Gaztransport & Technigaz SA (EPA:GTT)
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Earnings Call: Q4 2022

Feb 17, 2023

Operator

Good morning. This is the conference operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the GTT full year 2022 results presentation. Anyone who wishes to ask a question after the presentation may press star 1 on their touch-tone telephone. Please limit yourself to 1 question at a time. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Philippe Berterottière, Chairman of the Board and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

I am today with Virginie Aubagnac, with the Group CFO, with Jean-Baptiste Boutillier, with the VP Innovation, with Jean-Baptiste Choimet, with the Managing Director of Elogen, and with Anouar Kassim, who is at the Head of GTT Digital Activities. I'm very pleased to present to you the 2022 results of GTT. To start with a short company overview. You know us, but I would like to say or to repeat that our conviction is that technology is the most efficient enabler for energy transition. We assume this mission in developing cutting-edge technologies in cutting-edge technological solutions to help building a sustainable world. We do that through human capital, through intellectual property.

You do that, basically, if we could resume that in a word, it's in combining skills, and that's what we do in our core activities on energy carriers. It's what we do on at Elogen. It's what we do in our digital activities. Year 2022 has been a year of crisis in energy, a year which has been perfectly exceptional compared to what we were expecting. People have rediscovered the importance of having reliable sources of energy, of being able to store energy, of having the importance of having a diversified energy mix. The energy industry has evolved very much also in 2022. We had not less than 4 new active shipyards building LNG carriers, which means that we multiplied the number of shipyards building LNG carriers by 2.

We obtained 162 orders for LNG carriers, which is totally unexpected. This very exceptional flow of orders shows a very strong confidence from the market, which lies on our know-how, our zero default approach, our reliability, our reactivity, our full assistance and support to new shipyards. Well, in order to develop technologies for decarbonization, we continue to develop and to invest in our agencies. We did that for LNG as a fuel, and in 2022, we introduced improvements, technological breakthrough, in that respect, which have convinced shipowners. We did that in our digital solution portfolio, there as well, we convinced owners to adopt our solutions.

It's true for the weather routing that we introduced or for the CII monitoring tool. We are going to keep on. You know that. We are going to keep on to do that in the years to come. We are anticipating the coming world in fact, investing on net carbon future. We do that in hydrogen with Elogen, with the LH2 project. We could talk of some additional initiatives. We saw OSE Engineering as a partner of a very interesting R&D program some days ago. We are looking also at how we can further decarbonize the shipping world. We've been the first to introduce ammonia-ready containment systems.

We are going to have a carbon capture system on board in 2025. We, we are taking minority stakes in very innovative companies in order to keep very well informed of the innovations which may appear in our sector. On our, on our sustainability roadmap, we do want to contribute to building a sustainable world, also by becoming a very strong sustainability partner for our stakeholders. We, we have been recognized, we have been rated B by CDP, which is very good. We are going to detail in 2023 our roadmap, our ESG roadmap. As you can see, we have many initiatives in that respect, and all that will be detailed for our stakeholders this year. Our ammonia.

I know that some of you are eager to see the updating of our road map. In our road map, our road map should lead us to zero carbon future. You can see that our latest development in terms of carbon capture, in terms of electrolyzers, in terms of gas handling technologies with the Recycool systems that we sold already several times, are putting us on on that way. It does not mean that we disregard our developments, past developments. For example, on our containment systems and, for example, the NO96 Super+ system that we introduced in 2021 has been sold many times in 2023.

I could say the same about digital activities with new developments as I was referring to. We have taken the decision to have a strategic venture fund in order to contribute to this strategic roadmap. This structure is dedicated to invest into technology start-ups. We will be very much aware of what they do. We will possibly imagine a cooperation and we could help them to accelerate their development. After this short introduction, I would like to give the floor to Jean-Baptiste Boutillier for talking about our focus on R&D.

Jean-Baptiste Boutillier
VP Innovation, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Thank you very much, Philippe. GTT as a technology provider company has innovation as the heart of its strategy. Innovation is a core value of GTT, and thus, we are innovating in various field, in core business, but also in zero carbon solution. With R&D and innovation at the core of GTT strategy, we invest annually approximately 10% of the company revenue into innovation. Within the group, more than 160 people are working for innovation. As innovation and intellectual property are the DNA of GTT, we continuously file patents. In 2022, we filed 61 new patents, and thus we have been ranked for the third year in a row at the first position for the midsize company applying for patents in France at INPI.

