Morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Air Liquide 2020 Results Conference Call. All participants are currently in listen mode only until we conduct our question and- answer- session, and instructions will be given at that time. I will now hand over to the Air Liquide team. Please begin your meeting and I will be standing by.
Good morning, everyone. This is Aude Rodriguez, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you very much for joining our conference call today. Benoît Potier and Fabienne Lecorvaisier will present the full year 2020 performance. For the Q&A session, we are joined by François Jackow, Executive Vice President, supervising Europe, Africa-Middle East and Healthcare Hubs. On the phone from Houston, Mike Graff, Executive Vice President, supervising Americas and Asian Hubs and the Electronics Business Line. In the agenda, our next events are on March 23rd, our Sustainability Day, and on April 23rd, our first quarter revenue announcements. Let me now hand you over to Benoît.
Thank you, Aude. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for attending this call. Directly page three of our presentation. As you can see, 2020 has been an outstanding year in many aspects, in the circumstances. We've been able to deliver a significant margin improvement and net profit growth in global crisis environment. Thanks in particular to the agility of the teams to adapt to this lower activity level. 2020 brings a clear demonstration of the strength of both our business model and our diversified portfolio with a mix of growth and resilience pillars. I could also add the strengths brought by our wide geographical presence. This year has also accelerated the pre-COVID trends to the benefits of Air Liquide activities, being it in energy transition, healthcare, or technologies. I will come back on that later.
Business development has been very active also this year, despite the pandemic. We see a clear acceleration of projects linked to energy transition, which positions us very well for future growth. Overall, an outstanding year in many aspects, thanks to the dedication and courage of our teams worldwide during what we can qualify as an unprecedented global sanitary and economic trends and crisis. On page four, starting with performance, we have just recalled on the left of the graph of the different OIR evolutions by regions with a global OIR drop of -5% for the full year 2020. Facing this situation, sales were more or less preserved at -1.3% on a comparable basis and -6.8% taking foreign exchange and energy into account, very close to the 2019 level on the comparable basis.
The operating income recurring margin improved again by 80 basis points, excluding energy pass-through impact, reaching a record level of 18.5% for the group, with a strong leverage on net profit growing by +8.6% as published, and even by 4.4% on a recurring basis excluding foreign exchange. Investment decisions have been high again this year, above EUR 3 billion. Notably, thanks to a strong cash flow, the net debt has been reduced, and the gearing ratio is now back below its 2015 level before the Airgas acquisition. Fabienne Lecorvaisier will come back later on the details of the performance. On slide five, you can see the effect of worldwide recovery on our sales. This is Q4 sales. Three regions out of four showing positive sales growth: Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.
Starting with Europe growing at +4.3%, the healthcare activities representing close to 40% of the sales of the region have remained fully mobilized to support hospitals during the COVID Wave 2. Industrial activities also show a solid recovery in Western Europe, while sales are growing in Eastern Europe. Growth is also positive in Asia, with two strong drivers, China and electronics. The rest of Asia is improving. In Americas, the recovery is continuing in the North for industrial activities, while healthcare is mobilized to supply medical oxygen to hospitals. South America is growing. Africa-Middle East region is back to growth in Q4 for all activities. A clear recovery everywhere in Q4. The negative number in Americas is a significant improvement compared with Q3. I now turn to page five.
If we take a step back, the main outcome today from this global sanitary crisis is the acceleration of pre-COVID trends. The first one is the energy transition. 2020 clearly marks an acceleration of this trend. This means new opportunities for our large industry and GMT businesses through low carbon hydrogen offers, but also industry decarbonization projects, as an example. The second trend is the transformation of the healthcare system, which is reaching a new step, mostly with the development of digital, which enriches our value-based offer. Our healthcare activities fully align with these changes and integrates products, equipment, now digital and services. As the COVID crisis was a sanitary crisis, I think there will be changes in the medical sector globally, and the need for digital will be increasing as we go. The third trend is the increasing stake of technologies, including digital.
Technology is already a game changer in the 21st century. As one of our key drivers, I think it will benefit all our activities, and the scope is very large, from digital to low carbon to electronics with the specialty gases and the advanced materials, deep cryogenics, but also quantum computing and so on. Our portfolio of investment demonstrate that very well. On slide seven, indeed, in only one year, between the end of 2019 and the end of 2020, we see a clear shift towards energy transition and electronics in our investment opportunities. This is very visible on the left part of the slide. We had a 61/39 split that became 39/61. This is really a very interesting change. Energy transition represents now 44% of total opportunities, compared with 25% in 2019.
This trend drives a second shift towards Europe, where most of the projects linked to energy transition are currently located, and Asia, the main region of our semiconductor customers. These two regions now represent more than 70% of the total portfolio, as you can see on the right part of the slide, compared to less than 60% in 2019. In addition to these two major shifts, the total portfolio of opportunities, which are projects our development teams are actively working on, has been increasing up to EUR 3.1 billion in 2020, despite the difficult environment. A large part of these opportunities should turn into signing, showing that we are well-positioned for future growth, leveraging of these new trends. On slide eight, there's a focus on sustainability, which has also been reinforced in 2020. On the left, you can see the four topics of our next Sustainability Day on March 23rd.
Decarbonization, no doubt, hydrogen ambition, but also societal contribution and governance. On the right, we have illustrated the progress made related to our carbon intensity objectives and two KPIs on key topics for Air Liquide: safety and gender. On carbon intensity, with a carbon intensity at 4.4, we are at the level of the 2025 objective, which doesn't mean that there's no work to do in between now and 2025, because we are growing, so we are investing, and keeping this intensity at 4.4 is a challenge. The employee lost time frequency rate has improved in 2020 to reach the lowest rate of the last 20 years, we will, of course, pursue our efforts. In 2020, we reported 30% of women among managers compared to 29%, which is an improvement of one point, in 2019. Our objective is to reach 35% by 2025.
We are convinced that sustainability is key for long-term performance on which we remain committed to our shareholders. On slide nine, indeed, after a full dividend payment in 2020, which represents a +12% increase compared to 2019, we propose for 2021 a dividend per share of EUR 2.75, representing an increase of 1.9% in line with the recurring net profit growth, which would lead to payout of 55%, as you can see on the slide, and a +7.8% compounded annual growth rate of dividends over 20 years. In addition to that, the board of directors had decided to consider a new free share attribution for June 2022.
