Bonjour à toutes.
Good morning to you one and all. Thank you for taking part in this little meeting. As is our custom, I'm with Christian Labeyrie. In the room, you've also got most of the executive committee members, including José María, Chief of Cobra IS, who will be able to field questions later if anyone has questions in English. First of all, to look at some pictures, they're very important.
On the cover page here, we can see the establishment in the North Sea of the first conversion platform, AC/DC conversion, built by Cobra with a joint venture, Siemens Energy. As you saw in our press releases, we've got five others on order. The last two are about two times as big as what we see here. Capacity is two times greater, more than two times greater than the capacity of the first two stations.
We can come back to the point. This picture tells us again that France won't meet its carbon neutrality commitments by 2050 without a major and highly urgent effort to decarbonize roads, particularly motorways. We're already working very hard on our VINCI Autoroutes networks, but the bulk of the work remains yet to be done and will require significant investments. A picture illustrating the acquisition of 29.99% of the O-M-A company, OMA, that manages a cluster of 13 airports in Mexico, including the Monterey Airport, which alone has about half of the 23 million passengers booked by the cluster in 2022. This picture is an illustration of the signature to buy the 55% of the company called Entrevias, which in turn is a concessionaire of 570 kilometers of motorways in Brazil.
A portion of this is being widened, 210 km is being widened. I'll come back to the point. Many acquisitions at VINCI Energies, specifically, under the ICT component, information communication technology, through the takeover of ICT expertise that previously was held by the Kontron company operating in 11 Eastern and Central European countries. This further strengthens VINCI Energies' Axians specialty, which means it'll be achieving around EUR 3.3 billion or EUR 3.4 billion in revenue in 2023. This picture is an illustration of a major deal won by Cobra, which will begin the work on the first land terminal for regasification of liquefied natural gas in Germany. As you know, Germany was highly dependent on Russian gas, so very urgently, they quickly leased ships they could use to regasify LNG.
four or five of these were installed, but of course, that's a temporary solution. Germany must build land regasification terminals to diversify sources of supply for its gas. We won the first one simply because we, Cobra had already been working on this for many years and speeded things up further due to recent developments, particularly the war in Ukraine. Here we have a picture which is an illustration of a major deal won recently by VINCI Construction. It's a joint venture with our Spanish comrades from Ferrovial. They're very serious, very good company. It's a design build contract for a significant portion of the new Toronto metro subway in Ontario. This will prevent 28,000 vehicles worth of traffic every day, which will mean a significant reduction in greenhouse gas.
Lastly, VINCI Immobilier will also make it in a timely fashion to deliver a major section of the athletes' village. We're showcasing this because it's a beautiful example of urban regeneration in industrial brownfield. To come back now to our achievements in 2022, VINCI is doing well. In 2022, we book strong growth in re-revenue and profits. Cash flow generation is at a record level. There's been a highly satisfactory renewal of our order books and growth in our environmental and social performance. This is an illustration of the resilience of our business model, and especially our major ability to adapt, as the case of all 4,000 of our business units, highly adaptable. Firstly, Cobra IS is now very well integrated. This has confirmed further that it's a wonderful driver of growth and performance.
Together with VINCI Energies, which was already growing beautifully, if we put both of these together, we're talking about an energy branch making over EUR 22 billion in revenue. Because they're at the crux of major transformations afoot right now that are caused by the energy transition and the digital revolution. Among other things, we're deploying renewable energy fields at our airports, our motorways, and even at a bigger scale further. Cobra IS covered countries such as the Iberian Peninsula, as well as Latin America, mainly. The good news. Our first renewable photovoltaic field of 0.6 GW, 600 MW, will begin producing, generating green power as of 2023, and this is taking place in Brazil. VINCI Construction is reaping the benefits of its new organization and, most importantly, the benefits of its major, highly disciplined way of accepting order intake.
A fairly spectacular recovery at VINCI Airports, which speeded up throughout the year. Further recovery will continue in 2023 for airports. Road traffic, motorway traffic held up well, especially in France, in fact, it's now above levels observed before the pandemic in spite of hikes in fuel prices. All in all, we see net debt going down significantly. The debt down by EUR 3.1 billion over the three-year period in spite of several major acquisitions such as Cobra or OMA and further re-purchases. Over the past three years, financial investments have been on the order of EUR 8 billion, in spite of the EUR 8 billion, our debt is brought down by EUR 3.1 billion, as we can see. I'll come back to the point quickly later.
Very methodologically, we roll out our environmental strategy, and all of our employees join in on this. Important thing to see here is that all geographies are growing. North America growing significantly, reaching around EUR 5 billion, whereas Latin America, Europe, and Oceania are also growing very satisfactorily. Of course, reaping the benefits of the strong positions that Cobra IS has as well in these various geographies. All in all, we can say that for the first time in our history, we're making over half of our revenue outside of France, specifically around 45% revenues from France, and the remainder from outside of France is very much in line with the strategic decisions we took around 10 years ago now.
To delve into further detail on the business lines, VINCI Autoroutes, light vehicle traffic above the traffic levels in 2019, as I mentioned already, in spite of increases in fuel prices. Furthermore, there were problems of fuel availability, which you all felt last fall in spite of all growth. This growth, well, part of it is due to the return of our foreign customers, our non-French customers. This is readily apparent at several borders and several motorway sections. Heavy vehicle traffic was already doing well in 2021. You'll remember it's continuing to grow by 22% in 2022. All in all, this is beyond growth. It goes beyond macroeconomic growth. This is to a large degree due to development of e-commerce.
By way of illustration here, I'd mention basically a doubling in the annual pace of construction of logistics warehouses alongside our motorways. That's a very good piece of news because it means, Well, it's not all of a sudden that road shipping will take some other means of transportation because now the logistics warehouses have been set up alongside motorways, particularly near the hub areas of the motorway sections. That's a done deal, this is something that developed in a very big way, particularly since 2015. This illustration of our major efforts in decarbonization, 100% of our motorway rest areas at VINCI Autoroutes have electric recharging stations, 1,750 charging points.
An important thing is 1,400 of these are ultra-rapid charging stations of over 150 kW. You can well imagine people can't have their vehicles spending eight hours to wait to be charged on a slow charge when you're making a long-distance trip and you're stopped at a motorway rest area. VINCI Airports, I said the recovery is speeding up. Q4 2022 was just down 17% versus Q4 of 2019. Traffic more than doubled over the full year period versus 2021. Several geographies and countries have already reached levels above or near the pre-pandemic situation. The U.K. is recovering quickly. The Asia zone will be gradually reaping the benefits of the lifting of travel restrictions, particularly recent decisions made by China.
We'd also observe that significant work being done over the past three years on OpEx has made it possible to see a significant impact on EBITDA, which is even above the level of 2019. Net income is over EUR 500 million, to tell the truth, which is much higher than we were thinking and actually saying a year ago. Thanks to all this, and added to the fact that there's a cut in CapEx because we'd frozen a lot of CapEx during the pandemic, not all CapEx, but much of it. ViINCI Airports' free cash flow in 2022 goes beyond EUR 1 billion. Vinci Airports also has environmental targets that are highly ambitious, targeting carbon neutrality in 2030. Several airports will reach this as of 2026.