In our innovation roadmap, we have more than 60 ongoing innovation projects. We are participating in various innovation programs. I would like now to focus on 4 main projects, 1 innovation project, of course, 1 project for the core business and 3 projects for the zero carbon solution. For the core business in 2022, we developed innovative design of LNG carrier. This innovative design has 3 tanks instead of 4, and with the 3 tanks, we carry the same amount of LNG. These innovative designs bring added value to all the stakeholders along the value chain. The shipyard benefit from cost reduction and from reduction in construction time. The owner benefit also from a reduction in CapEx and a shorter delivery time.

When it comes to the charterer, they benefit from an improved performance, which implies or induce reduce, CO2 emission. This innovative design has been granted in 2022 with 2 Approval in Principle. One from Det Norske Veritas and another one from Bureau Veritas. Beyond the core business, we prepare 2030 and beyond by developing transportation solution for liquid hydrogen because we are convinced and we know that hydrogen is the cornerstone of the world energy transition. The purpose of the development is to enable the transportation of hydrogen in large quantity over long distance, and we are convinced that LH2 is a proper vector to do so. In this project, we have an active and ongoing cooperation agreement with Shell, and together with them, we received 2 Approval in Principle in 2022.

One for the containment system itself, which has been designed by GTT, and a second Approval in Principle by DNV for the design of the LNG LH2 carrier. It is a small vessel of 10,000 cubic meters. The second project I would like to focus on the zero-carbon solution, is the onboard CO2 capture. For this project, we are part of MerVent 2025 project together with Zéphyr & Borée, CWS, the École Centrale Nantes, and our subsidiary company, OSE Engineering. The objective of the project is to divide by 2 the CO2 emission of a vessel of a similar size propelled with standard fuel. To do so, the project team will design, build, and operate by 2025 the first commercial container ship with hybrid propulsion.

Hybrid propulsion because the vessel, as you can see on the picture, will be propelled with the wind, but also with synthetic fuel. GTT contribute to this project on two aspects. The first one is the design and the development of an onboard CO2 capture. We will make a prototype. This prototype will be tested first onshore and then onboard the vessel. The second contribution of GTT is made through our subsidiary, OSE Engineering. We will develop an optimizing tool for the energy mix during the design phase, but also for the operational phase, we'll have a real-time optimization of the energy mix. The third project for zero-carbon solution I would like to present you is HiMot project.

The purpose of this project is to develop a hydrogen engine and this is done through our subsidiary, OSE Engineering. OSE Engineering is providing digital intelligence for engineering and is participating to this project with various company, as you can see, Centrale Nantes, Faurecia, Bosch, Renault, Alpine, and TotalEnergies. The purpose is to develop an internal combustion engine with hydrogen for light transportation vehicles. If we look at the broader picture, we are convinced that hydrogen internal combustion engine can also be a good solution for the maritime industry in the future. To summarize, I would like now to give you a synthetic view of the innovation roadmap of GTT. It covers project on core business, LNG as a fuel, digital solution, and zero-carbon solution.

For the core business, we work on further reducing the carbon footprint of the LNG carriers. I mentioned the 3 tank design. We continuously improve our existing system, and we develop new system such as GTT NEXT1. For the LNG as a fuel, in addition to the onboard CO2 capture I presented you a few minutes ago, we want to enable decarbonization of the maritime industry. We target new vessel segments such as VLCC, very large crude carrier, and pure car and truck carriers, PCTC. For the digitalization, we develop digital solution to improve the operational efficiency of the vessel. Anouar will present you in more detail all our activities in digitalization. Finally, for the zero-carbon solution, we prepare today the solution of tomorrow, 2030 and beyond.

I now leave the floor to Philippe Berterottière for the strategy part.

