Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GTT Q2 and half-year results for 2021 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session, and if you'd like to ask a question, you need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. And I would now like to hand the conference over to GTT and Mr. Philippe Berterottière, their CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. We are very pleased to be with you today to present to you our half-year financial results. Before doing that, I would like to introduce to you the various participants from GTT. First of all, Virginie Aubagnac, who is Chief Financial Officer of the company. She joined the company several months ago, and she is now in this position, the position which was occupied by Marc Haestier, that I would like to thank for his hard work over the recent years, and I would like to wish him a nice and pleasant retirement. We have also Jean-Baptiste Boutillier, who is at the head of the innovation since the beginning of 2021 after a long career with CMA CGM. We have Anouar Kiassi, who joined GTT in 2018 and who is at the head of our digital activities.
We have Jean-Baptiste Choimet, who joined GTT last year and who is at the head of Elogen. First of all, I would like to show you at a glance some results of some elements on GTT. You know the company quite well. In a nutshell, it's a tech and engineering company. We have three main domains: LNG with various activities, digital matters, and hydrogen. We are now occupying 545 people, highly qualified engineers and technicians. The key highlights: I will not go through all these elements, just a couple of points. On half-year 2021 revenues, we reached a level of 165 million EUR. On our core business, we received a very strong flow of orders with 18 LNG carriers, two ethane carriers, and six onshore storage tanks. In July, we received nine LNG carriers. We are already at 27 LNG carriers plus two ethane carriers this year.
Another point that I would like to underline is the number of developments, innovating developments we introduced in the first six months of this year. The Ammonia-ready Mark III, various digital solutions such as the one for maintenance optimization, also a way of financing and paying bunkers for owners, ship owners, the introduction of NO96 Super+, and so on, which is showing that the innovation flow of the company is continuing unabated. On the following slide, you have the detail of all the orders we received. I just would like to underline the bottom line of this page with a fairly strong flow of orders for LNG as fuel. In fact, it's very significant to see that in such a short period of time. Energy responsibility is at the core of GTT's DNA.
We have always tried to be more efficient, more efficient in terms of energy consumption, more efficient in terms of emissions. That's what we do for decades, and that's what we continue to do. And in the flow of innovations that we are introducing, you can see that we are highly contributing to our ESG responsibility. We have a net zero carbon ambition for 2025 on our own scope, and we have a commitment to contribute to the decarbonization of the shipping industry. On top of that, Elogen is contributing to the decarbonization of the world with the technology very much centered at storing green energy. We have for years proactive gender diversity policy. We invest a lot in training for the skills for the employees of GTT. The management compensation is highly linked to ESG factors.
30% of the variable parts of the management and of the LTI are centered around ESG criteria. Finally, the governance of the company is strictly following the AFEP-MEDEF recommendation. On the market, well, you know this slide showing that various analyses consider that LNG demand should continue over the next couple of decades. What I just would like to say is that we saw an illustration of that in the first part of this year with the decision from Qatar to launch its North Field Extension, which is going to add something like 33 million tons of LNG on the market. It leads to a demand for LNG that we are assessing on the following slide.
We consider that on top of what is demanded for the time being for transporting the LNG quantities, which have been decided, the market is needing about 92 ships in the months and years to come. On top of that, there is a quite important phenomenon, which is the fleet replacement, and I'm going to come to that in a moment. We see that on the market, China is very much leading the LNG demand growth in 2021 with a growth of 32%. It's quite huge, and China is on the verge of overtaking Japan as the first importer of LNG in the world, probably to be this year. This rate of 32% is quite amazing.
I would say, I would say I will not be too long on that, but I would say that it's following years where we saw figures of increase of the energy imports, which were quite similar to that, and it shows also that energy is part of the solution. If you want to reduce your CO2 emissions, you've got to accelerate the switch from coal or from oil to cleaner energy, and gas is a part of the solution, well, decarbonization is taken very seriously by the various LNG players. All along the chain in gas production, in liquefaction, in transportation, LNG players are doing that. It goes through carbon capture, it goes through composition, it goes through reduction, and whether you are an energy carrier owner, liquefaction company, gas producer, you do that. You want to reduce your CO2 emissions through these various means.
Of course, GTT is part of that in proposing always ever-improving solutions for reducing the emissions of the LNG carriers. It's what we do with our technologies, which are at the forefront of that, and it's what we did, for example, in the first part of this year with the introduction of the NO96 Super+. So I was talking about the renewal of the market, the replacement of LNG carriers, and when we look at the current fleet, you know that LNG carriers are very well built, and they can last, I would say, almost forever, and it explains why on the current fleet you have ships of very different designs. These ships are well built, as I said. The tanks are very tight. They could continue to operate, but they are consuming quite a lot and emitting quite a lot.