The dividend payments represent a significant part of the allocation of the cash from operations, and we reinvest most of the remaining cash in the business to prepare future growth and performance, as shown on the next slide, page 10, where we have an illustration on the management of our cash allocation. This is cash allocation based on 2018 to 2020. It is then based on three years, last three years. The shareholder remuneration represents 30% of cash allocation. Most of it from dividends, of course, but we have also identified here the incremental dividend coming from free share at issues. The majority of the cash allocation goes to industrial CapEx, as you can see, and together with acquisitions, it is 60% that went to the business on average over the last three years. We have a very solid project portfolio, which continues to rise.
Our main projects are all confirmed. 2020 is showing a high rate of project signing, higher than our peers. This prepares, of course, very well for future growth and performance. The last point I'd like to make on this slide is that this is just a cash view, but it doesn't take into account the appreciation of the share after we have distributed a bonus share, which is something that, in terms of net worth perspective, you need to keep in mind. I will now let Fabienne explain the 2020 performance. Fabienne?
Thank you, Benoît. Good morning, everyone. I suggest to review now in detail the Q4 activity and the full year performance. On page 12, Q4 has in fact shown marked recovery compared to Q3 and even more to Q2. As mentioned by Benoît, we are back to growth at + 2% on a comparable basis. This growth is supported by higher demand than expected for medical as a consequence of the COVID wave two, but also by stronger large industries compared to relatively low Q4 2019, by the pursued recovery of Industrial Merchant, even if we are still under last year's level, and by solid Electronics. Looking now at full year numbers on page 13, this Q4 improvement results in sales which are quasi stable for the full period on a comparable basis, meaning excluding ForEx, energy pricing variation, and significant scope effects.
Gas and services at -1.2% following a Q4 at +1.6%, engineering sales fully recovered in Q4 with major projects moving forward, even if the full year is still at -23% for third-party sales. To be noted, total sales including group projects are only at -9%. Order intake was also high in Q4. We finished the year at EUR 820 million, a level very close to 2019. Global Markets and Technologies end the year at +6%, thanks to biogas development in particular, with a stronger order intake as well, close to EUR 600 million. Consequently, group sales at -1.3% reflect an outstanding resilience in the crisis context. Published sales are hampered by significant current ForEx effect at -2% and energy price impact at -1.8%.
Scope effect at -1.4% is mainly attributable to the divestiture of schülke at the beginning of H2 and to the progressive deconsolidation of non-strategic Japanese packaged gas distribution affiliates. Let's now look at the activity for each of our main geographies. My comments will be mainly related to Q4. After a very low Q2, Americas continued to improve sequentially. Volumes are higher in large industries, knowing that hydrogen volumes in the U.S. suffered from several turnarounds last year. In Industrial Merchant, South America continues to grow while we see a clear sequential improvement in the U.S., supported by packaged gas for food and pharma, as well as metal fabrication markets, which are doing a little better. Due to the wave two of the pandemic in the U.S. in particular, medical oxygen sales were also above expectations, and Electronics growth remained solid, driven by carrier gases and equipment and installation.
Europe is posting 4% growth in Q4, thanks in particular to healthcare activity, still up by more than 8%, and which, as mentioned by Benoît, represents 40% of the 2020 European business. Large industries are clearly stronger, in particular in Eastern Europe, and were boosted by a one-off sale to a Russian customer. We also see signs of recovery in Western Europe, notably for metals and chemicals, while refining remains low. Industrial Merchant benefiting from solid pricing throughout the zone is progressing double digits in Eastern Europe while recovery continues in mature economies. Southwest, in particular, is back to slight growth. Asia continues to be pretty contrasted with China and Electronics as main growth drivers.
Large industries also benefited from higher hydrogen volumes in Korea and in Singapore, Industrial Merchant returned to growth in Q4, led by double-digit growth in China, even if Singapore and Japan remain under last year's level. In Electronics, equipment and installation are weaker, but carrier gases and advanced materials are still close to 10%. Africa-Middle East is also showing solid growth, mainly driven by better Middle East and India in all businesses and high demand for medical oxygen throughout the zone, and in particular, in Egypt and North Africa. Looking now at the business line on page 16, Industrial Merchant is the only one to remain slightly under 2019, daily volumes pursued their recovery in Q4, we also saw a slight improvement for hard goods.
The good news is that we were able to maintain solid pricing at + 2.2%, even if the helium component is now reduced to 0.3% only. Food and pharma markets continue to grow. There is visible improvement for craftsmen and network and metal fabrication, but constructions remains quite soft. In large industries, sales are increasing in all regions, driven by better volumes and ramp-ups. The most difficult market remains refining, where full recovery is not expected before 2022. It is now improving, even in mature economies, and we have signs of chemical recovery, notably for air gases in Europe. Healthcare and electronics are growing consistently with previous quarters. We expected a progressive slowdown in medical gases and equipment, which did not happen due to the COVID wave 2 and to the extension of oxygen high flow treatments. In parallel, diabetes pulled the home healthcare sales in Europe.
In electronics, fluctuations from one quarter to another are mainly due to equipment and installation, which were in particular lower in Q4. The book-to-bill ratio is ramping up at 1.4 at year-end. Excluding equipment and installation, sales were strong at +7% in Q4, with high carrier gases above 10%, thanks to new projects and more than 20% growth in China. To conclude the activity review, I would like to emphasize again the strength of our diversified portfolio, balance between growth and resilience activities, as well as the solidity of the business model, supported by long-lasting customer relationships. The strength as well as the alignment of the teams is also demonstrated by the performance improvement on page 18, with margins being up 80 basis points for the group and 90 basis points for the gas and services, excluding the impact of the energy price decrease.
Compared to published sales at -6.5%, purchases are down 11.7% globally and -9% if we exclude the energy and gas sourcing. Personal expenses are of course helped by divestitures, but are also down excluding scope effect, with a 1.5% headcount reduction and slight average wages increase at +0.3%, driven by developing economies. The decrease of other expenses includes a reduction for travel cost and transportation cost. Depreciations are flat, with the effect of scope, contract renewals and drops compensating for startups. As a result, Operating Income Recurring margin, which is 18.5%, the highest ever for Air Liquide, a 120 basis point improvement to last year or 80 basis point adjusted for the energy pricing impact. Gas and Services margin stand at 20.4% and 90 basis point for the progression excluding energy.
