Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for standing by, and welcome to the GTT 2020 half-year results. At this time, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session, at which time, should you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star and the number one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. I must advise you all that this conference is being recorded today, Thursday, the 30th of July, 2020, and I would now like to hand the conference over to our speakers for today. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. My name is Philippe Berterottière. I'm the Chairman and CEO of GTT. I would like to introduce to you the GTT team with Eric Dehouck, the Chief Operating Officer of GTT, who joined the company last April, and Marc Haestier, the Chief Financial Officer of GTT, who is going to accompany me in this presentation. First, I would like to add some quick words to define what GTT is. We are a French technology and engineering company. We've begun our operations more than 50 years ago in designing energy technologies, membrane systems, and we continue to do so. Our turnover in the first six months of this year has been EUR 204 million, and the net income has been EUR 116 million.
We design, we develop technologies, we provide the detailed designs of these technologies for applications on ships, and we assist our licensees in the construction of our systems. The key highlights of GTT in the first six months are in the core business, we obtained 18 orders, 12 orders for LNG carriers, two orders for FSUs, one order for FSRUs, and three onshore storage tanks. What is remarkable in this figure is that one-third of these orders are not for energy carriers, but for storage solutions that we developed over the years. New service contracts, we obtained several contracts this year with CMA CGM Group, with Excelerate Energy in the U.S., with Knutsen, and with Fleet Management in Hong Kong. So this activity is generating new businesses.
We obtained a new license agreement with a shipyard based in Russia, Zvezda, and which has passed almost immediately a contract for five LNG carriers. In the first part of this year, we acquired two companies: Marorka, a company based in Iceland, a company providing smart shipping solutions, and also a small French company named OSE Engineering, which is providing expert smart algorithms that we found very appropriate for complementing our digital offering. We have two new directors with Mr. Guiollot from ENGIE Group, who is replacing Judith Hartmann, and Mrs. Isabelle Boccon-Gibod, an independent director, replacing Françoise Leroy. We propose an interim dividend of EUR 2.50 per share. It would represent an increase of 66% compared to what we paid last year, and that should be paid on the 3rd of November 2020.
When we look at what we achieved in terms of contracts, we can see that we are covering the entire LNG value chain. We are very close to the production with the Ice Class LNG carriers. We are in the storage solution with very large FSUs. The two FSUs we signed for 360,000 cubic meters are the largest by far, the largest LNG floating structure ever built, ever ordered at least, but we are going to build them. Conventional orders, of course, mid-scale, it's a segment which is new, and the segment which is new for 80,000 cubic meters LNG carriers, it shows that there is a demand for regional distribution of LNG retail in a certain sort, in a certain manner, retail LNG. Very large FSRU with 270,000 cubic meters.
We built one in the past, but it's a very, very big FSRU, and as you know, it's a domain we are dominating. So it's quite good to see that back in our order book, and onshore tanks with three tanks. So we have a strong level of order book. In core business, we have 135 units. In the meantime, in fact, we obtained 18 orders in the first six months, and we delivered 16 ships. On the new businesses, we have 18 units, and in fact, in the first six months, we did not obtain any orders, but we delivered one bunker ship to MOL and Total for the CMA CGM operations.
Just to look at the COVID-19 situation, well, first of all, I would like to say that the health of our employees and their families is absolutely fundamental to us, and you know that basically we are a company of engineers. We don't have production facilities, so it's absolutely key. No severe case has been reported. We apply very strictly recommendations to employees at head office and abroad in line with those of the French and local authorities, and whenever it's meaningful to reinforce them, we are doing so. At the operational level, employees are back at the office, except those who are at risk. Subsidiaries, same policies at head offices, then head office depending on local regulations. You know that we have several subsidiaries all around the world.
Main risk, it's delays in the timetable for the construction of vessels, which may lead to a shift in the recognition of revenue from a year to another. Well, to be candid, we experienced some delays, but nothing significant and no significant impact anticipated on our 2020 revenues. Of course, the risks related to the impact of the epidemic on the global economy remain today difficult to assess. Energy market is based on long-term prospects and financing, so that may be not so seriously affected. We can see that the situation has improved in the Asian countries, which represent more than 80% of more than 60% of the worldwide imports of energy. So our business is operating normally despite the particularly difficult circumstances, and of course, we closely monitor any changes affecting the market in which the group operates.