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Thank you. Strategy. Well, LNG business, there are three factors which are contributing to its growth. The first one, it's the growth of natural gas and it's fueled, if I may say so, by the coal to gas switch, which has to happen in order to reduce the CO2 emissions. A lot of energy electricity mixes are still very heavily relying on coal and, in fact, it has increased in 2022. Also because gas is a perfect fit to the renewables in order to cope with their intermittency. LNG is growing faster than gas as there is a pipe to LNG switch. We saw that in a fairly sour manner in 2022.

Also because there are new markets for LNG, as we can see in Western Europe, but also as we can see with LNG as a fuel. LNG carriers, that's growing at a page even faster than LNG because of the acceleration of the replacement market due to environmental regulations. Let's look at that in more details. We can see on the left-hand side part of this chart, the various expectations from BP, from Shell, from Wood Mackenzie. We can see that the central scenarios are planning, are forecasting significant growth up to 2040. On the right-hand side part, we can see what it means in terms of million ton of LNG per annum.

We've given a range in terms of demand between the optimistic scenarios and the more reasonable ones. Still we arrive to a forecast of 240 million ton per annum-325 million ton per annum in 2040. A quite significant growth of the LNG demand over the next 17 years. That means that LNG supply has to increase. In 2022, we saw 28 million ton per annum, which have been decided and which have passed the FID stage. We can see on the chart here that many projects are quite ready to be launched, to be decided. They are at a very high level of contracts covering their future production.

In fact, in 2022, there were 53 million ton per annum of long-term contracts signed in that year. It's absolutely huge. Decisions for new projects should be decided quite soon. I would like to draw your attention on 1 point, it's that 90% of these 53 million ton are for American projects. New environmental regulations are going to accelerate the fleet renewal. We can see that on the upper left-hand side part of the chart that the fleet is fairly aged, and there are many ships which are quite old. It means that their propulsion systems are old, are burning a lot, are emitting a lot.

Regulations are going to put these ships under pressure and are going to push to replace these ships by new ones. Ships which are classified as E in the CII regulations have to do something immediately within a year. Otherwise, they are going to be condemned to stop their activities. In 2030, there are 240 LNG carriers which are going to be classed as E in this CII regulation. Our latest technologies are not only complying with the regulations. They are also allowing charters to save a lot of money. On this chart, we can see the LNG spot price on the left-hand side, which has been very volatile in 2022.

On the right-hand side, we can see the monthly gains that a shipowner is making with a Mark III Flex+, our most efficient system currently in operation, compared to a Mark III system, the system which is equipping many LNG carriers and that we sold up to 2011. For example, in August 2022, when the spot LNG price was above $50, it was allowing owners to make a saving of $5 million per month. It's huge. Of course, the LNG price was very high, but with these conditions, you can amortize a modern ship quite quickly. These elements of analysis lead us to these long-term estimates.

For LNG carriers, we are between 400 and 450 units. It means the same forecast than the one we presented in July, in spite of the fact that in the second part of the year, we signed for 80 ships. We did not reduce our 10-year forecast. For VLEC, FSRU, FLNG, and onshore and GBS tanks, we did not change our forecasts as well. On LNG as a fuel now, we had a record year for GTT. Never, ever before we enjoyed so many orders than in 2022, with 42 container ships.

For large container ships, 7,000 TEUs and more, we have, in fact, LNG carriers fueled by LNG are representing 56% of the orders. It's a fact, LNG is a solution. Our market share is at 44%. Orders could slow down in fact in 2023 as a consequence of the fact that charter prices have reduced quite significantly, also many orders have been passed. The market could become a bit quieter in 2023. The best way to comply with new environmental regulation is LNG.

When we compare LNG with methanol, which is adopted by some ship owners for the time being, we can see that methanol is not compliant because it's generating more CO2. People are talking about e-methanol. Capacities are not there. They say they will blend e-methanol with methanol, but you need a lot of e-methanol in order to beat LNG in terms of CO2 emissions. In doing so, you have a blend which is going to be more expensive than LNG. We expect that LNG will remain the solution of choice for the decarbonization of the maritime sector in the long term. I will hand over the floor to Anouar Kassim, who is going to talk to us about our digital solutions.