And we consider that about 50% of the current fleet in service is running with older generation engines. So under this ever-increasing pressure for reducing carbon emissions, this part of the existing fleet is prone to be replaced. And we feel that we should see that more and more in the years to come, which is going to generate a fairly strong demand for new ships. We are considering that we are very well placed to benefit from that in the years to come. And of course, we are going to continue to develop solutions and innovations for further reducing the emissions of LNG carriers. Now, I would like to pass the mic to Jean-Baptiste Boutillier, VP Innovation, who is going to talk to you about the new frontiers of energy transition with LNG as a fuel.
Good morning, everyone. I will give you an update on our performances on LNG as fuel. We see an acceleration of the LNG as fuel market with two great achievements for GTT, which are the following. The first one is an order from CMA CGM for 12 container ships. This is the third order since 2017 from this ship owner. The second great achievement for GTT is an order from Seaspan, Seaspan being one of the top ship owners in container ship business, owning 186 vessels. So this is the first order from Seaspan of five container ships, which will be fitted with LNG tank designed by GTT. The main feature of this tank is the fact it is adapted to the use of NH3. So this tank is ammonia-ready.
If we look at a broader picture, we see that LNG as fuel in the container ships market is strongly picking up. On the graph, we can see the market order book for container ships over 10,000 TEU capacity. It shows that during the first semester, there is a strong activity in the container ship business. We see also that LNG is strongly penetrating this container ship sector because it represents 25% of the market share. We need to keep in mind that yard capacity and rising material costs may limit the new building activity during the second semester. In terms of regulations, regulations at IMO level, but also at EU level, will drive significant changes in the shipping industry. At IMO level, the regulation update set a reduction of CO2 emission by 12% per vessel between 2020 and 2026.
This is measured with the CII, which is the carbon intensity index. In addition to IMO, EU is contemplating to adopt an even more stringent regulation for several sectors in terms of CO2 reduction. Out of the twelve EU proposals, four are dedicated to shipping and are related to taxation for two of them to alternative fuel infrastructure and of emission reduction regulation. EU is looking at well-to-wake greenhouse gas power, while IMO is looking at tank-to-wake, so this is favorable to LNG, so all this regulation should favor LNG as a fuel, so LNG is the cleanest and cheapest marine fuel and is a long-term solution. On the graph, we position various marine fuels considering their fuel price and their CO2 emission. We can see that LNG is the best positioned fuel in each of the three categories.
So currently, LNG is the cleanest and cheapest available marine fuel. It is available at large scale. It is technology proven, and it has a good safety track record. Bio-LNG is strongly developing with more and more ship owners proposing or offering bio-LNG solutions to their clients. On a more longer term, synthetic LNG or e-LNG will be produced from green H2 and will further reduce the CO2 emission. I would like now to pass the mic to Anouar Kiassi for Smart Shipping.
Merci, Jean-Baptiste. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. So Smart Shipping, indeed, is another way to reduce the greenhouse emissions and improve the economics and environmental parameters of the shipping industry. So Smart Shipping is the use of state-of-the-art digital technologies to reduce the operational costs, reduce emissions, and improve the safety of the vessel. The market drivers actually correspond to these motivations: cost reduction, environmental regulation, and the need for transparency between the stakeholders, mainly the owners and the charters and the different players in the value chain. It is an emerging market that is expected to reach $730 million in 2025 in the scope that we are addressing today. We believe that we have the skills to establish a strong position in this market thanks to our technical knowledge and the commercial network and the relations we have in this industry.
Our ambition, of course, is to be a key player based on leveraging on organic development and very targeted acquisitions. Our journey in Smart Shipping started with the acquisition of Ascenz some years back, and that was the opportunity for us to industrialize our know-how in this domain and deploy the first LNG carriers. 15 or almost 16 of them are deployed. And we also acquired sensor technologies and capabilities to prepare the future developments in this domain. That also opened for us the way to have or to address new topics in the offshore segment. With the acquisition of Marorka, we extended our offering to what we call the ocean-going vessels, meaning other vessels that cross the seas apart from LNG carriers. And we enlarged our scope in terms of features and in terms of geography.
Last year, with the acquisition of OSE Engineering, we extended our capabilities in artificial intelligence. That is how we succeeded in developing this new feature introduced by Philippe at the beginning regarding the predictive maintenance of the tank. Here, as we can see, more than a separate, I would say, business line, the digital activity sustains and supports the superiority of GTT in its core business. This is key and complementary. Today, we have a global digital platform that is turnkey that we can deploy for our large customers for all types of vessels, for all types of fuels, and with world coverage. The battle that is ahead of us, of course, is to accelerate, to gain more market share, and to improve the margin of this activity.