Particularly, we're seeing a systematic rollout of PV farms whenever possible in airport areas. We have resumed external growth at VINCI Airports. For instance, the signature of a 40-year concession for seven airports in Cape Verde to be closed toward mid-2023. More recently, we're now owner of 29.99% of the OMA Airport cluster. Important to observe traffic here as of last July reached the pre-COVID levels. It's a done deal. Just like in our motorways, we're seeing that there's a strong desire to commute, to travel, to be mobile. This is very strong. What's striking in air traffic is this is remaining very high in spite of significant increases in ticket prices, which you'll all have noticed.
On average, 30% increases in airplane ticket prices, that has not held back people's desire to travel and be mobile amongst the citizenry. To talk about VINCI Highways, this is motorways outside of France, plus other concessions. We're seeing the same positive trends for traffic, particularly motorway traffic in Peru and in Greece. I'll say rail with SCA and then in our stadiums, particularly the Stade de France, which is actively preparing to accommodate the Rugby World Cup in the fall of 2023, as well as the Olympics and Paralympics Games in the summer of 2024.
Strengthening of our percentage stake in several assets such as the Confederation Bridge in Canada and the Rio-Antirrio Bridge in Greece, then it's the two bridges over the Tagus in Portugal. Full acquisition of the TollPlus company. We mentioned this last time, I believe. They're an expert in more and more strategic business lines, i.e., IT solutions for land mobility. The acquisition of the 55% of Entrevias that I already mentioned to you. To talk about VINCI Energies, a really truly beautiful year at VINCI Energies. Revenue up again 11%, even a further speeding up in revenue growth in Q4.
VINCI Energies not only is growing but is also further improving its EBIT margin, which standing at 6.8% versus 6.5% in 2021, which is truly remarkable and further illustrates, I believe, the power and robustness of our business model well established on the mega-trend, which is energy transition and the digital revolution. These are mega-trends which are going to be buoyant for quite some time to come. Furthermore, this is thanks to an excellent geographical diversification. Lastly, VINCI Energies, as always, continues its strategy of growth through acquisition. 31 small, medium, and sometimes biggish companies acquired, particularly in the ICT area from the Kontron group that I just mentioned a moment ago. The first successful year for Cobra IS and the group.
And it's revenue about 44% in Spain and 34% in Latin America. It breaks out basically into three main segments. First of all, flow business. Flow business representing 2/3 of revenue. This is very important. This is a guarantee for stability and resilience. Next come the EPC projects, engineering, procurement, construction projects. They're ever bigger scale. They're turnkey operations requiring many types of expertise. Think of the AC/DC conversion power stations we saw on the first slide. Furthermore, the regasification, the LNG regasification plants we already talked about. We're also talking about some very high voltage, up to 500,000 volts, transportation lines for power in Brazil. Also, systems for transport infrastructure management such as winning a deal in 2022 for the Fehmarn tunnel. Here we also have teams working from VINCI Construction, I'd add.
This EPC portion, we can say the size of business fluctuates more here depending on how things vary. We're in a very positive phase right now. Many deals on offer to our various companies, particularly Cobra. This is once again because we're surfing the mega-trends to the energy transition and development of transport, virtuous transportation infrastructures such as subways, metros, and other types of mobility that are kinder to the environment. Third segment at Cobra is to develop renewable energy production fields. The pipeline of projects under development standing at 15 gigawatts, the same figure as the one I mentioned a year ago. Not exactly the same, 14, 15. You have to add to this 2 GW that now have all the authorizations, the building permit, the environmental permit, the permit to connect to the grid.
This is 2 GW. Some of this is the 0.6 GW I mentioned to you earlier, electricity production come online in 2023, plus 0.3 GW, also photovoltaic in Spain, which will see its work begin in 2023, and then 0.6 GW in Brazil, again photovoltaic, which should begin construction in the next few months. All of this is an illustration that 2 GW at maturity now, almost ready to build, and the pipeline we've still got ahead of us under development has been replenished so that it is still a significant volume, 14 GW. All of this is very much in line with our roadmap, in fact, going beyond it because we indicated to you 1 GW per annum initially.
It's possible we'll be more in the neighborhood of 1.5 GW, especially if you add the PV developments along our motorways as well as our airport assets. New VINCI Construction is making good on its promises. Strong activity and growing. Growth of revenue of more than 11%, EUR 29 billion, 55% of which outside of France. The UK, France, the Czech Republic, North America, and Oceania. Important to point that out. We're seeing a ramp-up of the major projects won previously, such as one in the UK, HS2, and also a very good deal flow of big projects. Also a very good deal flow of small and medium deals. In electrical engineering, that's important to have to make sure you're highly resilient, all sizes.
EBIT margin growing 3.8%, and will continue to grow. The key motto at VINCI Construction is selectivity. Selectivity more than ever before. We don't talk about market share and volume. We are talking about striving for operational excellence and performance. The good news is the size and the quality of our order books, give us the confidence we need to know that we're able to continue with this policy of being highly selective. Order intake 2022 was very good. We can see it on the slide, up 12% excluding Cobra. Up 32%, like, changing the scope, i.e., including Cobra. On the right-hand side, we see a particularly significant harvest of orders outside of France. This order intake bigger in non-French Europe and international outside Europe than in France.
Even in France, order intake is very good, 10 on the order of 10%. Lastly, property development. The environment deteriorated here. In residential property, a pretty abrupt shift from the previous situation where you had strong demand. Shift to the situation where we've got a scarcity of supply that's priced in line with interest rates. People's purchasing power has been cut by increased interest rates. That's on residential real estate. Then we're seeing very clear wait and see stances taken by investors in office real estate. Wait and see by the investors is ever since the beginning of the pandemic. Housing unit reservations down by approximately 17%, even slightly more, significantly more in the most recent months of 2022. According to initial figures of 2023, even though obviously we're not going to disclose annual trends.
Which is to say we're starting to move into a more difficult period when it comes to residential real estate. However, there is a section of residential that's doing well, a niche which we've begun developing. We began developing several years ago. Now, here I'm talking about serviced residences both for students and seniors. This is particularly popular amongst seniors. These are not nursing homes. These are service departments for older people. These are not medical facilities. We are not in the same category as the other guys. Another very important point, something I think I already touched upon. VINCI Immobilier was the number one developer, the first developer to set a target for zero sealing of soil by 2030 in net terms, which will make for major transformation in property development.
We will tend to focus on urban regeneration operations, such as our new headquarters office or such as the athletes, the Olympic Athletes Village that you saw earlier. No doubt about it, the property market will improve again in the future. We feel it's going to see improvement fairly soon in residential because the country, more than ever before, needs new housing units. Whether we're talking about housing that people buy or housing to be rent, rented as social housing. We'll have a problem in this country if a major gesture is not made to boost increased construction of new housing. I'll hand over to Christian Labeyrie now, who's going to report the figures to us.
Merci. Thank you, Xavier. On revenue, a lot has been said. Growth on close to 25% at actual scope. 60 in revenue. Constant up 12%. Strong increase in concessions, plus 30% on the back of growing traffic of motorways, the rebound of VINCI Airports. VINCI Autoroutes revenue up 8%. VINCI Airports more than double that of 2021, slightly above 2019 pre-COVID level. VINCI Highways, essentially international order route activities and e-toll management activities. As you said, the control of Toll Plus in the U.S . In 2022 and the Prince Edward SCDI Bridge in Canada, revenue up 55% in real terms, 24% like for like. VINCI Energies up 11% like for like, 8% accelerating quarter after quarter.