This margin progression, on which I would like to come back, results from the combination of first, the deployment of our structured plan for performance improvement based on pricing and mix, efficiencies and portfolio management, with an estimated contribution of approximately basis point. Second, our crisis management, including cost containment and more favorable mix with less equipment and installation and hard goods. I would like to focus on the structural part on page 20, as it is really what is sustainable for the years to come. Pricing has been solid all along the year, despite the economic difficulties. helium component, which represented 30% of the price improvement in H1, is now under 15%, meaning that our teams continue to better manage prices through innovation and extended customer service.
Efficiencies at EUR 441 million are also very high. Here, we need to insist on the efforts of our teams to continue to deploy our programs, procurements, partner innovative operation, business support centers, all along the year, while learning from the new context to capitalize on more frugal ways of working. Portfolio management was pursued as well, with eight small divestitures on top of the schülke sale and 23 bolt-on acquisition, in merchant in particular, in China and the U.S., and in home healthcare in Europe. We also reinforced our portfolio of technologies with two small acquisition. Around 10 small divestitures are ongoing as we speak. If we look now at the bottom of the P&L, on page 21, our non-recurring income and expenses include two major elements.
The capital gain linked to the divestiture of schülke, of course, but also write-off and provisions in connection with an in-depth review of our portfolio of assets. The objective of this review was to take into account the strategic inflection that we will embark into our new medium-term plan following the closure of NEOS and the COVID crisis. Exceptional COVID costs are less than EUR 50 million for the full year, + EUR 15 million of severances. Financial expenses are down, despite an exceptional one-off cost associated with the anticipated reimbursement of the remaining Airgas pre-acquisition notes. The consequence of the reduction of average cost of debt, now at 2.8%, a 20 basis point reduction to last year, and to the decrease of the average debt level. The effective tax rate is particularly low, due to the low tax rate applicable to the proceed of the schülke sale.
To finish with, net profit as published is up 8.6% and even 11.2% excluding the ForEx effect. On a recurring basis, meaning excluding the Airgas net financial one-off, the schülke divestiture, the impact of the asset review, and the COVID cost, net profit is up 1.5% and 4.4% excluding ForEx, in line with our guidance. Now on page 22, the quality of earnings also translates into a very strong cash flow at 24.1% of sales, another record high for Air Liquide. Thanks to tight collection and inventory management as well as to some VAT deferred payments, we also have a nice improvement in the working capital requirement level. Industrial CapEx for the year stand at EUR 2.6 billion, stable to last year, and the total net CapEx are of course lower due to less acquisition spending than last year and to the impact of the schülke sale.
To remind you also that we paid our full dividends in May 2020, as we decided to decline all of the French government proposed subsidies. As a result, net debt at year-end is down EUR 1.7 billion, with approximately EUR 1 billion decrease being linked to the ForEx and the schülke divestiture, and EUR 0.7 billion linked to the management of the operations. To be noted, and Benoît has stated it already, our gearing is back to the pre-Airgas acquisition level, meaning that we've been able to swallow the acquisition debt within four years. 2020 has also been characterized by a high number of investment opportunities already discussed, as shown in the 12 months portfolio, which is now reaching EUR 3.1 billion. In terms of decisions, we are pretty proud about our success rate with new contract signs.
Decision for the year accelerated in Q4 and reached EUR 3 billion with industrial decision at or above this level for the third consecutive year. Our backlog is increasing accordingly, and we deliver EUR 1 billion of additional sales after ramp-up. As a reminder, none of these figures include the Sasol project. In terms of startups and ramp-ups, and despite the delay due to the COVID, in particular in the first part of the year, we finally managed to deliver EUR 191 million, eventually not so far from the initial objective. For 2021, we expect a contribution around EUR 250 million, with on top the additional sales resulting from the Sasol takeover in South Africa, which are estimated at the moment at EUR 100 million in a touring mode, but which depend on the actual closing date currently planned at the end of Q1.
2020 was also the last year of the NEOS plan and the time to evaluate our level of achievement before launching a new plan. 2020 has been a very specific year due to COVID in terms of sales evolution, but also in terms of cost and investment management, and therefore, we believe it's not relevant to include 2020 numbers in a medium-term performance assessment. As a consequence, we decided to review the NEOS achievement at the end of 2019, and I'm on page 25. Average sales growth at 6.5% was well-aligned with the NEOS objective globally. For the business lines, efficiency were over-delivered at EUR 1.1 billion over three years compared to an initial objective of EUR 900 million. Deleveraging was strong and recognized by Standard & Poor's by a positive outlook, while CapEx remained in the 10%-12% range.
In terms of return capital employed, the objective is maintained, and double digit obviously remains our minimum target. We realize that COVID crisis will last longer than initially expected and that we will lose more than one year in terms of net profit growth, while we decided nevertheless to accelerate investments, in particular for energy transition. Therefore, we plan now to reach double digit in 2023-2024, depending on the exact timing of the crisis exit. We will give you a more precise objective for the future during the year 2022 Capital Market Day. Coming back to 2021, to conclude, we plan for a first half, which will still be seriously impacted by the pandemic, but also for a recovery in H2, while pursuing our efforts towards performance improvement and continuing to invest strongly in the markets of the future.
In this context, we are confident in our ability to further increase margins and to deliver net profit growth. This is what I wanted to share with you this morning. Thank you very much for your attention. We will now open the Q&A session.
Thank you, Fabienne. We will take the first question.
The next question comes from the line of Tom Wrigglesworth from Citigroup. Mr. Wrigglesworth, you can now ask your question.
Thanks very much. Tom Wrigglesworth from Citi. Thanks, Benoît. Thanks, Fabienne, for the presentation. Two questions, if I may. The first question is around the recent developments and announcements you've made with regards to hydrogen, specifically the MoU with Siemens Energy. I'm kind of keen to understand in concept what Siemens is bringing versus what Air Liquide is bringing to that understanding, how that will play out in terms of commercial prospects. Will you share the economics of any projects that you participate in going forward, and is there exclusivity? That's one set of questions. The second one is, clearly on the outlook statement, you're talking about increasing operating margins. On slide 19, you said you had 20 basis points of margin from COVID effects.
Is your assumption that you now lose that or it returns to normal, and it's your structural drivers that pick up the rest of the margin improvement? Just your thoughts there on the margin bridge. Thank you.