Anouar Kassim
Head of Digital Activities, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Thank you, Philippe. Good morning. We provide digital solutions to our customers to help them reduce the cost of operations, reduce their emissions, and improve the safety of their vessels. To do so, we combine our organic R&D and the targeted acquisition that we have done in the past. As far as GTT is concerned, of course, GTT provides all the expertise about LNG, about naval architecture, and also the industrial standards, GTT has been operating for almost 60 years now. The acquisition that we have done introduced or helped us acquire capabilities and skills in all this digital domain. Marorka, for example, is providing all the modeling and the optimization of the vessel performance. Ascenz is providing the measurement and the sensoring technology.

All this was combined together to create what we call GTT Digital as an entity or as a brand. Our ambitions are to be one of the main players in this domain and develop synergies, of course, with the group to also strengthen the core business, but also to develop this activity as a standalone activity, generating revenue for diversification. To illustrate what we are doing, these are a couple of, let's say technical, achievements or innovation that we introduced last year. The first one is the approval by one of the major players in this domain, ExxonMobil. ExxonMobil operates hundreds of vessels, and being approved by this company is quite actually an achievement that will open many opportunities for us.

It's not the end of the story here. Actually, it's just the beginning of something, as we will be able to deploy our solutions with this company all around the world, especially in the offshore business, but also in the shipping business. What we call Power is a solution that helps the charters to deliver, receive more cargo and deliver more gas to the shore. It's really focused on increasing the revenue or the uptime of their assets. This is something new and we expect also this to bring a lot of value to our customers in the LNG domain, especially in the offshore, since here we are talking about offshore LNG or we are in the upstream with regards to the value chain of LNG.

The latest innovation that we introduced in the LNG domain is the predictive maintenance of the membrane. Besides, let's say, the value that we provide, of course, to the customer because they need to maintain or to conduct less maintenance for their tank, it increases the value of the GTT technology because it reduces the OpEx to operate our technology and reduces the total cost of ownership for our customers. This is a very, let's say, clear and contribution of the digital technologies to the improvement of the perception of the core business by our customers. The last innovation that we have just launched, and we expect to announce even further innovation in this domain is the weather routing or voyage optimization.

The main benefit is to reduce the cost and improve the safety of the vessel by avoiding bad weather. The strategic fit here is that we can kind of combine all our innovations into one tool that helps the captain operate the vessel. Instead of having different tools that the crew must look at, we will be able to concentrate all our innovations into this tool that gives advices on how to navigate and then take benefits from all the innovations that we introduced before. From a commercial standpoint, these are a few examples actually that show our focus in terms of commercial strategy. We focus on two things, covering new territories.

Here we have examples in the Americas, where it's almost an untapped market for our digital products, where we have to develop our commercial network. These are the first successes that we have there, like in Mexico or in Chile, and we have many other countries to explore there. Also the second focus is to win more and more what we call fleet contracts. Not only one or two vessels per let's say ship owner, but have the whole fleet under one contract. This is one example with this gas carrier owner which awarded us 30 vessels, and we expect more coming from the same owner and many other let's say similar contracts in the future.

I leave the floor for, to, Jean-Baptiste Choimet to talk about Elogen and our electrolysis activity.

Jean-Baptiste Choimet
Managing Director, Elogen

Thank you, Anouar. Good morning. I will now share with you the main outcomes of 2022 for Elogen, as well as our views on the outlook for green hydrogen. In 2022, we achieved 2 key milestones for the development of Elogen. First, we joined the first wave of the Hydrogen IPCEI, Important Project of Common European Interest, thereby securing a subsidy of maximum EUR 86 million, which enables us to support our R&D efforts and to develop our stacks Gigafactory project in France. Second, our commercial efforts paid off as our order intake was multiplied by nearly 3, with in particular flagship orders of electrolyzers, which I will present in a few moments.

In terms of KPIs, 2022 revenues were relatively stable at EUR 5.3 million. Our order intake grew by 148% to EUR 15.4 million. At the end of the year, we were more than 70 employees as we managed to attract senior staff in all key functions of the company. In the last 2 months, we announced 2 very important orders of which we are very proud. One order because it corresponds to the largest electrolyzer ordered from us so far. The second order because its application represents a very exciting potential for green hydrogen. First order, we signed our first 10 megawatt electrolyzer order with ENERTRAG, a German leader in renewable power supply.