If we want to look at our core business with the market and activity update, here you can see on this chart the forecast from Wood Mackenzie, and we can see in red that's the forecast they provided in the second quarter of 2020. You can see it's a bit below what they provided in the last quarter of 2019, but it's still above what they said at the end of 2018 and at the end of 2017 and 2016. So we are still on a fairly optimistic view of how the market should increase. We expect that in 2020, the market is going to increase by 3% instead of 6%, but well, it's a business which should significantly increase despite the current situation. We think that the long-term demand trend remains sustained with an average growth of about 3.9% between 2019 and 2035.
For example, if we look at China, we can see that the demand remains dynamic. We are expecting that imports will grow by 4% in 2020 despite the COVID situation that has strongly impacted the country as we know. The long-term growth should remain strong, and we could expect an average rate of growth of about 5%. The factor which has been quite interesting this first part of the year has been the cancellation of cargoes in the U.S. You know that many cargoes have been canceled, and what has been the impact on the LNG industry? The American LNG prices were below the Asian LNG prices, something which was not expected at all, of course, and very significantly lower than spot prices.
In fact, due to the particular structure of these contracts where the take-or-pay clause is concerning only the tolling fee, the liquefaction cost, we consider that these cancellations don't have a major impact on the LNG companies in the U.S. There were less shale gas exported, and probably lower demand for shale gas companies, but for the LNG players, whether they are the American LNG companies, the LNG owners who have long-term contracts, the impact has been null or minimal. The current situation, in fact, in our opinion, could even reinforce the LNG for future contracts as the flexibility which has been demonstrated by this crisis has been, in my opinion, very highly appreciated. In fact, the off-takers are paying the tolling fee, the liquefaction cost, and that's it. While in other contracts, they are paying the entire cost of the LNG.
It's a much more costly exercise not to take a cargo in other operations. So once, and that's already the case, by the way, once American LNG is back in the money, this flexibility provided by the current American pricing structure may be very appreciated by off-takers. Well, a view still from Wood Mackenzie on the very recent, dating from the second quarter of 2020, on the long-term evolution of the demand for LNG, and we still see that by 2035, there is a need for 240 million tonnes per annum. So there is a need for new facilities. It will come back, even though we do understand that in the current situation, people are postponing their decisions.
They would like to see what is going to be the situation of the economies post-COVID, but we or Wood Mackenzie do consider there is a very important need of energy in the future. When we look at the liquefaction decisions which have been taken, we told you in February that it's leading to a need for 85 LNG carriers. If we take into account the ships delivered or ordered in the first part of this year, we come now to a figure of 77 ships needed. You can see on this chart the expected delays in the availability of the facilities, which may lead you to think or to consider that these ships may be needed a bit later than originally, as some of these facilities are delayed by the COVID-19 situation. These assumptions are coming once more from Wood Mackenzie.
We don't have a particular view on these delays, so it's really figures from Wood Mac. The computations on the number of ships that's coming from us, and thanks to that, we arrive to this figure for expected orders for the next years. A fact which has been very important in these first six months that has been the orders for onshore storage. We did not sign for any for 40 years, but we produced small ones, meanwhile. We entirely revisited the technology in order to have a state-of-the-art. I would say that, in fact, this new revisited technology is beginning to convince with two orders for very large storage tanks and one for small-size tank. We are going to continue to work on that as it's a way of diversifying our activities, and we continue to believe it's exactly in line with what we believe.
Technology can transform markets, so coming with revisited technology with something which is more cost-effective, something which is cleaner, you can open a demand which was unseen before. If we look at the carbon footprint of our technology, it's 24% less carbon-intensive than competing technologies, so while it's something which can convince people, bear in mind that our technology has other advantages, one of those being a smaller cost, well, as far as our long-term estimates are concerned, we are still on for LNG carriers between 285 and 350 units for the next 10 years, for VLEC between 25 and 40 units, for FSRU between 10 and 20 units, for FLNG up to 5 units, and for onshore and GBS tanks between 15 and 20 units. Let's look now at LNG as a fuel developments. You know that LNG is the only mature solution allowing comprehensive environmental compliance.