Growth in revenue of VINCI Energies, both France and internationally. VINCI Construction up 11%, like for like 8.5, fully leveraging its international growth. Scope effect, EUR 5.5 billion integration of Cobra IS acquisitions, VINCI Energies some 30. In 2022, the most significant, cemented at the end of last year, Kontron AG added to that of total 30 over the years, some 60 acquisitions contributing for about EUR 260 million additional revenue in 2022. VINCI Concessions, the integration of the Confederation Bridge, full year that's EUR 40 million, EUR 26 million and EUR 16 million in 2022. VINCI Airports integration since the 1st of January of the Amazonian airports, some EUR 50 million. In 2023, we'll have the integration of OMA for close on EUR 500 million. Cape Verde, about EUR 30 million full year, half for 2023.
Net impact of currency translation adjustments EUR 1.5. That's the reveling at average rates of some 10% for the dollar as well as other currencies linked to the dollar. Next slide gives you the split by geographic area. Strong rebound in revenue versus 2021, driven by international operations, +46% +17% like for like, thanks to Cobra for the actual change. Growth in France is noteworthy 6%, pretty much on a par with inflation, but differences by business. VINCI Energies above 9%. VINCI Construction below +2% illustrates our selective approach at VINCI Construction. In conclusion on this chapter, VINCI is accelerating the expansion of its international footprint. That's in line with one of our strategic goals set out a long time ago.
For first time, over half VINCI revenue, 55% achieved internationally as against 47% last year. Operating income from ordinary activities of each division. Overall remarkable performance increases across businesses. EBITDA VINCI Highways over EUR 3 billion, 52% of revenue topping its 2019 level just below EUR 3 billion. VINCI Airports, thanks to accelerating traffic recovery throughout the year and drastic savings plans put in place during COVID, sees its ROPA grow strongly. It now reaching close on EUR 1 billion. That's pretty much the 2019 level. Other cause for satisfaction, EBITDA VINCI Energies, VINCI Construction are up, coming in approximately at EUR 1.2 billion, 30% better than in 2019. The operating margins of these two divisions continue to grow in spite of cost inflation and supply chain difficulties in certain markets.
For VINCI Energies, operating margin reaches 6.8% of revenue, 30 basis points higher than last year, 80 basis points higher than 2019. Majority of our businesses and geographies at VINCI Energies contribute to this excellent overall performance, strengthening VINCI Energies amongst the most the best performing companies in its sector. Cobra IS delivering EBITDA of over EUR 400 million, excellent margin in line with our expectations above 7%. For VINCI Construction, operating margin up 10 basis points versus 2021, 3.8%. That's a good, even very good level given industry characteristics, size of the company, even if there's room for further progress, it's a level never before reached at VINCI for over 10 years. VINCI Construction margin reflects good performance in major projects, specialty networks, Soletanche Freyssinet, good profit margin internationally, North America, Australia, New Zealand.
To preempt Jean-Christophe's question, let's flag that there are no material claims to be noted that would boost these results. As always, there are challenging work sites inherent to the business. There are also very good projects, HS2 in the U.K., or the start up of the FEMR, or the Greater Paris Project. VINCI Construction margin reflects the initial positive effects of the French reorganization into four subdivisions, building, roadwork, civil engineering, specialty, hydraulics, earthworks, demolition. We can of course do better, notably U.K., Africa. We can bank on continued improvement of VC margins going forward. Lastly, EBITDA VINCI Real Estate amount is more modest, is also up on the year, as well as the profit margin.
As Xavier said, this performance can't necessarily be extrapolated going forward given the difficult climate in France. Moving along the income statement, IFRS 2 to be related to a group policy. The 270,000 people, international headcount more important, and we're striving to offer profit-sharing systems linked to VINCI share capital. Contribution of subsidiaries consolidated at equity. There are pluses and improvements in Japanese airports, minuses because there are acquisition costs under this item. No under the one-off items, no impairment test impact to be noted. As regards the financial expenses, bit surprising in terms of what you're entitled. Slightly down EUR 614 as against EUR 658. The explanation is the rising interest rate hasn't yet impacted us a great deal in 2022.
In fact, more in Q4 we benefited the positive rate of return on our cash. 2023 is likely to be less favorable with rising interest rates full year. There's also swap rate variability that in the right direction, that is in the wrong direction last year. Other financial items, very positive, reflecting revaluation of our stake in ADP. Let me say that since we no longer have a seat on the board, ADP shares are marked to market, which has improved significantly in 2022, hence a positive impact on our financials. An impact at Gatwick of the early redemption of certain loans under par, generating a profit of ISL of those bond redemptions, 'cause Gatwick had the necessary cash to do that.
Tax-wise, an increase in the tax bill higher than what's shown here. 2.6, we had an expense of EUR 400 million linked to the revaluation of income tax in the U.K. was purely book impact on our deferred tax. Strong increase in the tax expense for France. We spent just over EUR 1 billion tax on profits. The same amount to be added in terms of production tax in the income tax. Over EUR 2 billion in taxes, which puts us quite well in the list of French taxpayers. Net income after EUR 4.259 billion. That's a record, I'm sure of that. That's EPS of close on EUR 5.50. Next slide is the change in the debt over a year. The free cash flow record, free cash EUR 5.4 billion, very much higher than what we could expect.
A few weeks before the end of the year, the last forecast was strengthened by Bloomberg. Consensus in November was EUR 4.7. We delivered EUR 700 better. Over half, this gap comes, this variance comes from a strong level of cash in towards the end of the down payments one received on the project in Canada, one in the final weeks of the year. That's remarkable performance. WCR improved sharply of late in 20 and 21 during COVID because the admin teams were ready to call in receivables.
Those benefits were not reversed in 2022. I would tend to repeat this year. It's the case this year. We can't consider that the 2023 cash flow level can be considered as normative going forward. All the more the CapEx, be it at Cobra to grow renewables in Greenfield or at VINCI Airports, is set to rise. VINCI Airports in particular, the 2022 CapEx is EUR 200 billion below what it was in 2019. Necessarily, there'll be a catch-up in the lag here.
Notably Portugal, the U.K. and Cobra will continue to invest significant sums in renewals, about EUR 400 million this year, probably more going forward. Hence the normative cash flow. To make a forecast, I'll risk of the order of EUR 4 billion-EUR 4.5 billion, but not necessarily more. EUR 2.7 billion, financial investment. That includes the acquisition of OMA for EUR 1.5 billion at the end of the year, partially funded in Mexican peso. EUR 600 million at VINCI Energies, over half for Kontron. That was the deal that was cemented at the end of last year.
VINCI Highways for about EUR 300 million, if we include the consolidation of the debt of companies acquired. The Canada bridge previously not consolidated, about EUR 100 million at VINCI Construction, essentially in North America. Cash out pertaining to dividend and share buybacks in the cash effect of the debt linked to the mark-to-market of our exchange rate derivatives. Reduction of debt over a year of EUR 1 billion. Next slide is the way in which free cash flow is crafted, quote unquote, "Over the years." First part of the year, we don't generate a lot of FCF up until July. It's only after that that the curve begins to rise with December that's particularly significant. It has happened certain years that it even accounts 50% of the year's cash flow, 2022 was 44%. That's a lot.
More in certain businesses, a lot more in 2021, 35%, in 2020, 51%, 2019, 24%. Hence, the difficulty to give you a very accurate forecast, especially at the start of the year. That's due to very specific situation of receivables at the end of the year, and that'll be VINCI Construction, Energy and Cobra. Putting things into perspective, next slide, on 10 years, we see that FCF generation at VINCI is rising incrementally, very high and recurring on average per year. Cash flows improved 11% per annum, but 17% over the last five years. That's way above the increase in profit on the average 8% over the period, accelerating since 2018.