Under this order, we will deliver in 2024, a unit able to produce up to 4 tons of hydrogen per day for various applications from heavy industry decarbonization to storage for electricity production. A few weeks ago, we announced an order from a joint venture between Shell and Eneco called CrossWind, they entrusted us with an order for a 2.5 megawatt electrolyzers that will be installed in 2025 off the coast of Netherlands, and that will be coupled with an offshore wind farm. We are delighted with this order because it's the result of the efforts of the Elogen team, but also the result of GTT's knowledge of the offshore environment.

As we already explained in other instances, our ultimate goal is to deliver to our clients electrolysis solutions that are as efficient as possible, leveraging the potential of the PEM technology. Already today, our in-house benchmark shows that our systems are very well-positioned in terms of efficiency in comparison with our peers in PEM technology. We keep working to maintain this leadership. This will be achieved thanks to the effort we are currently putting on R&D, working both on the stack and the full electrolyzer itself. This current investment on R&D is critical to fully benefit from the market potential of green hydrogen. Indeed, this potential is considerable as up to 300 gigawatts of electrolyzers might be required by the end of this decade, and between 1,000 and 4,000 gigawatts by 2050.

This is to be compared first with the electrolysis capacity that is installed as of today throughout the world. As per the data from IEA, this was slightly more than 600 megawatts a few months ago. This is also to be compared with the current estimated production capacity throughout the world as well, 15 gigawatt per annum. Therefore, additional production capacity will definitely be required. This is why Elogen is working on scaling up its industrial capabilities, first creating a center of excellence for industrialization in our current premises near Paris, and developing our gigafactory in Vendôme in France that will have a production capacity of at least 1 gigawatt per annum from 2025. Data from the IEA show that PEM is the preferred technology for incoming projects. We see four reasons for this.

1, a PEM electrolyzer can be highly responsive to load variations, which makes it the ideal partner for direct connection to intermittent renewable power. 2, the innovation potential of this technology is high, which will enable us to reduce both CapEx and electricity consumption of our electrolyzers. 3, the footprint is limited, which for instance can be critical for offshore applications. Last but not least, there is only water flowing through the main circuit of the electrolyzer, which makes this solution significantly safer. For the time being, however, the hydrogen economy is still in its early stage, and more specifically, the electrolysis market is still in an investment phase. As such, all players deliver negative EBITDAs. Elogen aims at EBITDA breakeven by the middle of this decade.

Meanwhile, we work to limit our cash consumption, mainly through selecting our contracts, which we want to win because they bring value to our development and not growing our order intake at any cost. Second, managing our costs via a reasoned growth. Every day, Elogen experts do the necessary groundwork with passion so that when the required very large electrolysis projects are eventually sanctioned, we can be efficient, be reliable, and be ready. Thank you for your attention. Now Virginie will present the financials.

Virginie Aubagnac
CFO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Jean-Baptiste, and let's move on to the financials. Order book. 2022 was marked by an exceptional momentum in LNGC orders. Throughout the year, GTT has booked a total of 162 LNGC order, of which 74 in the second half of the year. In 2022, we also booked a FSRU order, as well as two VLEC. At the end of 2022, GTT's core business order book totaled 274 units. As a reminder, this figure exclude the projects in Russia. That means 59 ice-breaking LNGCs with Zvezda and 3 gravity-based storage with Saren. In 2022, GTT also booked 42 orders for LNG powered vessels, compared to 27 in 2021, representing a new record for the business.

LNG as a fuel order book stand at 70 units at the end of 2022. At December 31, 2022, GTT's core business order book reached an all-time high level with a total value of EUR 1.6 billion. This is excluding the projects in Russia. It's interesting to note that 21.5% of this EUR 1.6 billion will be built in the coming months and years by Chinese shipyards. This order book will contribute EUR 335 million to 2023 revenues, which represents a 23% increase versus 2022 level. This amount excludes EUR 35 million revenue from projects in Russia, initially planned for 2023. 5 or 4 million euros to 2024 revenues, which represent a 50% increase versus 2023, and an 80% increase versus 2022 with 72 deliveries.