To succeed in this domain and this fragmented market, as we mentioned before, we can, of course, count on GTT unique commercial network in this domain. We have quite exceptional capacity to talk to different stakeholders and to align them to make decisions happen, mainly to reduce the costs in the industry and the emissions, as we said. The GTT platform is recognized more and more as a future-proof platform, mainly, for example, because we are compatible with future fuels like LNG. We are part of an established group. We are different from startups. So when it comes to large investments and future investments, we are considered as a secure investment from our customers, and we are capable, as I said, of handling different fuels, and we invest in the innovation to build this strong position.
After a harsh COVID episode, we see the tendering activity in this domain picking up, and we have an active, I would say, and promising commercial activity, and we have already significant projects ongoing. Last, I would like to highlight one of the numerous innovations we mentioned is the support or the execution of the first bunker in Singapore, and in the world, by the way, supported by the electronic bunker delivery notes, which is a solution developed by Ascenz with the collaboration with different entities within the group. And the objective is to digitize the bunkering process, making it shorter. For example, the standard process would take a week and taking it down to two hours. In addition to that, the information is sent directly to the bank to finance the bunker. So actually, it's a technology for digitization, but also for financing the bunker in this shipping industry.
We're very proud to be the first in the world to deliver this and be a key player in the, I would say, Singapore ecosystem, which is a reference in that domain. We aim and ambition to have this deployed in other major ports. In line with GTT, as a conclusion, I would say in line with GTT core values, we believe that developing superior and trusted technologies is key to build this strong position in Smart Shipping as we ambition. Thank you. I give the microphone to Jean-Baptiste Choimet, who will talk about Elogen and hydrogen.
Thank you, Anouar. Good morning, all. So first of all, I would like to remind you of what Elogen does. So today, we design and deliver to our clients complete containerized electrolyzer. And tomorrow, we will also provide our clients with large-scale electrolyzers. Our design, our technology are flexible enough to address all key hydrogen applications: mobility, power-to-gas, power storage, as well as industry. So now, in terms of key figures, during the first half of this year, we have secured an order intake of EUR 4.6 million, and we have achieved a revenue of EUR 2.5 million. And for the full year of 2021, we confirm our revenue target of EUR 6 million. So how do we work in Elogen to deliver our product? So we have the technology, the full set of competencies to deliver complete electrolyzers.
Now, in terms of assembly, for the stacks, we keep the assembly in-house because this piece of the system is the heart of our technology. For the balance of plants of the electrolyzers, we are currently expanding a network of subcontractors specialized in mechanical assembly and electrical wiring, and thanks to this organization, this will enable us to limit our space and resources requirements, and also, we are able to potentially fabricate our electrolyzers close to our clients, so this is what we master today, but we want to go further to industrialize our stacks production and further reduce our costs, so a first step will be achieved this year with the installation in our premises close to Paris of a pilot stacks assembly line. Thanks to it, we will then reach a production capacity of 160 stacks per year, but beyond that, we envisage further industrial deployments.
This is why we are currently involved in the hydrogen IPCEI works, important project of common European interest. We have analyzed the key components of the cost of hydrogen. One key finding is that whether the electrolyzer is connected to an intermittent power source or to the grid, the cost of electricity remains the main contributor. This is why it is key to focus on the efficiency of our electrolyzers to make hydrogen competitive for our clients. The good news is that PEM technology is the most efficient mature technology today. As an example, in PEM electrolyzers, it is possible to produce up to three times more hydrogen than in an alkaline electrolyzer at the same level of efficiency. This is why GTT has chosen Elogen and the PEM technology. Another reason is that this technology has an incredible innovation potential.
Therefore, we are convinced that thanks to our strong R&D and technological know-how, we can strongly improve the cost and the efficiency of our systems for the benefit of our clients. Thank you for your attention. And I now leave the floor to Jean-Baptiste.
I will now present you a couple of slides on innovation. So as you know, R&D and innovation are at the heart of GTT's development and are based on two pillars. The first one is a unique combination of skills. From 2010 to 2020, the R&D budget averaged 10% of the total group's revenue. R&D efforts are supported by 113 people in the innovation department, and they are fully dedicated to R&D and innovation. R&D budget for 2021 is EUR 30 million. The second pillar is a dynamic IP strategy. We have been ranked at the first place for the second consecutive year of the mid-size company patent application at the INPI in France. We file every year about 60 patents in France. So we have been particularly active during the first semester, and I would like to focus on two recent examples.