I will take the first question, and Fabienne the second. This deal, this MOU was announced after a few months of discussions. The situation is the following. We have all technologies, including CC carbon capture for all the hydrogen plants based on natural gas. We have taken a stake in Hydrogenics in North America to develop the renewable production of hydrogen. We didn't have, so far, really any agreement in Europe, and Europe is the place where there are many projects. As you know, if we go into the details, there are several technologies on electrolyzers. The PEM, the so-called PEM technology, proton exchange membrane, is the one that is promising because of the flexibility it gives to operate with renewable energy. We're looking for a pretty strong partner able to bring scale for the very large-scale projects and bringing also a European base.
If Air Liquide has knowhow in the production and the operation, we don't have an extensive knowhow in what is called the balance of plant. If you build the cells themselves, that's one thing, but an electrolyzer able to produce hydrogen reliably needs to have the balance of plant with all the electrical connections, the optimization, the consumption of energy, and the like. This is exactly what Siemens brings. We bring to the partnership, of course, our knowledge of the market, of the operations. Now, you said, are we going to share projects? Well, whenever Air Liquide has the lead to develop its own projects, of course, nothing will change except that if we have a big scale based on renewable in Europe, we will naturally use the Siemens technology. By the way, the technology that will be further improved together.
If we are in small projects elsewhere in the world, we are free to use whatever we want. It's not really an exclusivity. It has parts of the world and specific domains where we will be using Siemens. Of course, we think that joining forces at this point in time is important for the development of the large-scale projects. I think this is a very promising partnership between two major European companies that have their own skills, and I think it will allow us to accelerate the development of clean hydrogen, in particular in Europe. The second question, Fabienne, on the OIR margin.
Yes. We have tried, you've seen that in the slide, to sort out in the margin improvement what is due to our structured improvement plan and what is due to the very specific crisis cost-cutting plan. We believe that there are 20 basis points in the improvement which are linked to the cost cutting that will not be sustainable over time. One example is the travel expenses, meeting cost, et cetera. When the situation comes back to normal, we will have to start again, maybe not in the same extent, but we will have to start again, to make sure we maintain the cohesion of our teams worldwide. If you start working on a bridge of the OIR to sales for 2021, it's obvious that we start with -20. The performance improvement plan continues.
The mutualization plans are progressively deployed, so we are very confident still in our capacity to increase margin. 2021 is not the +80, it's a +60, and you should start from that, to work on the future improvements.
Thank you both. Very helpful.
I hope this is clear.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question's from the line of Laurent Favre from Exane BNP Paribas.
Yes. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. It's regarding pricing. I was wondering if you could update us on pricing initiatives or campaigns in Europe and in the U.S. for this year. Have you done any? Are you planning any? Separately within that, I think, Fabienne, you mentioned a slower impact of helium in the Q4 pricing. I think you mentioned 30 basis points. I was wondering if you could talk about how you're thinking about this through 2021. Do you think that we will start to see already pressure from new capacity or, with the recovery in IRNs and, well, hopefully parties in the summer, we could see helium tightening again. Thank you.
I will ask François to talk about the pricing environment in Europe. Mike, if you could take U.S., but also helium, because Airgas is a very strong distributor of helium in the U.S. That will be interesting. First, François.
Thank you, Benoît. Good morning. Regarding the pricing in Europe, overall during the year, we have been able, in spite of the environment, to maintain reasonably good pricing. If you look at the full year, we are at 1.7% for Industrial Merchant. We don't see really a degradation during the year. Maybe some kind of softening at the end of the year, but we stay in that kind of range. Of course, it's lower than what we have seen in the previous years. As we discussed before, this is a combined effect of the overall environment and also, to some extent, a slight decrease in the helium contribution, which was not very high anyway in Europe. This is decreasing. What we see is our ability to maintain some positive pricing, probably with a decrease during the year 2021.
Of course, highly dependent on the economic situation, but still in the range of 1% to 2%, probably closer to the 1% range than the upper 2%. However, we should keep in mind that this is a strong contribution. Due to the fact, again, of the cultural shift in Europe, we have launched several price increase campaign. We have a few which are planned that we will trigger when we think it's appropriate given the market situation. Again, this is, I think relying strongly on the capacity of the team to manage the customer relationship and at the end, to deliver value for the customer in the European environment.
Thank you. Mike?
Thanks, Benoît. Good morning, everyone. Just to build on what François said, I think we saw a continued strength, especially in the Americas, from a pricing standpoint throughout 2020. Recognize that before the impact of COVID, we had already embarked on a number of pricing campaigns, which played out through the entirety of the year. In addition, as we've talked about before, there was a strength in helium pricing in a few other areas as well throughout the year. As we entered the fourth quarter, we started to see the softening in helium pricing. I think the combination of some of the impacts of demand for helium, especially in the retail space, with the impacts of COVID, along with the expectation of new supply coming on, soften that pricing perspective a little bit. We expect that trend to continue as we move into 2021.
At this point, we have not announced a new pricing campaign for 2021, similar to what François said. Any campaign would be aligned with the economic circumstances and the markets, as we see how things will evolve. I think the expectation, similar to what François talked about, certainly comes off the level it's been at and thinking about 1%-2%, depending on the evolution in the markets and some of the key products that we sell, and also any inflationary trends that we will see as things evolve as well. I think that that will actually have an impact as we move through the year.
Thank you. Maybe if I can follow up on pricing in Asia Pacific, where you've had a couple of quarters with a bit of pressure despite recovery in China. Can you maybe talk about the dynamics between China and the rest of Asia? Thank you.
I think in terms of Asia itself, I think pricing has been mitigated to some extent. As you know the impact of COVID in Asia has been a little bit disjointed as you look at the impact in various countries. I think from a merchant standpoint, we see the very strong recovery in China. I think in the rest of Asia, especially in Japan and Singapore in the merchant business, it's still been fairly soft. I think that the pricing fundamentals are a bit different there. There is, though, another key element, especially in China.
There is a very strong comparator in pricing going back to the latter half of 2019, where there was shortage in argon, which drove pricing up significantly, which once that equilibrated with supply situation returning and meeting demand needs, that equilibrated more to a normal level. I think you'll see a similar trend in Asia as we go through the year that we saw in 2020. I think the key there will be the full recovery of the merchant business to begin with in all sectors, and then the strength of the evolution of those markets as we move through 2021.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question.
The next question comes from the line of Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes, thanks. I have questions on healthcare. I see that healthcare, especially in Europe, performed rather well. Would you agree that the demand for medical gases for COVID-19 patients overcompensated the demand for hospital gases for ordinary surgeries? In other words, was healthcare a net beneficiary of the COVID-19 pandemic? As a follow-up to healthcare, you mentioned in one of your slides an acceleration of value-based offers. Does this have also a positive effect on selling prices in healthcare, or did you benefit from mixed effects? Thanks.