So if you look at SOx with LNG, you have no SOx. If you look at NOx with LNG, you have almost no NOx, or you have NOx with a particular engine. With the other engines, you have no NOx. With CO2, you reduce the CO2 footprint by 25%. And particulates, you have no particulates. So in fact, LNG is in advance of existing and anticipated environmental regulations, and LNG is part of the solution for a clean maritime transportation. In fact, LNG fuel keeps expanding in a very challenging shipbuilding market. The demand is very low in the current situation. We may expect a rebound at a certain point of time. We don't know. But for the time being, it's very low. So difficult to come in front of you with orders while there are very few orders.
These orders, there are LNG carriers who are there, but in the rest of the market, it's very quiet. There will be recovery at a certain point of time. We are not going to say when, but there will be a recovery, and we do hope that our energy storage solutions are going to be successful at that time. I would not undermine the fact that whenever an industry is starting, well, everybody is trying to propose his solution. That's the case in the tank solutions, and we are competing with what we call Type C. It's bottles, big bottles, big cylinders storing energy. And Type B, it's an independent tank with a square shape, a prismatic shape. We are competing with that.
We do think we have advantages, and so it's up to us to promote our technologies and to make sure that the market is fully conscious of our advantages. As far as services are concerned, what has been quite remarkable is that in these six months, we signed for four new service contracts with CMA CGM, with Fleet Management, with Knutsen. So I would say that the platform of services we are offering is really attracting shipowners. We do intend to continue to develop it. We are going to see that, but it attracts energy carrier owners, and it attracts also owners of container ships such as CMA CGM, whenever they are turning to energy. We do intend to continue, and that's the sense of the acquisition of OSE Engineering. It's a tech company specialized in smart algorithms applied to complex industrial and technical problems.
So as you see that, you can see that while through the various acquisitions we are making, we have an idea of what is going to be the digital offering we are going to put in place in the years to come. Now, I would like to give the floor to Eric, who is going to present to you the strategic roadmap.
Thank you, Philippe. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. So as a synthesis actually of what has been explained by Philippe, we'd like to present you the strategic roadmap. It's like a synthesis actually of the presentation done by Philippe. This slide is clearly to take the opportunity to take a step back and look at our strategic roadmap. As you can see actually, GTT has built a stepwise, step-by-step approach built with determination and rigor.
So if we go through this evolution, we can see that at the beginning, there is the core product, I would say, which is the tank for the LNG carrier. And step by step, we went from an LNG carrier to being capable of doing some offshore and multi-gas application. This is the enhancement phase. Of course, every day, the team is trying and is actually improving the products and improving the technology, either the Mark III technology or the NO96 technology. And then from this technology improvement, we go from more advice and more services towards our customers. And then being more in the services business, also, we clearly see that we want to also enlarge our customer base and using that technology in order to address the LNG as a fuel market and as well the onshore tank market as described just by Philippe.
And last but not least, into this strategic roadmap, there is this strategy to continue to transform the company and acquire some companies which are in the digital and artificial intelligence market. So this is the process we are going through. And as you can see, we invest in technology, including digital and artificial intelligence technologies. We invest in services for our customer, and we do that on a market which we believe will play a very important role in the energy transition, which means that really our goal is to improve the energy efficiency, the performance for our customer. And that's why actually we have now a new baseline, which is the technology for a sustainable world. Marc?
Good morning. I will now take you through our customary tour of the financials, starting with the order book at the 30th of June, which stands at EUR 638 million . And on the right, you see how that pans out in terms of revenues in the coming year. First for 2020, you see that if you include the revenues, this is only core business. If you include the revenues for the first half, the expected revenues already, I would say, in the bag are at EUR 374 million , which is perfectly spot on with what we expected at the end of last year, and then EUR 266 million for 2021 and EUR 150 million for 2022. And these, of course, numbers will increase as new orders come through. Now, financial highlights for the semester. Total revenues, as Philippe indicated already, up 66.2%.
The largest increase, of course, relates to royalties, to the core business, with an increase of 71% from LNG carriers. This, of course, on the back of the very strong level of orders we had in 2018 and 2019. Service revenue, on the other hand, suffered, of course, from the conjunctural impact linked to the epidemic, and notably the difficulty for people to travel to perform services on ship or at yard, so the service revenue overall decreased compared to last year by 13%. EBITDA up 92.7%, basically for the same reason. Of course, the company is growing, so that also translates into higher charges, both external charges and staff cost, which are increasing respectively by 28% and 33%. CapEx slightly on the increase, part of this increase being linked to the acquisition of Marorka at the beginning of this year.