As I said, once again, we can't consider the levels reached in 2021, 2022 over EUR 5 billion are normative for reasons difficult to predict CapEx both at airports and Cobra. Balance sheet is, of course, very solid, even more so. Equity, EUR 4.6 billion. WCR, negative WCR. It's a free resource, obviously, that's very appreciable, that strengthened further. Our long-term assets, coming in at close to EUR 5 billion, that will increase by close on EUR 5 billion, covering the large part of CapEx and acquisitions. Reduction in net debt by EUR 1 billion, as I said. Free cash flow above EUR 9 billion, same level, even slightly higher than last year's.
It means that if we reason EBITDA multiple, not necessarily the right reason, often we do, the debt ratio has improved because debt was 2.5x EBITDA in 2021, and it's down to a 1.8 in 2022. It's a level that may not be viewed by some as optimal if we want to reason in optimizing cost of capital. We accept that. It's a consequence of our prudence. It's a vital asset, gives us some leeway when it comes to M&A and also swiftness in our recovery since COVID. Next, financial policy. Well, you already know this. We attach great importance to liquidity, ability to mobilize resources, if need be, to reimburse our loans. In 2022, we reimbursed EUR 2.6 billion maturing to optimize our refinancing cost.
To pick the right time to position on the market in 2022, we issued two bonds, one in August, ASF, October for VINCI, more recently, January this year for ASF. Also to seize M&A opportunities, part of our strategy as we decided in December 2021, by writing a check to ACS, close on EUR 5 billion to acquire Cobra. More recently at the end of 2022, take a 30% stake in Omran to acquire Kontron. At VINCI Energies, all in all, over three years, we achieved EUR 8 billion in acquisitions. That's a lot. Need to fund that in over four years. Over EUR 16 billion in M&A debt reversals by VINCI. That's an average of EUR 4 billion per year in spite of COVID.
Have total liquidity, including unused credit, EUR 20 billion increased in 2022, estimated over the uncertain period, especially during the summer because of the Ukraine Conflict. It'd be prudent to up our credit lines. We did that with the support of our banks for EUR 2.5 billion, so we're equipped to continue to meet contingencies while continuing to expand. Credit rating confirmed both by Moody's and S&P that appreciate the strength of our economic model, resilience, business diversification, and our cautious management.
Thanks to these good ratings, we can expect to continue to fund the company in good conditions, even in the changing context, and if rates aren't quite what they were a year ago. As I said, we placed in 2022 two issues, one of EUR 850 million at ASF, other of EUR 850 million at VINCI, another at EUR 700 million at ASF. The average maturity of our debt, still around seven years, at conditions higher than what they were previously, remain okay given the current rate environment. Cost of debt is the next slide. Slightly increased the weighted average in 2022 at 2.5%. That's due to the charts on the right, given the cost of debt by currency.
You see in particularly euro debt, the three main currencies' cost of debt has risen, and that the weighting by currency has changed because we have a share of debt excluding euro higher. We also have a debt excluding OECD strong currencies, Mexican pesos, Peruvian soles, et cetera. In spite of that, it remains pretty much okay. Difference between the rates on the right and left between 2.5 is an average on the year. Doesn't fully factor in the full impact of rate rises. On the right, it's the end of year, so we see what happened notably at the end of year's cross currency with 200 bips increase at the various costs by currency. Thanks.
First of all, before talking about 2023, at VINCI, we all share, have this confidence, or we're very confident in the future, as Christian said. The reason for this is because our construction, energy, and mobility business lines really place us at the very core of major challenges in this world. What are we all about? Transforming cities. We could go back to the point later. A digital revolution in all industries and human activities. Decarbonizing transportation, developing green electricity in the energy mix. Support, providing support for the emergence of low-carbon hydrogen for industry and large-scale transportation. Also, systematically tackling projects from the vantage point of preserving biodiversity and carbon footprint. It also means developing the circular economy. On all of these subjects, we are very highly involved.
We feel we are solutions providers in all these areas to rise to all of these challenges, which we find very exciting. That's the case for all 270,000 of our employees, very enthusiastic. This really gives us a great deal of leverage for further future growth. At VINCI Autoroutes, we're realistic. We accept the macroeconomic facts and also high fuel prices. For all these reasons, we expect stable traffic at VINCI Autoroutes in 2023. At VINCI Airports, on the other hand, what we're expecting is continued recovery in passenger traffic. Probably, things will lag in Asia because Asia has just reopened more recently, somewhat of a lag. Some forecasters worldwide are expecting resumption of traffic to pandemic levels as of 2023. 2022, sorry. We're more cautious. We think it'll be more toward 2024.
End of 2023, beginning of 2024 won't really change things in a big way. At any rate, continued recovery in traffic at VINCI Airports, clearly leading to everything we could calculate in terms of impact on our business performance. Onto VINCI Energies, we'll continue to grow, all the while maintaining the high level of EBIT margin already booked in 2022. VINCI Cobras has a very strong order book, truly a record order book, probably the highest order book Cobras ever had on hand in its history. This is why we expect growth of at least 10% in Cobra sales in 2023, all the while remaining top of the class in the profession in terms of EBIT margin.
VINCI Construction already said our intention is not to grow VINCI Construction, but to continue growing the EBIT margin by being even more selective. It may happen that the consequence of that discipline might cause a tiny tad of growth. We're not targeting growth, though there may well be growth. We're going to be further improving operational performance, though, and EBIT margin. Which is to say, all in all, for VINCI, what we're expecting is renewed growth in revenue and operating income to a lesser degree than in 2022 compared to 2021, but as a comparison. Our net income should be slightly above that of 2022, in spite of increased financial expenses that are crystal clear that Christian has explained very clearly.
With this great confidence, the board of directors met yesterday and decided to propose to our next shareholders meeting on April 13th, a dividend for 2022 of EUR 4 per share, payable in cash, including EUR 1 already paid as an interim dividend. The remainder of EUR 3 will be payable in cash on April 27 this year. The dividend will be taking into account the fact of the matter that you've seen, i.e., the rebound after the crisis. The new profile of this group, with further development of concessions, record levels of cash flow. This is also a way for us to demonstrate our confidence in the future.
Lastly, I won't dwell on this, but let me just say that in the presentation, you can find firstly three slides that give you details on our environmental and social ambitions, how we're making progress in this area, how we're really bringing forward with us all of our employees. Takeaway point. We're very much on track on our roadmap, particularly when it comes to our CO2 footprint, down by 13%. Also when it comes to using low-carbon concrete. Our intention is by 2030 to be using 80% low-carbon concrete, or even better, ultra low-carbon concrete. If you look just at France, we already stand at 30% usage of low-carbon concrete in all of VINCI Construction's activities. Another important parameter is recycling, the circular economy.
We already stand at 46% using recycled roadbeds for construction of motorways in France, and a very large proportion of our aggregates and other elements are from recycled materials at VINCI Construction. Our target is to reach 20 million tons in the next year, so we're somewhat ahead of schedule on that particular point. Lastly, we gave you. This is a slide you have to be careful when you look at. We're looking at our socioeconomic footprint in France. It's done by outside firm, an independent firm called UTOPIES. We've asked them to do this analysis several times before. They use methodology which is a very strong, sound methodology. It takes into account not only our impact in France. In France, we've got our own business impact. We go beyond our direct effects.