Well, I think this question is very much linked to Europe. François, you can easily take it.
Thank you, Benoît. If I speak for the world first, overall, healthcare indeed had a very strong performance, because we were more than 8% growth overall. Within that, Europe was close to 10%. Europe has benefited indeed from a very strong demand for oxygen to treat the COVID patient. That was true in the first wave, even more so in the second wave, as we have seen the development of the high flow therapy with a very strong demand for hospitals which were treating COVID patients. This has clearly contributed to the strength of med gas. You remember that med gas, typically in Europe, is flat or growing at 1% or 2%. In southern part of Europe, for example, we were above 7% growth for the full year. Yes, it has compensated for those countries, the drop in the classical oxygen demand for the hospital.
If you move to other geographies, it could be different. Overall, for the Americas, the med gas demand was very strong, and actually extremely strong in Latin America, in Brazil especially. This is true also in Canada, for example. That, again, has highly compensated the drop of the oxygen in the hospital. In Asia, we have seen overall a negative impact on the medical oxygen, because oxygen was not a generally used therapy to treat the COVID patients, and we had less patients going to the hospital and requiring oxygen. Overall, the growth of oxygen med gas in Asia was negative. Finally, if you look at Middle East and India, the growth was very strong and it still is today as we speak, with a large demand for medical oxygen.
In this case, we are talking about doubling or tripling the oxygen consumption for those countries. If now we talk about the value-based offer that you mentioned for home care, this is clearly a strategic direction that we are developing, where we are adding value to the service we are providing to the patients, but also to the payers. Using and leveraging services and digital capabilities and transforming also the model where the payment, the reimbursement, is based on the outcome, not just on performing the service. This is getting a lot of traction, and that has been actually accelerated in the COVID environment, where the classical services requiring physical presence were less possible in many geographies and boosted the digital capabilities and the value of the remote services.
That's a direction which, especially in the most advanced countries in Western Europe especially, is developing, and we enjoy a strong market position on those segments.
Thank you, François. We can take the next question.
The next question comes from the line of Charlie Webb from Morgan Stanley.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. One follow-up on the margins and one on Electronics. On the margins, Fabienne, can you help clarify your earlier comments? Am I right to understand that you are suggesting that the core business, the underlying business, continues to deliver some sort of 50 basis points, 60 basis points of underlying margin improvement driven by the structural savings, the pricing, and the portfolio, we net out that 20 basis points of temporary savings? Is that the right way to think about it? On Electronics, obviously a decent end to the year. If you could update us on the current trends you see as we head into 2021.
Do you expect the strong demand you're seeing for carrier gases to continue and advanced materials into 2021? Where's the book-to-bill as we think about E&I? Obviously that can be a bit more volatile, just wondering where we are today on that as we look into 2021. That'd be great. Thank you very much.
Okay. Fabienne first, and Mike, can you take the second one? First.
Yes. It's exactly what we are trying to tell you. The underlying improvement for 2020 is around 60 basis points, same as what we delivered in 2019, actually. It's a very good performance in a crisis environment. We have 20 basis points, which is temporary, driven by the containment plan, and that is not sustainable over time. Your understanding is definitely the right one.
I think clarifies the margin ratio point. Mike, what are the trends in the Electronics segment, carrier gases and E&I?
Sure. Good morning, Charlie. I think that we went into 2020 with a clear expectation of continued growth from a digital perspective. That was really expected to be driven by things like 5G introduction, further development of the Internet of Things and big data, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality. All of those trends were clearly evident as we moved through 2020, even despite the impact of COVID. On top of that, with the rapid evolution to a work from home type environment that was driven by the impact of COVID, we also saw a significant increase in terms of demand for personal computers, as well as for servers to manage data in the cloud. As a result, I think what we saw over the course of the year, were PCs and servers were up 7%-8%. Internet of Things was up 20%.
The numbers for big data and artificial intelligence were up 40% and 50%. I think that those drivers continue as we move forward into 2021 and beyond. We saw it in our own numbers. Fabienne already had explained the strength in the electronics business over the year. Not only did we see very strong activity levels, especially in carrier gases and advanced materials, but aligned with that increase in the production for integrated circuits. We saw a very high level of business development, and Fabienne and Benoît referred to that already in their comments. We not only see, I would say, the strength in activity levels as we move from 2020 into 2021 and beyond, but a significant uptick in terms of the level of announcements of new fabs to meet some of this demand and some of the things that will evolve.
In addition to that, towards the end of the year, a clear increase, in what had been a soft environment for E&I as the book-to-bill ratio has gone back up to 1.4. Which in some respects signifies that for some of the companies, they are now accelerating the build-out of the fabs that have already been constructed, to go ahead and outfit them with equipment and get those facilities up and running. I think you're going to continue to see those trends into 2021 and beyond, without a doubt. I think in the advanced materials space, the numbers were very strong throughout the year. As a matter of fact, over the last year, there was a very significant uptick in the demand for advanced materials. Probably a little bit more than what the market actually showed in terms of production.
I think as we were in the midst of the fourth quarter of 2019, many of our customers that were about to start up new fabs built inventory in respect to go ahead and prepare for that. Then I think as things evolved with COVID, there was a concern among customers in their value chains and supply chains in general. I think that they not only bought what they needed to go ahead and maintain a very high activity level, but also to provide a bit of a cushion from an inventory standpoint. I expect things will be reflecting that as we go through the coming quarters, but the very strong demand, I think, for digitization and next-gen technology is very pronounced, and it'll be very strong, and continue to show that both with carrier gas investment and advanced materials as we move forward.
That's really helpful. Just trying to clarify one thing on that. Obviously, we're seeing and hearing about some shortages in the semi industry, most notably, I guess, in automotive. Do you expect that book-to-bill on E&I that's at 1.4? Do you expect that to continue to trend higher as we move in the first part of the year? Is that the sense you're seeing in terms of new CapEx, new projects?
I think there's two elements there. I think in terms of automotive, it's a bit of a different dynamic there. Recognize that automotive and industrial applications declined significantly for Electronics in the first half of the year. Obviously, we all saw what happened in the manufacturing space as a result of COVID. I think what happened there was with that decline, and at the same time, that significant uptick in demand for PCs and servers. Some of the analog and OSD manufacturers, that's opto-sensor and discretes that served both the automotive and industrial space we're running foundries where they could shift production to some of the growth markets. I think one of the things we've seen is automotive recover very rapidly, probably more rapidly than expected.
