect that increase, that equity could be useful, we will have to analyze the options. Well, it's not now in our minds.
Thank you. A follow-up, if I may, on the risking of the portfolio. Thanks, Juan, for the comments. I wanted to know whether the increased diversification and probably smaller average size of the project, which provides higher diversification, is that something that Técnicas Reunidas has looked after? Or is just how the pipeline and the overall industry is now working on? Thanks.
It has nothing to do with the change of the strategy. You know, looking for ways to de-risk the awards is part of our strategy. The fact that the size of the jobs are smaller, one part is because it hasn't got construction. I mean, SASA would have been more than EUR 1 billion and it's EUR 600 million. The Rönesans, we have a partner of construction. It would have been a job, and we decided to partner, and therefore it would have been EUR 1 billion. If you go and you take the jobs of GE, Siemens and Mitsubishi, and you compare those jobs with all the combined cycles we've done before, that's why we understand the risk would have been on top. The technologies regarding of GE, Siemens and Mitsubishi would have been under us.
The jobs would have been about EUR 600 billion-EUR 700 billion each. It's a mixture of both. It's the jobs came as they came, that we put a great effort, you know, in not looking for volume, but looking for quality and a de-risk award.
Thanks, Juan Lladó and Eduardo San Miguel for the comments. That's very helpful.
Thank you. The next question comes from Robert Jackson from Banco Santander. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, gentlemen. The question is related to the energy transition. Is Técnicas targeting any niche segments or markets because it considers it has something different to offer? In the traditional business, I think you have a very solid track record in the hydrocrackers, somewhere you are different and you can maybe you're more competitive. Is there any segment which you, in the same way you could offer something different in the energy transition and leveraging off some of your clients in different markets? Thank you.
I mean, the thing is, in energy transition, the big investments still have to come. Obviously we have something to offer. In some presentations we've said, I mean, if a customer needs to work in a big, you know, green hydrogen plant, they need someone that is able to do the, not only to do the first design, which means escalate that technology, because those technologies have to be escalated. You need the initial process engineers. Once that technology has been proven and escalated, you need to put together a task force of engineers to do the design. I don't know whether it's gonna be EPC. You know, let me tell you, I think EPCs on any transition is gonna take a while.
You know, customers may want. It's gonna take a while because it might be EP construction management, because technologies are not fully closed. You cannot close. You know, none of us know how much we cost to construct them. We might close the procurement, we might close the engineering, but not the construction. The technologies that have to be escalated, they're not rocket scientist technologies. It's an issue of cost. Once, you know, that cost working together has been reduced, it's an issue of having a good team of engineers that have done similar things. That's what we can offer. That's why we're working for GE Dynamics. That's why we're working with Repsol, developing the plant.
That's why we're working and studying with the Tenerife public, how we can decarbonize and what are the investments they need to make, first of all, in southern Spain, and then all over the world. The capabilities on project management, on execution, it's both. You have to be able to design, and then you have to manage. For that, you'd need energy services engineering houses. I think that's the feedback we're getting from customers. Sometimes our traditional customers, sometimes our investment groups, infrastructure groups, they're trying to put a lot of money into the market, and that's the feedback we're getting. That's the feedback we're getting in the recent awards with General Dynamics.
I guess you have a very strong potential domestic market as well, which you can leverage off as well. In terms of Spain, there's probably a lot of opportunities there as well.
To be honest, it'd be very nice. You know, we do think in Spain, but I don't feel very, you know, being in Madrid and having 99% of the business outside is a lot of fun, but I would prefer to have big chunk in the backyard. For that, you know, I'm looking forward for that. I do believe there are great opportunities.
Thank you very much, Juan.
Thank you. The next question comes from James Thompson from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Great. Good afternoon, Juan and Eduardo. Thank you very much for the presentation so far. I was wondering maybe if you could just talk a little bit about the near term. Obviously, there's a lot clearly happening in geopolitically today. I mean, it's a really tough situation. You know, is that sort of changing discussions around potential timing of contracts? You know, are you know clients looking to sort of wait and see? Are they sort of looking to deploy capital sooner rather than later, given everything that's happening? Secondly, obviously, you've got a very small relative percentage exposure of your backlog to Russia at this point.