In 2025, contribution to revenues remains at a very high level of EUR 475 million with 84 deliveries. These figures confirms the increase of shipyards capacity. In 2026 and beyond, the revenue contribution stands at EUR 280 million. It corresponds historically to an unprecedented visibility. Few comments on GTT's 2022 consolidated revenues. 2022 revenues stood at EUR 307 million, close to the 2021 level, and in line with our expectations. Royalties regularly increased throughout 2022, quarter after quarter, with an H2 2021 stronger the flow, or an inflow, starting to materialize, notably in Q4 2022, which was up 14% versus Q4 2021. As mentioned by Jean-Baptiste Choimet earlier, GTT total revenues amounted to EUR 5.3 million in 2022, including EUR 0.6 million of subsidies.

Services revenues rose sharply, up 33% versus 2021, mainly thanks to our digital activities as well as engineering studies related to the conversion of LNGC into FSRUs. Quick word on our cost base. Thanks to a lean and fit approach, GTT's cost base was stable in 2022, despite the impact of Elogen. Total external costs slightly increased in 2022, mainly due to the resumption of travel expenses. Staff costs also rose slightly due to share-based charges, but salaries and social costs remained stable. 2022 EBITDA stood at EUR 161 million, a slight decrease of 6% versus 2021, in line with our expectations. This performance reflects the mechanical and temporary decrease in GTT's core business revenues, the impact of Elogen being compensated by lean and fit cost approach of GTT SA.

2022, EBITDA margin stood at a high level at 52.4%. Net income amounted to EUR 128 million, translating into a net margin of 42%. At the end of 2022, GTT's net cash position reached EUR 212 million, which takes into account EUR 8.9 million increase in working capital requirement due to year-end receivable mostly paid in January 2023. Taking into account the 2022 financial performance and guidance, GTT proposes a dividend of EUR 3.1 per share, corresponding to a payout ratio of 89%. Outlook. As mentioned earlier, GTT benefits from a very strong visibility on its core business, with cumulative revenue of EUR 1.6 billion over the next 4-5 years.

For the current year, taking into account the distribution over time of our order book, we estimate that consolidated revenue for 2023 should be in the range of EUR 385 million-EUR 430 million. Consolidated EBITDA should be in the range of EUR 190 million-EUR 235 million. In line with our long-term dividend policy, we aim at distributing a minimum of 80% of our net income for 2023. I will now let Philippe conclude this presentation.

Speaker 11

Thank you very much. Now we are going to be very pleased to answer to your questions. Please. Let me know as a mic. Kevin. Okay.

Kevin Roger
Equity Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Hi, it's Kevin Roger from Kepler. Few questions on my side, if I may. The first one is related to the Russian icebreaker that have been removed from the backlog. The construction of Arctic Two has restarted. What is your view in terms of what will be done on those vessels? Can they continue to be built finally in South Korea, transferred to China? Because basically, if the LNG capacity will be built, they will need the vessel

Speaker 10

That would be the first question. The second question is related to Elogen. You mentioned the outlook in terms of commercial opportunities, et cetera. Can you give us some colors on what you are targeting in the short term in terms of volumes? For example, what's the pipeline in terms of potential orders for 2023? The third question relates to that. On the 2023 guidance for the EBITDA, can you give us more color of, 1, what kind of losses on completion you embarked in the 2023 guidance due to Elogen, please?

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Thank you very much, Kevin. Well, on the first question, we gave figures without activities in Russia. We stopped our activities on many projects in Russia on the energy carriers, but we continue on the GBS. We continue our activities on two energy carriers built in Russia, as we said in our press release, well, which are not included in our forecasts, because the situation there is volatile. The sanctions may come. In order for you and for investors to have a proper and transparent view on 2023 figures, we've decided not to take them into account.

The activities in Korea for Russia, building energy carriers for Russia, whether they are icebreaking energy carriers or normal energy carriers, are taken into account in our 2023 guidance. For your second question about volume and so on, we did not detail that. I would say that we gave a guidance on the total turnover of the company and the EBITDA of the company. Of course, we took into consideration figures for 2023 from Elogen. That's something which is, of course, going to be monitored in 2023. You can see from what Jean-Baptiste Choimet has shown you, in 2022, we selected very meaningful contracts.