And then the interim dividend of EUR 2.5 mentioned by Philippe, which will be paid on the 5th of November. The 3rd of November is the ex-dividend date. Focus on the cost base. As I mentioned already, the external costs are up by 28%. This is mainly due to the increase in activity and the requirement for more subcontracted engineers. And that's why you see this increase of 54.7% under the subcontracted test and studies portion. On the other hand, the impact I mentioned of the difficulties to travel had an impact, a positive impact in a way, on our travel expenditure, which reduced by 20% in the first half compared to last year. Staff costs on the increase, I was saying the company is growing, so that is also reflected in our headcount.
The fact that also the company is making good results also has an impact on profit-sharing schemes, which are on the increase. That's it for me. I will hand back to Philippe.
Thank you, Marc. So what is our outlook for the years to come? In fact, we confirm our guidance for 2020. We consider that the consolidated revenue is going to be in a range of EUR 375 million-EUR 405 million. The EBITDA of the company for 2020 is going to be in a range of EUR 235 million-EUR 255 million. And the dividend for 2020 and 2021 will be at least corresponding to a payout of at least 80%. So we confirm what we told you in last February, and we are quite glad to see that after the period we came across. Well, that is the end of our presentation. So now we are going to be very pleased to answer to your questions.
Yes. Good morning. Two candid questions, if I may.
First, could you give us some qualitative colors about how do you see H2 in terms of order intake? And basically, you spoke a little bit about the US market. My question is also, how is your view has changed regarding Qatar? So this is my first question. And my second question is regarding the strategic roadmap. You've been speaking for quite a while about gas and LNG technologies, but in fact, you haven't been very vocal. Could we have some colors on this subject as well? Thank you.
So qualitative feeling about orders in the second part of this year. I think for the reasons we explained in the chart, we are highlighting the liquefaction projects and the need for ships for transporting the LNG quantities produced by these facilities. There should be some orders in the second part of this year. Of course, we are going to see, but normally, the flow of orders should continue in the years to come. The second point about Qatar. Qatar, first of all, Qatar has invested in an American project, which is named the Golden Pass. I think they are shareholders at the level of 75%. So it's a Qatari project. It's a true Qatari project. And there is a need for about 35 ships.
So these ships will have to be ordered as this project is in construction, and there is a need for transporting the 16.5 million tons of this project. The second point about Qatar is that, as you've seen it, they booked more than 100 slots for building ships in Korea and China. That's a reservation agreement. That's not contracts. So we are going to see whether they are going to transform these reservations into firm contracts. But right from now, we know that at least for Golden Pass, there is a need for about 35 ships. The last point I can tell you is that they are planning to expand what we call the North Field. They have in offshore of Qatar.
We know that some contracts have been passed, but the main contracts have not been passed and have been delayed up to end of this year or beginning of next year, so we are going to see whether it's passed. We don't have particular clues on that. I'm meeting from time to time with top Qatari officials who are very determined. And of course, Qatar has the capability to do that in an equity manner without long-term contracts, but we are going to see whether it's happening or whether, as it has been more or less the case recently, it's a bit delayed. Our last point is about gas and LNG technologies, so we don't announce major things there, but in fact, you have to see that on the energy carriers, we are providing all the gas and LNG technologies deliverables. We are very active in that field.
We consider that on the LNG as a fuel, there is a market there, and as this activity will develop, we could provide something there, so this company has clear competencies in that field, and as the application of LNG will increase, and in particular for LNG as a fuel, we think that these competencies will be used by customers.
Good morning. Jean-Luc Romain, CIC Market Solutions. I have two questions, if it's possible. The first one is about the four service contracts you announced. How much do these contracts represent over their life in terms of turnover? If you can give maybe an idea, a rough idea. I'm not asking for a figure per contract, obviously. The second question is about your contract for onshore tanks. You had two very large orders in China, in what seems a project which implies up to 10 or 12 very large tanks, and you still forecast 15-20 units over the next 10 years. How should we reconcile this very large strategic storage project in China with your 10-year view about tanks?