That production that it shifted was already committed for the short term, I expect that to resolve itself, and I think you will see the supply evolve to go ahead and meet demand everywhere, especially, as we start to see further business development. In terms of book-to-bill, I think it's just a signification of where we are. Equipment needs to follow capital investment in the fabs themselves. I think what we're seeing right now is an uptick, recognizing the number of fabs that are already built or about to be completed. I think then this next generation of fabs that are already announced and committed, will then follow with additional E&I, but it's got to follow that sequentially.
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Fabienne, you wanted to add something on the E&I? Maybe just a word.
Yes, Benoît, I just wanted to remind that usually book to bill takes two quarters to materialize into sales, and that E&I were pretty high in Q1 2019, 2020, sorry. Just for your models.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Next question.
Next question comes from the line of Tony Jones from Redburn.
Yes, good morning. Thanks, everybody. I've got two left. Firstly, on refining, it looks like it continues to still be fairly weak. Could you update us, based on your customer discussions, how that's going, particularly the U.S. and the Middle East? Then coming back to the partnerships that you set up in Europe and the Americas for electrolyzers, how are you thinking about Asia? Are you exploring any arrangements with some of the low-cost Chinese producers? Thank you.
The refining, if you are interested in understanding what is happening more in details in North America and Middle East, I'll ask both Mike and François to answer. It is clear that refining suffered because of a lack of mobility last year due to COVID, and that's more temporary situation. It's also clear, but we know that by heart, that the price of oil has an influence on how this refining sector is doing. I make a more global comment. It is also obvious that last year was a sort of awareness by the oil and gas sector of the fact that the mix of the future in terms of energy is going to be different. We've seen a lot of them starting thinking about how to adapt their assets to the new mix.
Just as a comment, I would like to say that, going from the situation we have today, where most of them are self-producing their hydrogen based on natural gas, we'll see as we go, a shift towards cleaner production of hydrogen, outsourcing, and carbon capture. The refining sector is suffering from the temporary situation, but also it has to undergo a significant transformation. It is highly visible in Europe. It is not yet visible with the same intensity in the U.S. Asia, in any case, is in a different situation because there's not a lot of oil there. The question is, do they import oil forever, or do they import clean products or cleaner products in the future?
I think it's interesting to just think about the refining and the oil and gas industry as an industry that will be deeply transformed in the years to come. Stop here, and I'll hand over to François and then Mike. François on Middle East and Mike on U.S.
Thank you, Benoît. Indeed, for the Middle East, we have seen clearly in 2020, a pause in the overall activity in refining. First, a drop in the loading rate of the refineries, both to meet the drop in the local demand, but more important also to cope with the decrease in the export requirement, both for gasoline, diesel, and very much for jet fuels. We have seen also during the year a pause in the projects which were contemplated in the region. Clearly the things are changing, and we see in the past few months at the end of the year and beginning of this year, really the activity picking up again. To some extent, the loading rate, but it's more moderate.
Clearly the projects with a new dimension, as mentioned by Benoît, the carbon view and the carbon management view, which is a topic which was not so much present before, which is gaining momentum. Clearly we see that we are probably at the beginning of also a shift in term of strategy for the refiners in the Middle East.
Thank you. Mike, what is the U.S. viewpoint?
I would just to build on everything that's already been said, I think that, clearly, from a utilization standpoint, we saw a dramatic impact, in a decline in utilization rates for refining, throughout the Americas with the impact of COVID. It has recovered to some extent over the course of the last three quarters, but still is quite low, as you're aware. I think if you look at the demand for hydrogen, for example, in North America, it's probably about 90% of normal, just to put it in perspective, recognizing it was closer to 80%, 83% about six months ago. I think it's improved, and I think we'll continue to see that improve over the course of 2021. I think it'll take a while, given where things are in terms of the demand for transportation fuels and other elements.
At the same time, we do see some uptick in refining in Latin America with our startups, both in Argentina and in Mexico, to support their refining industry as well. Actually that's been a benefit for us as we look at large industries growth on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter. I think it's a mix. I think it's clearly softer. To the point that Benoît made, and also François, I think there are some trends as well with the energy transition that are very evident in Europe currently, and I think are more contemplated at this point in time in the U.S., but clearly being looked at.
Thank you. That's really good detail.
Thank you. On the electrolyzer, the question about partnership in Europe and Asia. I think what you have to realize is that there are two issues. One is related to the cost. Asia Pacific is a good place to actually make partnership with local manufacturers because the cost of manufacturing is lower, definitely, in Asia. We have some. We have some in Asia, in China, for example. It's more related to the distribution equipment than to the manufacturing of electrolyzers. The second issue is the technology itself. It is related to membranes, to catalysts, to electrodes. There are a lot of improvement to make, and it's more sophisticated. I would say today it's not obvious to detect and find someone in Asia that has a real leading edge in those technologies.
If we exclude the membranes and the fuel cells, manufactured by the car industry, namely Toyota and Hyundai, essentially, and some others in China. We are better off for the production facilities to find partners either in Europe or in North America because this is where the leadership is today. If in the future we had opportunity to find partners or potential partners in those technologies in Asia, of course, we would contemplate also signing partnerships with Asia. It's open, but I think what we've done today is to have two feet, actually one in North America and one in Europe, and that fits very well with what we have to do right now.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question.
The next question comes from the line of Gunther Zechmann from Bernstein.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Firstly, on the margin potential for 2021. One thing missing from the slide 19 is any operating leverage that you could get from volume growth. With IP rebounding consensus has you at 6% comparable growth in 2021. How much margin improvement should we expect from this growth? Secondly, on the ROCE target, it seems that the growth investments are the bigger factor of the two reasons you gave to push that two years down. What level of CapEx should we therefore expect over the next two to three years? Should we be at the higher end of the 12%-13% CapEx to sales range or even above that? Thank you.
Fabienne, take the margins, and I will supplement on the CapEx.
Well, I think these margin questions are turning to harassment, right? As you know, we are not going to give you a number for next year. Actually, the decrease of IP, which resulted in a lower activity in the industrial businesses, was compensated by the cost-cutting plan and was overcompensated by this cost-cutting plan by 20 basis points, as I explained. You should not expect a specific rebound due to the IP pickup because we just compensated this IP downturn by the cost cutting. When the IP picks up, we will have to release the cost and then you shouldn't expect any specific rebound from that. You should expect an improvement, as explained before, from our performance improvement plan that we have described many time. In terms of level of CapEx, those industrial CapEx are EUR 2.6 billion in 2020.