We selected, we had a contract for an electrolyzer for maritime windmills. That the first one in the world. That has a lot of potential because you can generate hydrogen from these windmills. It means you can store the energy, which is the main drawback of windmills and renewable energies. You can save the cost of copper lines for transporting electricity to the land. It has many advantages, and it's very much looked at. We did the same with another very large developer of windmill farms in Germany, ENERTRAG, which is very well known in Germany, and with a very large electrolyzer, 10 megawatt electrolyzer.

In fact, if you look at who is really signing for something we or something existing in terms of electrolyzers, there are projects talking about 200 megawatt, 500 megawatt. Really signing 10 megawatts, it's, you know, already in the league of the largest electrolyzers contracted today. It shows you several things. Elogen is in the league of the tier one company, the company which are trusted for large systems, and also the company trusted by very large developers such as Shell or ENERTRAG. That means a lot. That means also that our strategy is at Elogen is very much under control.

We look very much at the timing of our contract and at the time of acceleration in this business. Another question? Yes.

Speaker 10

Another question on Elogen. You mentioned you are very selective in your contracts you're competing for. You gained EUR 15 million of orders in 2022. What was the kind of success rate? How much did you win compared to how much did you bid?

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

I will leave the floor to Jean-Baptiste Choimet for this difficult question. We'll see whether he will reveal secrets.

Jean-Baptiste Choimet
Managing Director, Elogen

Good morning. Well, I think, like Philippe said, like I said earlier, we really choose where we want to go. That means, we do not fight after all contracts. That's the first element. Second element is that it takes a long time between the moment where we first are in contact with the client and the moment where the order is signed. Electrolysis projects are very difficult to structure for our clients. They need to find the funding. They need to overcome technical issues. They need to secure the offtake. Therefore, it's a matter of patience to go through all this process. I'm quite pleased with the performance of the commercial team last year, because what we wanted, we generally got. Thank you.

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Another question? Yes. Ed, you are the first.

Speaker 9

Thank you. A few questions on my side. The first one would be, if we compare your revenue outlook for 2023 on the core backlog to the backlog split you gave by year and also the guidance you gave for 2023, there's a difference of over EUR 70 million on the non-core revenues, so LNG as a fuel, Elogen and services. That's more than double the EUR 34 million you did in 2022. I was wondering if you could give us an idea of which of those three legs of the non-core part are driving a more than doubling. Is it all Elogen? Is it LNG as a fuel performing very well? Is it services too? Could you give us some kind of color there, please?

Virginie Aubagnac
CFO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Yes, you're right. You still have other activities within GTT that are not core business, and we're working on developing them. Indeed, we expect Elogen to grow its business and its revenues. As you can see, you have EUR 15.4 million order intake in 2022. That means that you'll have a strong increase in revenues between 2022 to 2023 on that subject. Also, as you mentioned very well, LNG as a fuel, we had, we have 70 units in our order book, which is a record. In 2022, this order book has not materialized yet really in our revenues. You can expect indeed quite a strong increase in that.

In addition to that, you have digital activities and, also all our services in operation and studies that can, add, revenues, quite strongly as well.

Speaker 9

Thank you. I guess historically, looking at the financials, you've shown some form of operating leverage. When revenues have gone up, typically margins have gone up that year as well to an extent. If we look at, you know, looking at 2023, you're expecting roughly 33% revenue growth, margins to be roughly flat at 52% or so, if we look at the midpoint of the guidance. Could you give us an idea on why that margin improvement maybe isn't coming through in 2023?

Virginie Aubagnac
CFO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

In terms of margins, the businesses that I just mentioned, of course, deliver lower margins, dilutive to our iconic margin in our core business. It's very hard to develop a manufacturer with such margins. Manufacturers have a different business model, and so different margins, but nonetheless delivering value added. Elogen, as you can imagine today, is in a phase where it's making loss as every competitors in the market. Although, as we said, we are selective, so we are monitoring it. We are among the best, you know, in this area in terms of losses compared to revenues. We are really taking care not to do too much and be selective in the orders that we take.

Although it has an impact in 2023, so that does explain it. Maybe also in 2023, we saw that consensus maybe didn't take the whole part of Russia. That's why we mentioned that Russia had impact of EUR 35 million in 2023 EBITDA margin.