We also have. They also study our indirect impact and what we call the induced impact, i.e., the fact we pay taxes, has a knock-on effect in terms of jobs because those taxes don't just stay in a box at the Treasury Department, but they're actually used to do various things, such as, build schools, health facilities, and so forth in the country. If you take into account all of these effects, direct, indirect, and induced, we are supporting, in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the term, supporting around 1.6% of all jobs in France. That's about 460,000 jobs, 463,000 jobs, representing 1.5% of the country's GDP.
Another important parameter, based on the UTOPIES survey, if we focus yet again on France, 96.5% of our purchasing is done in France, and out of that amount, 50% purchased from small and medium-sized companies within our ecosystem. Again, the figures possibly could be questioned because the modeling involved here is highly sophisticated. The important thing is to track this to see what progress we are making in terms of our impact on the environment and society as a whole. There you have it. That's what we wanted to say to you. Now, we'd be happy to field your many questions. We will respect our tradition, as you can well imagine. We will give the floor. Yes, go ahead.
Hello, everyone. I might disappoint Christophe. It's not a VINCI Construction this year, and the complaints, but actually I'm thinking of VINCI Energies. VINCI Energies, Cobra IS, as well as ENR operations for yourselves. VINCI Energies, congratulate, 30 basis points improvement in operating margin. Question, could we get more color, more information on the profits equation? In other words, is this by business line, ICT, industry? Are they explanation for the improved performance and the absolute margins, or are there geography considerations as well that come into play?
Furthermore, regarding Cobra IS, I suspect the margin above 7% is due to turnkey projects versus recurring business. Lastly, regarding proprietary operations projects for your own account that are being developed, has VINCI managed to control its purchasing and the cost of purchasing? I know that there were issues, I do believe, for solar panels.
Well, the problem with Jean Christophe is that the labyrinthine questions I'll answer and let my colleagues maybe come in. The good news with VINCI Energies is that it's very uniform in terms of business and in terms of geography. In terms of business and geography both, I'd say. Why? Well, because the margin, psychological, if you decide to do 6.8%, doesn't happen at a drop of a hat. Everyone ends up by delivering. The margin is crafted in the mind. Second thing, VINCI Energies is a huge amount of relatively small deals, but with the systematic determination to seek out the technology value added and not to follow deals which would have low value added. That's another way of boosting margins. At the risk of disappointing you, Jean Christophe, the margin is very uniform both vertically and horizontally.
There is no business driving the others. ICT business costs more than the others generally. Come at a higher price and over the long term tend to produce quite a good margin. As long as you're capable, once again, of refocusing them on the right segments and they're good clients, that generally takes a bit of time after the acquisition. Your second allusion would seem to indicate that the Cobra margin was in very large part coming from major EPC projects. I fail to see why you hold that belief. No, it's the same as VINCI Energies once again. The major projects have the advantage when they generate margins to rest that margin on big volume. The disadvantage is when things go sour, then you see a decrease in the average margin rate.
You need to ensure that the margin's broadly equivalent across the two segments mentioned earlier, flow business on the one hand and big EPC on the other. If I were to give you a more complete answer, I'd say you may be right insofar as cyclically, EPC tends to generate slightly more margin than the flow business segment, but it's not set to last. If my colleagues wish to add some value added to my words, they're most welcome to do so. Xavier, have I said anything silly?
Of course, you haven't. He's nice. He's a nice guy. No, of course not. It's uniform in countries, in businesses, not just in my mind. It's a bit in my mind. I mean, point is that these are really mega trends. We're also facing shortage, we're all the more selective because today there's a lot of solicitation. That's the law of great numbers that comes into play. Depending on business sectors, growth is more or less high year-on-year, it can evolve. This year, we've seen a very strong momentum in industry driven probably by energy efficiency and rising energy costs such that industry players need to invest in order to optimize their production.
Major projects, we're less on major projects, we're seeing notably there were issues in the tertiary, fewer tertiary projects. Innovation with our characteristic agility, we can grow all our business. Like for VINCI Construction, the aim is to be selective and to favor margin over volume. José María, would you like to come in and maybe enlighten us on the price of PV panels? What's true is that we've kind of delayed a bit the startup of the construction of this, first, project in Brazil, so as not to pay over the odds for the PV panels. What's the situation?
Linking with the price of panels, you know that we bought in our last three years more than three gigas of PV panels. We have some advantage, but it's a fact that panels has increased the prices 20%, 3%. It's true that the prices of the energy has increased a lot too. The PPAs prices are better, and we can mitigate the price of the panels, the rise of the price of the panels, due to our position, and we can balance this with increase of the energy too.
We don't disclose our margin. We've got about 4,000 entities, it'd be never-ending. The standard deviation of margins at VINCI Energies is far narrower than at Cobra. In fact, we can do a lot better when the standard deviation will shrink more at Cobra. Units and geographies that have an above par performance and others subpar performance. Next question.
Hi. Barclays, 3 questions, if I may. First, to pick up on what you expect for highways in 2023. Not surprised about your message of passenger car stability. Trucks, isn't gonna be a slowdown that could impact trucks more, as we saw in more challenging macro situation in the past. If you could give us a bit more color on that. Second question on financial expenses in 2023.
What type of increase should we work on? Of course, rates shifted a lot as acute. EUR 350 million, is that the order of magnitude, all other things being equal, excluding acquisition costs? Third question, Autovia. I may be mistaken. I thought your appetite for South American highways wasn't that great because of technical due dill issues. What did you see in this asset that makes you confident? Is it the kind of works aspect that attracts you, particularly you're gonna do the works or other factors that came into play? Thanks.
On truck traffic, Pierre Coppey will correct me if I'm wrong. What's driving truck traffic is the growth in e-commerce. Unless there's a collapse in the e-commerce segment, truck traffic is set to level off in our view, not decline significantly. I don't know if I said this, but the logistics warehouses are there. There's not really any possible alternative to ship all the small parcels from the growth of e-commerce.
They can only be shipped by road because the warehouses are along the roads. That's the good news. I think I pretty much answered the question. Pierre, do you wanna come in on that? No. Just to recall that 90% of freight goes by road. Financial cost, expenses. Christian, do you wanna take that one?
I think you've got a slide. I don't know if it's in the deck or if it'll be in the annexes. Gives you the share of variable rate debt, overall debt. You can do all the math you like, depending on the assumptions that are yours or might be rate change on average through the year. It's not easy to assess today. Answer to your question isn't easy. What's sure is there'll be scope effects because on the one hand, we've integrated companies that weren't previously. We recover their cost of debt in our numbers.
There weren't a case of Canada, so there'll be OMERS, of course, that has its own debt, about MXN 300 million-MXN 400 million. That's gonna impact our financial expense, plus the cost of acquisition for EUR 1.5 billion. That'll also impact our acquisition cost. That alone is a far from negligible effect. As regards the additional cost of debt linked to rising rates on the variable rate, all depends on your assumptions. With that, you can do the calculations. I'm not gonna do the job in your stead. We did it with a degree of prudence as always.
When we redo the maths a bit more specifically after the close, we see that our budgets were a little overcautious, but we can expect a significant hike in cost of debt in 23 in light of what I said. Nicolas on Entrevias. Try and answer your question. First off, Brazil is a country, part of the countries that have significant infrastructure needs. We've seen 'cause we're managing airports, Salvador de Bahia for five years, Manaus and other airports in the Amazon for one year now. It's a country that has federal state administration, works well. We found our balance in the country. That's the first part to the answer. Secondly, it's a yellow field project. We of course, audited the traffic segment that good in technical assistance and traffic, and we're maintaining a partnership.