It'd be, you know, good to sort of hear your thoughts about, you know, project work in country and whether you're sort of gonna stop working there. Thanks.
Hi, James. To be honest, I cannot be very precise because we see you know we live in a especially today you know in the last weeks you know the level of uncertainty is great. The level of prices is uncertain. We've seen both. You know we have seen, as I said to Mike a while ago, we have seen scenarios that we have signed right away and placed the order and saved the order. It has to do with power. Because you know prices will escalate, and the investment need is there. Some are you know in the middle of this turmoil, we're having the feedback on some customers list, which we're working on contracts, and then they're just waiting a little bit.
All of them, they're working with urgency. I mean, we are feeling some sort of level of urgency on the market to invest. Because, well, you know, they have money. They have made a lot of money. They're making a lot of money, and the market is there. You know, the feeling, I mean, the investment mood that the market poses has nothing to do with the one we had in 2016 and 2017. It starts to be far better than the one we saw at the end of 2019, where the market was fully recovered. Now they are, you know, they have the market, and they have to invest.
Obviously, uncertainty sometimes accelerate, which has been the case with us. In some other cases, there's a bit of wait and see or more than rethinking the investment and see whether I can restructure it if it's too expensive. Exposure and backlog to Russia. I said it before. The only job we've got is the one we just started. We just started in the last quarter of the year, which is the job which is EP for Gazprom Neft, is EUR 240 million, which represents about 4% of the backlog and 2% of 2022 sales. That's the only. It's at the very initial stage. We're not very much engaged in the job. We have very little risk.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks very much for that. Just going back to actually what Mick asked about at the start in terms of the Q&A and the reprogrammed backlog. You know, these were for, you know, pure fixed price contracts to begin with. I mean, I'm just quite interested to understand, you know, how you've been able to renegotiate price through that contracting structure, because I guess there's the view that the customers would be quite happy probably to allow more time, but probably less happy for it to cost them more money. I guess just to confirm, those were all, those are for fixed pure kind of lump sum turnkey projects rather than any other structure.
I think it's a balance. Clients are willing us to accelerate now because it makes sense, and simultaneously they know that they need to pay for it. I mean, if there are some extra costs, and if you want me to move faster, you have to help me. It's, unfortunately, probably the contract does not cover specifically the situation, but probably nobody had in mind when signing the contract the idea of a potential COVID coming. In the end, this is a win-win. I mean, both the client and us need to solve these problems to force us to move fast.
Okay. Thanks, Eduardo San Miguel.
Thank you. The next question comes from Mick Pickup from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking me again. Juan, can I just go back to the comment you made on energy transition and the size of the projects? Obviously, a lot of energy transition projects to date seem to be somewhat smaller. What is it that you're seeing that thinks that the size of those energy transition projects can become meaningful in the shorter term?
Hi, Mick. Good to have you back. I do believe. I mean, as I said before, for us, energy transition, you know, for the portfolio is the size. It will have to fall through new opportunities. Some of the jobs might be smaller, and some others might be quite big. Even if it's smaller, I mean, we structure ourselves to capture them because they're going to need new technologies without the need to be escalated. Not complicated technologies, but new technologies. I think we have a lot to bring. Let me tell you, we're an engineering house. We make money. We make a lot of good money developing engineering. It shouldn't be an issue of size. It should be an issue of putting together a profitable business.
I think we're gonna be seeing a profitable business, quite soon.
Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Mick.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions. I will now give back the floor to the company. Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. I think we are done because it was year-end, and we were too, and a lot of questions. It has taken a bit more than an hour. Thank you for staying with us, and thank you for supporting us, and we'll be talking to you in, I understand, May. Thanks a lot.