Speaker 8

First question regarding the contract in Korea for ocean power project. This represent EUR 44 million, you included that on your backlog. Do you see any risk for the coming quarter? What do you think about this business, this contract? The second question concern the guidance. What are the main risks to explain the range or the guidance for the EBITDA to reach the low end range, for example? What do you include to explain that? The last question, I'll come back on the Elogen. You mentioned some.

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

... does impact, but you are well positioned compared to the other competitors. Do you see more losses in 2023, 2024 for Elogen due to investment or not? Would you expect the same magnitude, so the same level of EBITDA margin for all the group?

Virginie Aubagnac
CFO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Maybe for your question on the guidance range. Indeed, we broaden it a little bit. As we diversify, also, our figures are growing, we need to broaden this range. Indeed, you know that Elogen, when it signs a contract, we have to take into account loss on completion. It depends if you sign it on December 31st or January 1st, this has an impact, so we need just a little bit of flexibility on that aspect. You might have, as we saw, shipyards also reorganizing their planning to be able to take other orders. This can have a small impact, which is, you know, just maybe couple of days or things like that.

Nonetheless, that has an impact in, 2023. We need to broaden the target to be able to manage this. No more than that.

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

About Russia, what we can say is that we can see that Korea is continuing to build these ships. In fact, there are ice-breaking LNG carriers which are built in Russia. If there are sanctions on that, probably it will be hard to find other usages for these LNG carriers. They are also building normal LNG carriers, which if all of a sudden they are becoming available, will be of a very high interest for ship owners, as that would be very modern ships all of a sudden available. Ed, you wanted to ask another question?

Speaker 9

Just one last one on Elogen was, could you give us any indication on exactly how much that might be losing at the EBITDA level in 2023? Or, in the other way, could you maybe tell us how, what the margin would have been in the core business or in the group excluding the Elogen impact on losses and revenues?

Virginie Aubagnac
CFO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Ed, what I can tell you is that core business hasn't changed, meaning that it still deliver its iconic margin level. Now, we do not disclose EBITDA, Elogen's EBITDA. Again, it's making a loss, but when you compare, when you take competitors and you look at revenues versus EBITDA, we are among the good ones. That means that we are selective. We do invest, we do develop this company, but we take care not to go too much to away. It's we think it's a very good investment, though, and that this result, this loss is going to be absorbed by a development, so that we are still targeting a break-even mid-decade.

A positively end of the decade. It's a temporary investment.

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

There's a question online also.

Operator

This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session from the conference call. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Please limit yourself to one question at a time. Just a kind reminder, anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time.

Kevin Roger
Equity Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux

Yeah, Philippe, I would have a follow-up on a topic that you mentioned during the presentation, the replacement market, because it seems that there is a pickup in the replacement activity for LNGC. Is it possible for you to quantify the number of units in your backlog that are related to replacement? On the outlook that you give for the 400+ units over the next 10 years, can you tell us what kind of replacement volumes you have embarked? On the paper you show that you have more than 200 ST units that basically are non-efficient compared to the ME-GI vess els. Did you embark everything or you took an assumption of 25%, 50%? Can you give us some colors on that, please?

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

Yes. Well, for the, in our existing backlog, we consider that the place of the share of replacement shipsIs probably not that big, between 20 and one-third. In our assumptions for our forecast over the next 10 years, it's 50/50, or one-half is going to be for replacement, one-half for growth. It's about that. Another question? Yes.

Speaker 8

Maybe a question on Korea and the competition. Supreme Court, et cetera. It took 2 years to the high court to make its decision on the merits of the case, and you contested. From maybe lawyer's experience specialized in the Supreme Courts in Korea, do you expect the Supreme Court to take as long as it took the high court? Or could it be faster or longer?

Philippe Berterottière
Chairman and CEO, Gaztransport & Technigaz

It can take several years, so hard to say whether it's going to take 2 years or more. I'm sorry not to be more accurate on that, but it seems that as in some other countries, the Supreme Court is very much congested, and it's hard to predict when they are going to deal with the case. Any other question? Okay. Thank you very much. I'm very pleased to be... We are very pleased to have been with you today, and let's continue. Thank you. Bye.

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