We're taking 55 with an invest Pátria, a Brazilian fund that has a contract, track record for the second segment. That's. We won't be the constructor. Selective strategy. Brazil is not part of the countries where we're going construct. We'll be concessionaire, and this entry and partnership in terms of contract work. Also, we've worked on airports, makes us confident. The grantor is the state of São Paulo, very big, and the elected governor is the infrastructure minister who previously managed airports, so we're in total confidence on this contract. I would just add that our understanding and our confidence in this major country was strengthened by the fact that Cobra IS has been present there for a very long time, and one, including in PPP, very significant deals, high voltage lines.
José María will correct me if I'm wrong. Cobra will have already achieved 20,000-30,000 kilometers of high voltage power lines in Brazil and has ahead of it a significant potential to continue work on this segment, given the mammoth needs brought about by the energy transition. It's a combination between the recent understanding that we have at VINCI Airports with the longer presence of VINCI and the very historical powerful president of Cobra makes us believe that this country is a good country in which to invest. Elodie.
Yes, good morning. Thank you. From J.P. Morgan. A couple questions. First of all, a brief question on slide 55, operating cash flow. I'm wondering, operating cash flow at VINCI Energies, why was it divided by two, cut in half in 2022? A few questions that are more about strategy. Growth through acquisition. External growth has resumed. You reinvested in airports. What should our expectation be henceforth? Well, you've got enough in your balance sheet. Will it be further airports or in energy?
Will there be other focuses for your growth, particularly United States? You're well established there in construction and concession. You've got all the know-how. There's an infrastructure growth plan in the pipeline over there. So what are VINCI's infrastructure intentions for the United States? Lastly, do you have an update on the potential green CapEx plan extension of concessions now that rates have been set?
I forgot to write down. I saw you were looking at the slide.
Yes.
Could you repeat the 2, 3 points?
Well, first of all, slide 55 on operating cash flow at VINCI Energies. Next, external growth. Where are we headed henceforth? The United States infrastructure, any opportunities you'll be moving on for at VINCI? The motorway concessions plan extension, green CapEx, any updates?
I'll ask Christian to comment on slide 55. I couldn't find it. I'm looking it up. Well, cash flow. Arnaud will build on this if necessary. 2021 cash flow was an outlier. Cash flow was well above net income, but you can explain this. In 2020, we'd had cash flow levels that were way higher, abnormal. We're now coming back to the norm. An additional point I'd add, to secure lead time for supply and secure job sites, we had to do a lot of advanced purchasing of material, and that worsened WCR. All in all, we're in the neighborhood of record levels before the outlier years, the atypical years of 2020 and 2021.
On external growth, Elodie, we're not gonna reinvent some new asset class or new business line. We've got enough. We're gonna be really focusing on areas of energy and concessions. Our three main focuses, land mobility, motorways, air mobility, airports, and now energy and generation of green energy. That's enough. We're at the very beginning stages of things in that third segment. The next question, what geography do we focus on?
No doubt about it, the North American continent is a place we will need to investigate, be more assertive than it might have been in the last 30 years. We would recall for you that in the area of highways, for instance, we can say that the number of projects for concessions, motorways, highways in the U.S., well, there'll be some increase, yes, but not any huge thing. It's not gonna be potentially a major market. We take a look-see cautiously. In airports, Nicolas will check if I'm mistaken. The concessions model for airport, full airports in the U.S., I don't think we really have any sign that might develop in a large, big way in upcoming years. Sometimes what happens is the terminals might be on offer as a concession. We're somewhat reluctant.
It's a little bit risky to just be responsible and shoulder the risks of a terminal within a much bigger airport hub. As to decarbonized energy, yes, a lot yet to be done. The Reduction Act is going to boost things, no doubt about it, a huge boost to anything relating to the environment, particularly renewable energy, especially hydrogen in the U.S. We have to move forward carefully. We have to be certain, firstly, we fully understand and are well rooted before moving on to new projects. Yes, overall, we are going to be developing faster than previously in the United States and Canada. Of course, there we've already prospered quite well.
So no new business lines and a focus, in all likelihood, a greater focus on North America in addition to Latin America as well as Europe, which has been the case. I believe that I've covered most of the points. The plan, nothing really to say here. Why? Well, we did say this here in the past. Our whole strategy boils down to what? First of all, to make as many people as possible realize that we have a huge issue of decarbonizing our motorways in this country. If this isn't dealt with right now, together, we're not going to manage to meet the targets of carbon neutrality by 2050, especially, and this is how I'd temper recent communication done by the ART, the Transportation Regulatory Authority.
We can't await new concessions to take over from the current ones to then begin making powerful gestures to decarbonize. We've got to start it now. Start tackling this now. 2030 will be too late in the day to meet the deadline of 2050. We're talking about this. Nothing specific to announce to you above and beyond what I've said already. We're still explaining things. Last week, there was a very interesting symposium organized jointly with VINCI Autoroutes and the Fabrique de l'Environnement. Gradually, we're disseminating this information. We're getting people to realize and understand it's urgent to decarbonize mobility. We have to talk about that before we talk about how to finance it.
Bonjour. Virginie Rousseau.
Hi, Oddo BHF. Two quick questions. One quick and one rather more strategic. The first on the autoroutes and the toll price changes. In 23, you announced a number of small or major support measures for your users, notably reductions on short trips. What will be the impact? Will it be material financially for you? A slightly more strategic question. On expansion in renewables, you mentioned the fact that you confirmed the pipeline of 14 GW of projects, saying that it's evolved.
Okay. There are projects that will enter production that are being replaced, have you given up on certain projects or replaced certain projects? If yes, why? Lastly, still on renewables, if we look 10 years out, how do you view yourselves on that business? As a year, just over a year that you've integrated Cobra, do you see as your competitive advantages, Ed's in that business?
I'll answer. Let José María come in if he wants to. A year ago, we said we'd be capable produce 1 additional GW per year. Today, we're saying it's probably a bit more than that. If we were to float a number, forgive me if it's not quite right because it's not the same year on year. I'd say closer to 1.5 GW and then do the math over 10 years. No reason why this demand doesn't continue to be there. 10 years at 1.5, that's 15 GW.
We plan to retain them, even if it means sharing the capital with others, with ACS, because the company set up to receive the assets developed from scratch by Cobra. Well, it means that, in 10 years' time, we'll have something of the order of 15 GW, a bit more if in the meantime we decide to go further on the gigawatt that can be developed on French motorways and 1.2 GW potentially that can be developed on our airports. That's going to be heavy CapEx-wise, but it can generate good EBITDA gradually as of this year 'cause we're going to have the first field in production. Our competitive edge has remained the same.
What's complicated in renewables is to develop from scratch, find the land that can be negotiated potentially with its owner, that can be quite readily connected to the grid, close to a station whose power is sufficient to receive the power you're gonna produce, and that we sense it's going to be not too difficult to develop in terms of environmental planning permission, which is a growing concern, quite rightly. What's complicated is that once that's done, project engineering, of course, construction, we're talking about PV. It's not hyper-sophisticated in terms of the technology, and then production isn't rocket science either. One final segment Has to be sold, that power, and there we're agile. Cobra's agile.