The first one is the obtaining of the general approval for a new technology, NO96 Super+, which reduced the boil-off rate to 0.085. This general approval has been granted by three major classification societies. With this new technology and development, ship operators benefit from reduced operating costs. The second example I would like to focus on is our development on ammonia. We received an approval in principle for our Mark III technology for ammonia readiness. This technology is NH3 ready or ammonia ready. Thanks to this development, we already received some orders for LNG as fuel this year, as we saw in the previous slide with the Seaspan order. This results in more flexibility for the ship owner. In addition to this slide, we have the electronic bunker delivery note, which has been presented to you by Anouar a few minutes ago.
I now would like to leave the floor to Virginie Aubagnac.
Hello, everyone. First, on the order book. So GTT order book on core business offers visibility over the long term, allowing GTT to efficiently anticipate its business and prepare for the future. As you can see, the order book at the end of June stands at a high level with 136 units for a total value of EUR 619 million. 2021 revenues have increased from EUR 267 million to EUR 273 million, which means that H1 2021 orders will contribute to the revenue of the same year. H1 2021 revenues amount to EUR 149 million versus EUR 124 million in H2. The difference is explained by numerous deliveries in H1. In 2022, as you can see, the expected revenue from the order book increased from EUR 213 million at the end of December 2020 to EUR 242 million at the end of June 2021. The H1 2021 orders contributed to 2022 revenue by EUR 29 million in 2023.
The contribution from H1 2021 orders amounts to €67 million, and in 2024, the contribution amounts to €26 million. Let's focus on revenues first. GTT booked a revenue of €165.3 million in H1 2021, a decrease of -1 9% compared to H1 2020 peak, but an increase of 35% versus H1 2019, reflecting a good level of activity. €154 million come from new-build royalties, mainly LNGCs, but also from other membrane applications on VLEC, FSU, FSRU, GBS, onshore storage, and LNG as a fuel. Elogen's revenue amounts to €2.5 million in the first half of the year. All service revenues are growing, notably in the maintenance activity. GTT booked an EBITDA of €96.5 million in H1 2021, translating into an EBITDA margin of 58.4%. Excluding the impact of the H2 2020 acquisition, the EBITDA margin would stand over 60%. Net income amounts to €76.6 million, translating into a net margin of 46.3%.
Change in working capital mechanically turned positive in H1 2021 to €14.6 million, thanks to a portfolio under construction being on average at an earlier stage than at the end of 2020. Cash flows amount to €105 million. An interim dividend of €1.35 per share will be paid in November 2021, and the payout objective of 80% is confirmed. GTT's cost base has been stable despite the impact of Elogen and OSE Engineering, with external costs standing at €30.6 million and staff costs standing at €33.3 million in H1 2021. GTT has notably reduced its subcontracted tests and studies. Thanks to a lean cost approach, GTT has reduced its salaries and social charges by €1.2 million, compensating the impact to the consolidation of Elogen and OSE Engineering staff costs. I now leave the floor to Philippe Berterottière.
Thank you, Virginie. I would like now to talk about our strategic roadmap. While you're used to this graph, the elements are slightly evolving, even though over the years, we are very consistent with our roadmap. Of course, at the core of our activities, we find the energy containment systems. That's the origin of the company. We are keeping on developing them as the recent introduction of the NO96 Super+ system is showing, offering a very low boil-off performance. We are doing that also in some other applications, in services or in LNG as a fuel. And for example, in LNG as a fuel, we offered the ammonia compatibility for our systems, giving to the owners the possibility of having the flexibility to fuel their ships with either LNG or ammonia. That is very much catering for a world of energy, which is a little bit uncertain.
We do that also for our digital solution, as Anouar Kiassi has shown to us, with the financing and payment solution offered to owners for their bunker. That is very, it's a fintech, very innovative solution. And finally, in gas handling technologies, it's a domain in which we are working for years. And that particularly applies to our latest acquisition, Elogen, where a lot of our competencies could find a home. There, we do intend to continue to explore the hydrogen value chain. There are opportunities there that we are looking at and where our various competencies could apply. What I would like to say is that the set of competencies we've acquired, we assembled over the years, are very consistent. We can develop plenty of synergies between our various activities. For example, we acquired last year a small French company in artificial intelligence.
This company is working for GTT, is working for Ascenz, Marorka, is working for Elogen. We can accelerate very much our developments thanks to all these competencies we can find in the group. The innovation capacity, the capacity of GTT to develop very innovative technologies is very much linked to these various synergies, these various competencies we have in the different parts of the group. I would like now to talk about our outlook. As far as our revenue is concerned, I would like to confirm that we have a guidance between €285 million and €315 million for year 2021. As far as the EBITDA is concerned, I confirm that we have a guidance between €150 and €170 million. As far as the dividend payment is concerned, I would like to confirm that we plan a dividend payout of at least 80% for 2021.