Should continue to increase probably up to EUR 2.9 billion-EUR 3 billion in 2021 given the number of projects signed and the increased backlogs.
Great.
It means that in terms of CapEx to sales, your reference of about 12% will probably increase slightly. This is just math. It's good news because when we look at the nature of those investments, most of them are related to growth. We have also now introduced efficiency and part of our CapEx are just driven to efficiency, which by the way, is also why we have such improvement in margin ratio. The mechanics, the process of injecting CapEx into the company for efficiency is now delivering. I think it's good. Back to our previous comments, because of the energy transition trend, it's clear that not just the CapEx, which is the expenditure of past decisions, but the investment decisions are very strong.
It means that in the years to come, if the trend continues, which we think it will happen, we should see more and more opportunities in the energy transition, which will translate into more investment decisions and more CapEx. I'd like just to make a comment on how we select our projects and how important is the return in the selection process. We keep the same discipline in the allocation of cash to CapEx. It is not because we had a one year in COVID and a lack of growth in general in the world that we forget our targets in terms of returns on our projects and then on the return on capital employed. All those projects have to be profitable. We have not changed our rules, and so all those investments will be made with the same discipline as the one we had before.
Just a comment, but I wanted to make it.
Great. Thank you. If I can sneak in one follow-up, if I may. Just on the net profit guidance, can I just confirm that you expect an increase in net profit despite probably higher tax rates, as you don't have the benefit from the schülke divestment benefiting the tax rate anymore?
Tax rate, I think deserves an answer from Fabienne, because there are several points that we may just highlight. Fabienne?
Yes. We confirm that the guidance embarks a new increase in net profit, even if the effective tax rates will come back, let's say to normal, probably between 25.5% and 26%. You notice that this guidance is given excluding any impact of a U.S. tax reform. If Mr. Biden deploys his plan as early as 2021, we will have a strong impact on the taxes paid in the U.S., probably in the $70 million range. It's recurring net profit, even if the tax rate is coming back to normal and excluding any impact of a potential U.S. tax reform. Okay?
Fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question.
The next question comes from the line of Alex Stewart from Barclays.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. They are hopefully very straightforward. You talked about a one-off impact in Russia in the European large industries business. Could you just try and quantify that for us, if it is meaningful to help establish the underlying trends? Then finally, if you could possibly, Fabienne, give some indication of where you expect the D&A charge to be this year, given the investments, but also the moving parts with consolidation and deconsolidating new assets would be really helpful. Thank you.
Yes. Maybe Fabienne, you can take this one-off impact.
Yeah. This one-off consists in the transfer of some civil work construction to a customer just before the startup of the new unit. Apart from that, large industry would be more or less flat in Q4 in Europe. The underlying trend is flat to slight growth, in Europe.
The impact, where do we expect to be in D&A?
In D&A, in H1, you see that we have quite a number of startups which are planned and should contribute in 2021. We expect clearly D&A to be back on the growing side for 2021 and as early as H1.
Just for memory, you remember that D&A was flat in 2020, but 2.1% increase excluding ForEx. It's a modest increase. We have, of course, ups and downs. The ups are the startups and ramp-ups, and the downs are the drops. The drops are the CapEx that we had 15 or 20 years ago. Of course, the increase due to startup and ramp-up is higher than the drops. That's just a normal way of managing CapEx and depreciation.
To add on that, the takeover of Sasol when it's going to be effective, is also going to contribute, of course, to the increase of the D&A quite significantly.
Next question.
The next question comes from the line of Adam Collins from Liberum.
Yeah. Good morning. I've got a couple left, please. Firstly, on healthcare gases, to what extent is the dry ice business benefiting from vaccine storage? On the energy transition, you've got a pretty distinctive offer in biogas development, including quite a high-profile project now in the U.K. How significant do you think that biogas will be in the low-carbon hydrogen scale-up?
I think François can take the first question on healthcare, and I'll take the second one. François?
Yes. Regarding the vaccine and the impact on the business, you know that there are many different vaccines, but I think you're referring to the one which needs to be stored and transported at very negative temperature.
The logistics is a very specific logistics, which requires dry ice. We do supply logistics, either the pharma company or the logistics provider in the different parts of the world. We are not able to disclose names of customer, but indeed, wherever we are present in the Americas, in Europe especially, we do contribute to this. This is overall a small part of the business. It's very critical to ensure the proper logistic today, but the financial impact at the scale of the Air Liquide Group is quite limited.
Second question on biogas. Biogas is developing nicely. This is due to the fact that we have a unique technology, membrane-based, and we've been able to, in Europe at least, but also in the U.S., we've been able to offer this technology and package it into a service offer actually. It's not yet significant at the group level, but if you take GMT, which is our Global Markets and Technologies, biogas is above 20% of GMT. It is bringing growth to GMT. I don't think it will stop there, because there is a demand resulting from a sort of trend in energy transition, but also in a clean and in the circular economy. There's a need and there's a demand for more recycling in agriculture, but also in the energy field.
We think the number of opportunities will increase, and we think that what we've been able to do so far will continue in the years to come. It may represent more of the GMT activity. It's more than 20% today. GMT itself is rather small in the group, you don't have to expect a significant impact at the group level. At the GMT level, yes. Finally, I want to make a comment on biogas. Biogas for us is this service to purify biogas into biomethane. Biomethane, even if it is subsidized today, will have more and more value because it's natural gas coming from renewable. It is qualified. If you take the European Commission, biogas is qualified as a renewable source, and hydrogen produced from biogas is renewable hydrogen.
I think bio will find its place in the energy mix, including as a source of product to produce renewable hydrogen. I think that's why we need to consider this product not just as an energy, but also as a source of primary energy for hydrogen in the future. I hope it covers your point.
It does indeed. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question.
The next question comes from Peter Clark from Société Générale.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. I'm looking West, so these are probably for Mike, but just your biggest competitor was pointing to some encouraging trends that were happening on the packaged gas and hard goods side in the U.S., certainly going into January. I noticed in Q4, your IM sales or volumes in Americas were still down over 8%. I'm just wondering on your thoughts as we look into 2021 for that business that was still very depressed, even in the final quarter on a year-on-year volume basis. Also on the investment opportunities, obviously the Americas has fallen sharply. I think it was 14% on your slide. Clearly, that reflects probably some of the customers, refiners. There's no electro or less electronics there. I'm just wondering your thoughts on that, because obviously 40% of your gases business is there.