That's to say, there are times when you have to sell some in the form of a PPA 'cause there's a strong appetite for electro-intensive industrialists to secure their green power supply. You may know, in Europe, there are no longer PPAs available to offer the electro-intensive players unless you wait for 27 or 28. There's a shortage of projects to meet the needs of PPA and green power from industrialists. The key is to take them. It depends on the country, a bit of regulated tariffs, sign a number of PPAs, but also to accept we're happy with that, to retain some of the power that we're gonna sell in merchant. That's to say, we'll sell on the market. Need to be very agile.
The good news is that Cobra's very agile when it comes to finding the right mix and possibly switching mix depending on changes in the market conditions. Our competitive edge is there. It's in the fact that we believe we have the right mix between a local understanding and a global capability so as to develop projects from scratch. Our purpose isn't to buy ready-made fields, not saying that we'll never do it as we did for the highways, but our purpose is first and foremost to develop ourselves and the strong expertise at Cobra on that. Develop the fields ourselves takes time, but it generates far higher IRR. Hang on. José María. Okay. Well, yeah, on the tariffs, we worked on the acceptability of the increase by doing three things.
Differentiated application of the tariffs depending on were short trips or long trips. We managed to block 70% of trips under 30 km, that is, near urban ring roads and all the short trips, that is, home-to-work trips. We increased from 20%-30% the rebate on the Ulys highway subscription passes for frequent users which get the a reduction on one regular trip, and the e-Ulys subscribers who pay their E-recharge, 10% rebate secured as of May. We need to do the IT development. The cost stemming from all these is of a handful of millions.
We're talking about 60,000 charging stations, Ulys Electric. As I said earlier, by mid 2023, we'll have that number of recharging stations. Ulys Electric goes well beyond the borders of motorways to give access and also payment for a network of recharging stations that's well beyond the number we have, the 70,000, well beyond the number we have just in the motorways. There'll be a 10% price reduction on offer. That's significant in terms of a service we're providing to the road customers broadly.
Questions from the telephone. We'll hear French language questions on line first. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask your questions, please press star one on your keypad. I'd remind you, star one. First question from Stéphanie D'Ath from Bank of Canada. Go ahead, madam.
Thank you very much. Great results. First question on free cashflow, EUR 5.4 billion this year. If I understood in the presentation, you're expecting EUR 4 billion-EUR 4.5 billion in the current year. Could you help us understand what the negative impact would be on WCR and CapEx increases? The two items that'll have an impact on free cashflow in 2023. Could you briefly talk to us about CapEx in Portugal and development of Montuso? Where do things stand there in the second airport that you want to develop, Montego, and you've also talked about Lisbon. Next, dividend payout.
You usually pay out 55%, 50%. 2022, the ratio 54%. Can our expectation be a gradual increase over the years of the dividend payout ratio? Next question on the stimulus plan for highways. Stimulus is significant. What about investment plans, as if FIAAGE has announced on 2nd February EUR 110 million investments plan. Is this something you're also working on? Thank you.
First of all, free cash flow. Complicated answer, therefore, I'll give you some time to think about it, right? Or not? No, the bulk of the difference, aside from the WCR, which is impossible to predict at this juncture due to, inter alia, the fact we have interim amounts at the end of 2022 that you might not have at end of 2023. Thinking of CapEx, we'll hand over to Nicolas. It's gonna be CapEx for Mexico, plus all the other CapEx that have been deferred. I don't know if you'd like to answer on this one. Then Montijo. We need Nicolas to get a microphone. Free cash flow 2022, you've got a major contribution from airports, no doubt about it.
During the COVID crisis, we'd cut works that weren't compulsory, weren't indispensable. Free cash flow for airports around EUR 1 billion in 2022, whereas it had been further negative in 2021. It's true, we'll complete some of the compulsory work like Belgrade will be delivered as foreseen, summer of 2023. We'll also resume around EUR 100 million worth of CapEx that had been postponed. There'll be Gatwick, Portugal, some pretty much worldwide. Order of magnitude between EUR 200 million and EUR 300 million in airport CapEx this year will be around EUR 700 million and EUR 800 million. That's the order of magnitude. This is wholly normal. We're coming back to the normative level. Specifically on Portugal traffic, very good in all the airport hubs, not only Lisbon.
CapEx will be as foreseen, including existing airport Lisbon. The Portuguese government, as expected, did a strategic survey of the environment. It's gonna be ongoing throughout 2023, so that they can select the best ways and means to continue with capacity in Lisbon. The solution that's interesting on the table would be to make best use of the existing airport in the Montijo basis. You know that we've got an exclusive relationship once the solution has been opted for to perfect the solution, to put it together with the government. Growth is buoyant. End of the year, beginning of the year in Portugal, growth is well above 19% at this juncture, and we are awaiting the results of that survey. It's on time, meeting the deadline by the end of 2023. Thank you.
Payout ratio is not exactly 54%. It's 53.5 actually. This is very much in line with what we said just before beginning of the pandemic. Back at that time, we said we recognize the change in the group's profile considering the increasing proportion of concessions. The unchanging rule for about 20 years of a 50% payout. We realized that gradually that would need to be increased, that payout. You'll remember we had begun suggesting that, proposing it for the dividend pertaining to fiscal 2019. If memory serves
We were to pay out a dividend equal to 52% payout, but we didn't do that in the end. We didn't pay out in the end due to the subsequent arrival of pandemic. We're still at 53% now. This just means that we're coming back to the principle we'd already talked about back at the end of 2019. As to how things will pan out in the future. It'll all depend. It'll depend on what we achieve and what our investment projects are in the meantime. Regarding talking about a master plan contract, SANEF end of 2022. SANEF had a major plan that they negotiated ASF, it had to do with the bypass of western bypass of Montpellier.
End of 2022, we completed negotiation for the master contract Cofiroute, EUR 400 million worth of investments needs to be brought before the ART as well as the state council to be fully authorized. We started ASF negotiations in Escota for master contracts similar order of magnitude under the rates tariff laws between the different portions of these rates, the specific percentages there. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're going to move on to questions on the telephone in English this time. Headsets if need be.
The next question comes from the line of Sathish Sivakumar from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks again for the presentation. I've got two questions here. Firstly, on the concessions, specifically in the airport. Can you share where we are on the pricing negotiation with the different airport portfolios for 2023? For instance, in Gatwick, I assume it's RPA linked, which has +12%. What should we expect, like an average pricing for 23? Secondly, on the construction, any color on what is your exposure to civil contracts there in that business and what do you see, like, the impact of inflation into those contracts? Do you have any pricing index mechanism over there too? Thank you.
Change in airport pricing. So for all our airports, we have tariffs that are not inflation indexed. I'll spare you the details, very mechanism. We got 65 airports, but we now have quite clearly we've fully secured the tariffs in Mexico, Portugal, at Gatwick, and all those prices are fully inflation-indexed on the country's inflation. It's inflation slightly higher than what we see in France. Then there are a few exceptions, but for most of the tariffs, it's also the case in Serbia. It's fully inflation-linked, and that's already acquired authorizations and concessions. The authorizations of the grantors or the regulator obtained have been obtained in the countries cited.
On construction, the situation is that if you look globally, we are in a phase that's very favorable to the growth in civil engineering brought about by the needs for development and improved environmental performance of mobility infrastructure, land mobility. That's why we've treated a great number of projects in the four corners of the world, be it in Canada, the U.S., Europe, France, through the Greater Paris projects, in New Zealand, Australia, and I'm no doubt forgetting a few. This mega trend is set to continue. It's far and away sufficient to satisfy our activity and to allow us to have this systematically selective approach. What we're seeing is that, you know, once we've noted that the ability to achieve overachievement on these major complex not necessarily can't be extended.