So now we can talk. We are now watching the Q&A questions. And I would like to ask the operator to inform everybody about this moment. So first of all, we are going to begin with the room, those who are here with us in Palais Brongniart.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question on the phone, please press star and one and wait for your name to be announced. Over to you for questions in the room first. Thank you.
Jean-Luc Romain, CIC Market Solutions. I have two questions, please. One on LNG as a fuel. You have had more orders in the first half; that's a very good thing. Do you believe you can go beyond a very large container carrier and get into the markets, for instance, for dry bulk carriers? My understanding is that some big mining companies are willing to transform their fleets. Second question is about the conversion of existing container carriers. I think you converted one. What lessons did you learn? And do you believe there is a market there? On hydrogen, one question. You mentioned your targets for 2021. What are your ambitions in the next five years, for instance? And HDF Energy mentioned they would cooperate with a well-known French technology provider for their electrolyzers.
I was wondering, as there are not many, if Elogen is part of the competition to gain this market.
Well, thank you, Jean-Luc. As far as LNG as a fuel is concerned, it's true that we've reached quite significant successes in this first part of this year on very large container ships. Our solutions can apply to that, and we demonstrated that. We demonstrated also that an owner who is operating vessels equipped with our solutions is coming back. And that, in a short word, is the proof of the pudding. So we think that the more it's going to be used, the more these solutions are going to be validated by the experience, and the more they are going to be successful.
When you look at the story of the membrane, I would not like to be too pedantic, but you can see that the membrane can apply to things which are quite far away from the original use of LNG carriers with certain filling limits. And we think that in LNG as a fuel, where there are specificities, in particular, selling space for cargo and being able to rely on a technological partner which has an extensive experience, we think that we can address other solutions. We are in July 2021. In fact, the LNG as a fuel market has not really taken off yet. Probably with the regulations that Jean-Baptiste Boutillier was detailing earlier, this takeoff is not so far away. And we are keeping on working on applying our solutions to other segments of the shipping industry.
In July 2021, we are delivering the first cruise vessel where we built, we actually built ourselves, tanks for that. People, once more, are going to be able to prove whether pudding is a good cake. While that's something where, even though this market segment is a little bit in disarray for the time being due to the pandemic situation, we are going to see whether we can have a success there. We are keeping on developing solutions for other market segments. On conversion, in 2021, we delivered the first container ships with a conversion. There as well, it's proof of the pudding. It's an engineering success. It's quite complicated.
Even though the market there, it's not in disarray at all because there is such a boom in container ships that no owner of these vessels would like to send a ship for conversion at this period of time. There are so much in need for ships for transporting goods in this time that it's not at all the right moment to send a ship to conversion. But we've demonstrated that it's feasible. It's working. It's feasible. There are plenty of ships which are not so old, which are worth to be converted. And it's true for container ships. It's true also for other ships. On hydrogen, I would like to hand the floor to Jean-Baptiste Choimet, who is going to answer in more details to your questions.
Okay. So to answer your questions, we are currently involved in various bids, but we are generally bound by confidentiality obligations with our potential clients. So I'm afraid I cannot directly answer this question. However, what I would like to state is that we ensure that we are selective on the bids we decide to go for. We are focusing on those that will enable us to develop long-standing win-win relationships with our clients, but also develop our track record and enable us to further develop our product offering. Thank you.
Mike? Okay. Mike, Guillaume, and then you.
Good morning. Guillaume Delaby, Société Générale. First, congratulations for the very impressive technological presentation. So that was impressive, and thank you, and rich. I would like to. I have two really, really down-to-earth questions. I nearly feel guilty to ask them, but I think they are important. The first one is on slide 14. Assuming that there are basically 234, what we can call old vessels, what could be a reasonable assumption for their replacement trade? So 234, should we split that in 10 years, i.e., maybe 23 vessels to be replaced per annum? Is it a reasonable or fair assumption? This is my first question. My second question, so I don't know whether it is for Virginie or for one of the two or three Jean-Baptiste, it's regarding staff cost, and in particular, staff cost for Elogen. Thank you.
Okay. On your first question, I would not go too far there for various reasons, including one that some of these ships are under long-term charters, and owners have commitments from clients, from their clients, to use these ships for another 10 or 15 years. Some of them have been delivered in the past decade. There are competing ones. They are very much in favor in Japan. They were built in Japan and operated by Japanese owners for the benefit of Japanese utilities. They are built with the financing and with the long-term charters, which may go in the 30s or in the middle of the 30s or even beyond, so there is no way these charters can be broken.