I know it's IM weighted. Effectively it's a big chunk of business. Just wondering if there's some energy transition comments you want to make about that 14%. Thank you.
Yes. I think Mike is well-placed to answer all those questions. Just a comment before I hand over to Mike. I think you're right in pointing the fact that there were less investment opportunities in the U.S. recently. It's very simple, actually, to understand that. The energy world is in big transformation, as I explained earlier, and at the same time, electronics in particular in Asia is very strong. I said that the investment decisions in electronics today are about 3x more than they were five years ago. Definitely there is a big wave of investment in electronics, and it is in Asia. The energy transition today is more in Europe.
Until and unless, but I think it will come, the U.S. actually moves to the real energy transition, there might be less opportunities in the U.S. than in Europe and Asia, just for the reasons I mentioned. I will leave it to Mike to supplement and give you more details. Mike?
Thanks, Benoît. Good morning, Peter. First of all, just focusing in on the U.S. market and maybe looking at it from an Airgas perspective. As we talked about through the year, I think that different markets, obviously, that we serve have reacted in different ways throughout COVID. Clearly anything tied to food, beverages, life sciences and pharma remained strong through COVID, and they are clearly in growth mode as we look at where we are today. What continued to be soft was retail, obviously with all the impacts with lockdowns and also limited availability in the retail space for people to enjoy that. What did happen, I think, is after we got through the depths of the impact of the second quarter, we started to see clear improvement in the transportation sectors.
As we moved into Q4, an even stronger demand in transportation, an uplift from an industrial perspective, and even heavy equipment began to strengthen in Q4. You see significant growth in both commercial and passenger vehicles, and you've also seen now clear improvement from a durable goods standpoint. That improvement in capital goods, be it for machinery, be it for factory equipment, clearly began to show itself in the fourth quarter. As you've seen, whether it's PMI or some of the other key indicators, they all strengthened in the fourth quarter and kind of got back to or above where they were before we entered the COVID environment. All that's been strong. What remains weak, though, is the construction activity in general and also anything that touches the oil and gas markets.
In looking at that in general, as things evolved, as we went through the fourth quarter, on average, we said we were 90% recovered. I think as we went through the year, and into the later part of the fourth quarter, we continued to see improvement. I think from a liquid standpoint, it's almost fully recovered. It kind of ebbs and flows, and clearly there's very strong demand for medical oxygen. In the industrial space, it's close to being recovered. I think in packaged gas volumes, depending on what region you're in, you're 90%-95% recovered. Clearly in those areas that are more affected by construction or by oil and gas, you're still seeing an opportunity for further recovery. In hard goods are roughly at that kind of 90% level of where we were pre-COVID. I think that's kind of where we are.
I think the trends are there. Cold chain logistics are going to remain strong. You see heavy-duty Class 8 truck orders now up to 30,000, 35,000 units above the 4,000 they were in April. Medium truck orders are the highest they've been since June of 2018. Rail car capacity utilization is starting to improve. Automotive sales are clearly getting back to pre-pandemic rates. I think all those signs are very good, and we see those trends continuing as we get into the first quarter. I think that's where we see it. We do need to see, though, the improvement in construction and in some respects in those limited markets where it's an impact to kind of the oil and gas activity. In terms of business development in large industries, as you're aware, we continued actually to sign projects.
I think we had two projects we announced throughout 2020 as well. We were able to continue to demonstrate business development activity. As you're aware, I think with the softening of the markets, especially in the durable space, while there were a number of projects contemplated pre-COVID, some of those were deferred. They weren't canceled, but they've been deferred until the markets fully recover and the companies can see daylight. I think that's why you see some level of softening in some of the projections. We're going to see 10 startups in the Americas over the course of 2020. A very strong year from that perspective. We still were able to see some signings. To the point Benoît made, I think the energy transition and its impact is very evident in Europe.
Here, as you know, in the fourth quarter of last year, we started up the new industrialized PEM membrane activity up in Bécancour. That's up and running and running very well. We've got the new facilities that are being built in Nevada to supply the needs in California for the introduction of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles there. I think what we will see with the continued evolution of the energy transition and concerns regarding climate, we likely will see an uptick in opportunities there, joint with the opportunities that will begin to prevail as markets recover in the normal space, especially from a chemical standpoint. I think chemicals continues to strengthen. Steel has actually strengthened, and we're waiting for oil and gas to recover.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Well, given the time, I think we just have time for one last question. As we have another session with analysts this afternoon, I think you can just keep your questions and we can have another discussion. Last question right now.
The next question comes from the line of Jean-Luc Romain from Market Solutions.
Thank you for taking my question. Do you hear me? I would like to ask two questions about technologies. The first one is about refining. You mentioned the new consciousness of refiners in the Middle East and elsewhere to reduce their CO2 emissions. Do you see a market for your Cryocap technology there? As the first question, the second is on hydrogen. A new entrant in France, Schlumberger, seems to be willing to develop a solid oxide technology with CEA of Grenoble and other companies. What's your view on that technology?
Quickly, Cryocap, yes. As I said earlier, we have now the experience of Cryocap. Cryocap is working well, and there's an interest in the market. We have discussions with several refiners to actually implement this technology in existing plants. Yes, there is a market for that, and it's actually good news. A new entrant in hydrogen in Schlumberger in France and the use of solid oxide fuel cell technology with CEA. This is the third technology that is being promoted. It's a high-temperature technology, different from the alkaline and the PEM. It's less obvious that this technology will be used extensively. It is very specific. It's more a niche to me in the different technology map. It might be in some occasions, some circumstances might be interesting. Now, the fact that there's a new entrant, there are many new entrants everywhere.
We hear about initiatives everywhere in the world. Which is the proof that there is a high interest on hydrogen and that hydrogen will find its way. Market-wise, it's good news. For competition, I think it's just a normal game that we experience every day. Nothing more to say about neither this new entrant nor the technology. Thank you very much. I'm sure you have other questions, but, as we've planned another analyst meeting this afternoon, I think this will be the right time to continue our discussion. Thank you very much. Again, a very good year under the circumstances, growth and resilience, and I think a lot of opportunities as we've been discussing for the future. I think we are in good shape to continue our growth and the improvement of our margins in the years to come.
Thank you very much, and have a good day.
Thank you very much. Bye-bye.