Competition isn't as keen as it was, 10, 20 years ago. We can be more selective, but also to proceed in better conditions because only companies that are capable having the engineering and construction assets to deliver these deals can submit a bid. We are, I would say, in a favorable phase, not necessarily the case across all geographies in the world. In the UK, we're heavily invested in HS2. In France, we're cyclically heavily invested in the mammoth investments for the Greater Paris. four mega contracts in design and build will be awarded. I don't know. At least we'll submit our bids for these four mega projects during the course of the year.
Looking further out, we will probably have a great many opportunities given the energy transition, and the paramount need to develop nuclear power in our country, notably with, as you know, major projects of eight, 14 new generation, EPR plants on existing EDF sites. One, the volume is there. Two, we're selective. Three, the key is increasingly the ability to have the engineering assets and to deliver, which is favorable to companies such as ours.
Next question, still in English.
The next question comes from the line of Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got a few actually. Firstly, on airports, I think your margin was now actually all-time high, EBITDA margin 59%, but your traffic's still below. I wanna understand if that is expected to increase as traffic further recovers. First question. The second question is, I believe in Portugal, there was a bit of a dispute on the tariffs. Can you just sort of tell us what happened and whether you're gonna get remunerated? I think you're under-recovering of what you're entitled to in the contract. The third question is, the oil field you bought at the end of last year.
Can you just explain a little bit what happened, what your plan is, how much you paid for it? I believe it sort of shows up in different lines. Then finally, maybe a detailed question. I'm looking at the CapEx slide, where Cobra's CapEx was quite high, I think like EUR 500 million. Can we just understand what's going on there? What's sort of a normal level? Yeah, if you could just help us out a little bit. Thank you.
Nicolas[audio distortion], Margin. If you compare 2019 to 2022, we didn't have the four months of the first four months of 2019 about Gatwick in 2019. Oh, sorry. Yeah. We didn't have the first four months of 2019, which in 2022 are not so good months because the first four months of the year weren't great with Omicron, and not the best months. That's the first point. Secondly, the non-consolidated assets don't include in revenue. EBITDA doesn't include Japanese airports, but with markedly higher traffic levels, we went from 56.7%- 59% EBITDA between 2019 and 2022.
We are expecting, going forward with the recovery in traffic level, continued growth of the EBITDA margins, not always steady, but we've reached cruising speed and through M&A deals 'cause the EBITDA margin of OMA is also useful in that regard. All in all, we're looking at a rising trend of the EBITDA. In terms of tariffs in Portugal, what you saw, there were pretty technical discussions. Sometimes the rules for tariff hikes provide for certain metrics, notably safety. There's a sub-metric of the tariff for which the interpretation of the contract could differ.
It's not a key component, and it doesn't contradict what I said, which is that tariffs in Portugal approved across airports, in particular that of Lisbon, are inflation indexed, signed and granted. Sometimes there's a little debate on one of the components of the tariff inflated to security or safety. That's what you read in the media. The tariffs finally approved are indexed on inflation in Portugal.
Regarding Cobra investments, I'll hand over to Christian Labeyrie very quickly and José María if necessary. Let me just set Carbopolis. We have to look at it this way. What does it boil down to? We've got EPC activities, engineering, procurement, construction, in oil and gas, and we have had for a long time, VINCI Energies, also VINCI Construction. Very naturally, this was also the case at Cobra. We do not intend to fully halt those activities, EPC. As it so happens on that deal in Brazil, we've got a special contractual provision. We are paid for endeavors not in oil, not in money.
Don't see this as our intention to branch out into oil production, but rather we intend to continue exercising our lines of business, engineering, procurement, construction, and with the next requisite flexibility to adapt to the various contractual points that are on offer and the methods of payment that are offered. I'll hand over to Christian Labeyrie now, who will give you, if necessary, if he wants to, give you some figures. Then I will give the floor to José María if he would like to speak.
I'll try not to get lost in the tables because they're all over the place. If you put aside the oil operation I'll talk about later. CapEx 2022 for Cobra, around approximately EUR 500 million. You have to add concessions CapEx, that's EUR 150 million. The renewable portion here would be broadly approximately EUR 400 million, if I'm not mistaken, José María. On the oil point, we bought assets. We didn't buy a company. We bought assets. The booked cost in 2022 is approximately EUR 800 million.
Approximately there'll be an additional to be paid of EUR 150 million approximately next year. The EUR 800 million was more than offset by an advance payment we received in phraseologies called by the offtaker, which is a British company that fully funded this acquisition. This is a neutral impact. Actually, a slightly positive impact on our 2022 flows. By the same token, in 2023, there'll be an additional advance. We sold in advance, as this is done in the oil industry, a portion of upcoming years' production.
Ditto next year, this should have no impact or a slightly positive impact. Next, operations, as Xavier said, will generate its own income, its own cash flow. Maybe we, José María could build on this to tell us how he sees the ramp-up of operation of this deal in terms of production. Just a couple of figures on possible production. We generate revenue to cover works, construction.
Yeah. We invest in this asset, okay? We, as Christian said, we collect a prepayment linked with our capacity, with our technical capacity to extract and a level of barrels, okay? We have now, and we are going to repay with the barrels to Shell. Shell is the offtaker, we can say that. Shell buy the whole production of the field to us. With this prepayment, they pay us for the next five years of the production of the field. We have now 7,000 barrels per day. We're extracting that.
We think that we can go with our investments and with our knowledge to at least 20,000 barrels in next two years. With that, we are going to cover by far the prepayment that Shell give us. This is 100% fund. As Christian said, this must be, we must do an exercise of strategy in the future to see if we are going to put Shell, for example, or further offtaker as an investor, and we only remain as the operator of the field.
We have one last question in English.
The last question comes from the line of Graham Hunt from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much. I'll make them two short ones. Maybe just on Energies' margins and the guidance. Just wondering why perhaps you're not a little bit more optimistic here, given the strong trends that you're seeing in this business to go for slightly higher profitability in 2023 rather than defending the current position. Similarly on Construction, maybe just on why you do have the confidence to push for margin expansion there, and maybe a bit more color on what the project inflow, where you're seeing those higher margins, in what kind of projects, you're seeing those in the Construction business. Thanks.
Maybe we misspoke. In energy, we didn't say we'd remain stable. We said we'd be growing, both at VINCI Energies and at Cobra IS. We even said we'd grow by at least 10% for Cobra IS, at Cobra IS, due to the scale of the order book, particularly the big deals in order book acquired during fiscal 2022. In addition, we said operating margin at VINCI Energies should remain at the record level where it set itself in 2022. Cobra IS's margin will remain among the top of the class, top of the standards, in the global profession. You can do your own modeling based on that. Regarding construction, we have to remember that in the world of construction, it's always illusory to think you can grow revenue and margin at the same time.
Yet, our view is that the current margin is highly satisfactory because it's growing, but that we haven't yet reached the end of that effort. We feel we need to target operating margins above the 3.8% achieved in 2022. The only way to achieve this is to be ever more selective and to never target revenue growth. Revenue growth can happen after the fact as a bonus, after adhering to your good principle, but not in addition. Any strategy designed to up margin via increasing revenues leads to problems and big disappointments in terms of margin. That's quite clear. This is very much in VINCI Construction's corporate culture. I don't know if I've said this right, and I'll be corrected if mistaken, but I think 120,000 employees of VINCI Construction feel the same way.
Okay. Has everyone finished their questions? Thank you to you one and all. We can now meet over lunch. Thank you.