The opportunity is when the charter is coming to an end, and then it gives an opportunity to the owner and the utilities to change the technology to pass on to a more modern ship. So also, we are a global company. We are talking to various utilities, owners. And I would say that we feel very much the pressure in Western Europe. Charters are feeling very much the pressure. Large LNG companies are feeling the pressure. But in some parts of the world, the pressure is not felt as much as that. I guess it's going to come over the coming years, but I would not personally jump on too bullish a conclusion on that, even though now we can say that for 18 months, we can see that the replacement market is not a small one. For the second one, I leave the floor to Virginie.
On staff cost, as you can see, staff costs have been stable, so nonetheless, we consolidated Elogen and OSE Engineering, meaning that there was a decrease of staff cost within GTT. I told you EUR 1.2 million in salaries and charges, among other items, and therefore, I cannot give you the numbers, but we know, of course, that when we anticipate and we want really to allocate our staff cost in the right place to create value, and Elogen is an important company for GTT. We believe in it, so we'll develop it, but we remain very strict on cost control and staff allocation.
Eric Blanc, Finance Connect. Just a few questions about, first of all, globally, can you give an idea about your market share in the different businesses where you are involved? My second question is about digital and Elogen. We can say that there is no negative contribution to the EBITDA of the group, or is there any loss right now, which is more CapEx than a loss, but which can be translated as a loss? I am curious. You said that you have a capacity in Elogen of 160 stacks. Can you translate in sales what that means? I mean, about the value of one stack. And my last question is about shareholding. Can you give an idea of the last figure about shareholding and dilution for performance stock options and so on? Thank you.
On market share, as you know, on our core business for LNG carriers or FSRUs or FLNG, we have a 100% market. In fact, we have competitors, but they are not winning contracts. On LFS, I would say that LNG as a fuel, this market is emerging. So talking about market share is probably too early. That moves very quickly. Our market share was very strong at the beginning. It was a bit less last year, and it increases very significantly this part of the year. I would say that people are trying different solutions. We have competitors. We think once more that our solutions are excellent, but the fight is on, and we are very much excited by this competition and determined to show that our solutions are better. On digital solutions, it's a very atomized market. There are plenty of players.
I would say that what we are trying to do, we cannot really, for us, analyze that in terms of market share. You can see, for example, from the financing and payment solution for bunkers, the solution is unique, totally innovative, and in a certain way, we are creating a market. We are creating something which did not exist. It's very much the DNA of GTT. We are once more an innovation company, a tech company. We are introducing something unique there, but in smart shipping, there are quite a lot of people with small market share. We are there. We want to once more keep on improving our offering to be recognized as a state-of-the-art company in this arena, and it's what we believe. Elogen definitely, and we are not hiding that as a negative contribution to the EBITDA of the company.
Even though it's small, it's kept under control. We have there, as we have everywhere else, our approach to costs, lean and fit approach, where we engage the exact number of resources which are needed and top-level resources. It's thanks to that that we are capable of limiting the costs and capable also of generating maximum value from the engaged resources. As far as the shareholding is concerned, we have no comments to make about that. We have a strong core shareholder, Engie, with 30%. We have other shareholders that we are very pleased to meet regularly and to keep informed of what we do. We think that the company is a great company, and we deserve, and we have great shareholders.
About dilution, different product or like the stock option and so on, what is the global amount of percentage of shareholding?
Dilution to, well, the management incentive plan is very limited. The management has a small percentage of the capital of the company. And we have a program of about 70,000 shares a year, which are going to be distributed or not, depending on whether the company, the management, is going to be able to reach a certain level of performance. I remember that we have more than 37 million shares. So a 70,000-share program is representing something like less than 0.2% of the number of shares per year. So it's very, very limited.
Two questions. On slide 11, expected orders coming from liquefaction projects and job construction at 92. Are the nine orders of dry included in 92 or not received by GTT in dry?
No, they are not. It's the figure as of June 30, 2021.
And concerning LNG as a fuel for container ships, in H1, you received a lot of orders. What technology received the other orders? It's type B or?
Type B and Type C.
Type C too. Okay.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Any questions on the line?
Thank you. As a reminder, this is star and one would like to ask a question. And your first question is from the line of Kevin Roger of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. The first one is a follow-up on the one that I've just been asking. I was wondering on the LNG as a fuel on the slide 18, you say that almost 35 units have been ordered to the market. So I was wondering if, let's say, it's still an opportunity for you because you have already around 17, or if the remaining vessels have been, let's say, ordered with type B and type C technology. And on that side, if you can explain us if it's the case, why the type B and C technology have, let's say, entered the 10K market, because usually they were focused on the smallest one. That's the first question. The second question is also a follow-up on the employee costs.
I was wondering if you can give us a bit of information regarding the evolution for H2, because if I recall well, last year, you said that you would hire more than 100 people this year. So I was wondering if you should expect a big increase in employee costs in H2 regarding this program. And the third question is, let's say, cash and dividend-related. I was wondering if you expect, let's say, a specific negative movement in cash or something like that in H2 for having announced a new current dividend for a payout ratio of 65% below the 80% policy for the full year. And then I was wondering regarding the, let's say, strong cash position that you currently have in the balance sheet and the expected decline in earnings that we expect for 2021.
Would you consider using your cash position for paying a kind of extra dividend or something like that to maintain, let's say, a kind of stability on the dividend this year compared to last year? Thanks a lot.
Okay. Thank you, Kevin. Well, on your first question, when a market is starting, people are trying different kinds of solutions. And they are trying the type B and type C. I would say that the advantage of type B and type C, it's a kind of plug-and-play solution. You can lift the tank, which has been built onshore. You can pose it in the hull and connect it, and that's it. While for a membrane tank, you have to assemble the membrane tank in the hull. It's both the beauty of the system because you save space. It's also the weak point because while you are building the ship, you have a team on board for building the tank. And the shipyards would prefer this kind of plug-and-play solution. Depending on various factors, size, and prices, membrane can be priced, in particular, steel prices, more affordable.
So it's particularly true for large tanks. It's also true when steel prices are very high. And then it becomes a quite normal choice to select membrane because you can save space, and you can have a tank which is costing less than the competing one. So even though shipyards would like to have a solution as simple as possible, where a third party is going to provide the tank, and where the tank is going to be installed in the hull in a very simple manner, price and efficiency may prevail. On cost, on the second part of the year, I would say that we are going to continue to have our approach that we detailed, this lean and fit approach, where we are very much controlling our costs. And it's what you can see on the first part of the year.
You're going to continue to see that in the second part of the year. About the 100 people, I think we detailed that there was a bit of misunderstanding on our behalf due to wrong communication on our behalf. We do not intend to hire 100 people. We just intend to renew particular contracts for fairly short-term contracts for 100 people who are integrated in our headcount. You can see that in the first part of the year with a very slight reduction of the number of employees at the group level. I would say that the headcount matter remains very much under control. On the cash and dividend policy, you can see that effectively we have a strong cash position, which has increased in the first part of the year.
And the interim dividend last year has been very, very important. It's true. Well, in fact, we had a different approach over the years. What we would like to have is something quite balanced between the interim dividend and what we pay after the decision of the General Assembly. We had that in the past, and I think it's passing a much more stronger message in terms of fluidity and balance of payments. Well, on our cash position, it's something which belongs to the board. So I will not. We've given a guidance about 2021. It's something which is going to be discussed. I would say that, first of all, we have. There may be issues of working capital. There may be issues about being able to pursue strategic opportunity, which would be discussed on time by the board.
I will not comment on your assessment about the decline of our situation over the years to come. We can see that the fundamentals are very strong, as we can see through the flow of orders, our capacity to develop in the adjacent sectors that we've selected. We have the feeling that we have selected very good adjacent sectors. We are investing for developing unique solutions. We may need some resources in order to further develop in these sectors. That's a debate for the board. For the time being, we are confirming our payout for 2021 of 80%. Other questions?
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is from the line of Jean-François Granjon of Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Jean-François Granjon from Oddo BHF speaking. As mentioned by Jean-Luc at the beginning of the Q&A session, I just want to come back on the Elogen expectation. What do you expect in terms of growth for Elogen for the coming years, for the next four to five years? Could you give us a more clear about that? The second question concerns the hydrogen market. Today, lots of actors or players in the sector mentioned some delays for new orders due to the fact that the actors need some more time to find the finance situation. So there's some delay. So do you see the same trend regarding your order intake? Do you see some delay or not for your business? And the last question concerns the trend for 2022. You mentioned the sales secured for next year.
Taking into account the new orders, do you expect the same magnitude or level of top line in 2022 compared to 2021? Thank you.
Same level of?
Magnitude.
Magnitude of?
Top line.
Top line. Okay. Okay. So for Elogen, for the four to five years, the perspectives there, I would say, let's be cautious. I mean, hydrogen is a very promising sector. While we can see that a lot of people are very bullish on that, we are there. We cannot comment. As you said, some are talking about delays and the time it's taking for this market to ramp up. We consider that it's promising. When this very strong takeoff is going to materialize, well, we are not particularly willing to comment on that. We will see that. We see that there is a very strong support from governments in many countries all around the world. And we are going to see when this takeoff is going to happen, particularly on delays. I would say that we don't see that.
You see that the number of orders that we signed for in the first part of the year is quite significant. In fact, so we are able to sign for contracts in many different countries. The company is capable of having a global reach. We have had a contract in Korea. Well, as you know, we are quite knowing the country. We are not suffering from, as far as we are concerned, I would say we are not suffering from delays, neither in the number of orders we are signing nor in our execution. We feel that this market is promising, and we are quite pleased by the situation of this market with growing figures. Also, I would say that under the management of Jean-Baptiste Choimet, we've been able to turn around the company very quickly. So we don't give any guidance for the top line for next year.
What I would like to say is that we are hinting something there in page 35 of our presentation, where you can see what we are expecting in terms of revenues from our core business. It means LNG carriers, FSRUs in 2022. On top of that, you have to add our other activities, services, Digital, Elogen, and LNG as a fuel. So you can have a flavor of that, and I leave you assuming what could be our top line.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, this is star and one. If you'd like to ask a question, your next request is from the line of Renaud Faller of Amundi. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. You've made an enormous and tremendous backlog, very good news, and your stock price keeps being very lackluster compared to other companies. And I'm very amazed that you can say that Engie is a strong shareholder when by placing shares, they have totally destroyed the momentum in your stock price. So I think that your business is very good, but your main weakness is your remaining main shareholder. And I guess minority shareholders would like to have a view and transparency on when and if they want to exit the remaining of their shares.
The Engie and GDF SUEZ, or Gaz de France before GDF, is a shareholder of this company for something like 55 years. They've accompanied this company in its development for 55 years, including for years more than a decade when there was not a single order. So it's a long-term partner with whom we had a very intimate relationship. They helped once more the company on the financial standpoint, on the technological standpoint. And if this company is at this level today, it's thanks to many factors: the quality of its people, their determination, their competencies, but also the fact that we could rely on a very strong and resilient and confident shareholder. What we know is that Engie has a standstill period after the operations they've pursued earlier this year.
Afterwards, if you would like to know more, I would suggest you contact them, and they could give you information about that.
I agree with you, but they placed half of their stake in the most, excuse the term, but stupid way in advising the market that they will be doing a book building six months actually before doing it, which took your share price from EUR 90 to EUR 60. And there is still half of their stake remaining. They did the same thing with their other subsidiary, Engie EPS, which signed a big contract with Stellantis, and nonetheless, they sold it at a 20% discount to the stock price to the Chinese. So I'm sorry, but minority shareholders have a hard time understanding the logics of the ESG policy of Engie, if they have any logic. And I think for your own sake, you're a fantastic company, but as long as you've got this liability, it's going to be very hard to make the stock price move.
Once more, I would like to say that I'm a Chairman and CEO of this company for 12 years, and I'm well placed to appreciate the contribution of the shareholder. Now, the decisions they've taken are belonging to them, and I have no comment to make on that.
Yeah, but it's still only a 30% shareholder. You've got 70% minority shareholders who are suffering from this patronage of LNG. So I guess as a chairman, you should address this question and maybe find a solution with your main shareholder, who obviously doesn't consider you as a strategic holding anymore.
Well, the.
Or maybe some activists will do it instead.
We consider all our shareholders very seriously, including the minority shareholders. In fact, all of them are minority shareholders. And we can see that through the consistency of the policy towards our shareholders, including in the payout, which is remaining the same. Now, I would say that I'm not making any comments on the share price. We are managing the strategy of the company with a long-term view. The decisions or the evolution of the share price are not affecting our strategy to invest in technology, to introduce innovative solutions, and to have a very strong determination to serve our customer base, which is very confident in GTT.
Okay. There is a written question about the KFTC case, asking for an update and.
Okay. I just would like to highlight that you can find in the deck some words about, on page 6, on the bottom of the page, some words on KFTC. You know that there was a decision in 2020 from the KFTC, which asked us to split our contracts into two. One dealing with the access to the technology, the license agreement, and the other one dealing with the technical assistance, all the engineering, detailed engineering we are providing to yards. We appealed this decision, and we asked for a suspension of this decision. This suspension has been granted by the Supreme Court of Seoul. KFTC appealed this suspension. And finally, the current Supreme Court granted the suspension, so decided against the appeal filed by KFTC.
Now, we are in the process of the appeal in front of the Supreme Court for the decision which has been taken by the KFTC, and we expect that sometime in 2022, we should obtain a decision from the Supreme Court of the High Court of Seoul. Meanwhile, our current business practices are remaining unchanged until a decision on the merits are taken by the Seoul High Court. That's where we are, so it seems that there are no other questions. I would like to thank all of you for having attended this presentation quite early in the morning for some of you abroad. I would like also to thank the GTT team for their participation in this conference.
Once more, I would like to say that each and any shareholder is very important to us, and we are going to keep with you to maintain a very transparent dialogue on what we do. Do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you very much.