For the four service contracts, generally, we don't give the amount of contracts. So we are going to do so for these service contracts. What I would like to highlight is that, of course, it's a matter of business. Whenever we can deploy adjacent activities, we are pleased because we diversify the activity portfolio of the company. It's not something which is going to change the balance of activities of GTT. So it's not a big amount, but still, normally, it should be a continuous flow of business. I would say, and we said it before, that for us, it's not only a matter of business. It's a matter of strategy and, in a certain way, of commitment to the industry. Strategy because we develop new services which are helpful for the industry.
And it renders the GTT company very worthwhile, very useful, very appreciated by users, users of LNG carriers, or users of our solutions for LNG as a fuel. It's also a matter of vision because, in having a large platform of services, we consider that we can help people to switch to LNG much more easily. In a certain way, our service platform obeys the motto "Make LNG Easy." So whatever we can do to facilitate the switch of shipowners from highly polluting fuels to LNG, we are doing so. And that is very much, in a certain way, it's not so much the turnover we are making in service, which is important. It's the fact that our turnover overall is increasing. Onshore tanks and long-term guidance. Well, you know that we are not particularly exaggerating, or we are not exaggerating at all, in our long-term guidance.
If we can surprise people with order intakes in onshore tanks higher than our long-term guidance, I would be very happy. What is remarkable is that, in the last 12 months, we introduced three innovative storage solutions. Last year, it was the GBS. And this year, it has been the FSUs, huge, very, very, or ultra-large FSUs, 360,000 cubic meters, and onshore tanks. If you wanted confirmation that the company is looking at new applications of its technologies, you can see that through that. And whenever on the energy value chain, we can bring something to improve the efficiency of the energy value chain, we are doing so. Let's confirm, I would say, let's confirm that in the months to come. And then we would be very pleased to revise this long-term guidance on onshore and GBS.
Nicolas Royot, Portzamparc. Could you give us some explanation about the success of Type C in LNG fuel tanks and in higher size recently?
In?
Higher size.
Higher size, okay.
Maybe some estimation in euros of your backlog, about 18 units. Thanks.
Type C, it's a solution which is not highly technical. There are facilities providing this solution. Once more, it's a bottle, a cylinder of energy. You have important facilities in China providing that, which, in the current situation of low demand, are very aggressive. So we see this solution having a certain part of the success. But we always said that the market for GTT, it's very large ships with very big tanks. That's where we see that the highly sophisticated, with a lot of engineering solution that GTT is providing, can make sense. I mean, on a small tank, you provide a lot of technology, a lot of engineering, but finally, it's amortized on a small structure, and then mass figures, business plan has to make sense.
So we see us making sense on very large tanks, but in fact, we see also the Type C competing with the lower part of our market. And in fact, it's something that we do appreciate, first of all, because in a new market, there is competition. And competition is great because the more you compete, the more bright ideas you have. So we are in this situation. I would say that we could see that probably in a while when the market is really going to start, and we are going to see how finally numerous owners are going to decide on the value solutions.
For turnover, I don't have particularly figures. I don't have particular figures.
Over the phone?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you for joining us over the phone line. If you wish to ask a question, please press star then 1. To ask a question on the telephone, please press star then 1. Once again, to ask a question, please press star then 1. Our first question comes from the line of Kévin Roger. The line is now open. Please ask your question, Kévin.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. The first one, sorry for the details, comes back related to the contract that you have recently signed in terms of services. So coming back on that subject, just to understand, because over the past years, the trajectory of the revenue from services has probably been a bit disappointing for you. Let's say, what could be the impact in terms of earnings just on this business unit? Would you say that it's a few million euros or that it could double thanks to those services? The second question is related to the few delays that you mentioned in terms of deliveries of the cargos. At Q1 earnings, basically, you said that there was no impact, especially at yard. So can you explain to us the reason of those delays? Is it because of the yard, the COVID-19?
Is it at the will of the shipowner? So what's the reason for this shift in terms of delivery? And the third question is, so I appreciate you confirmed the 10-year, let's say, view in terms of LNG carrier needs. I was just wondering if, let's say, the gap between the supply and demand has been pushed back to 2027. Does it mean that, over the short term, your view for the commercial dynamic is a bit less optimistic than before? Because the shift, let's say, the gap has shifted from 2025 to 2027 in terms of need for new supply? Thanks a lot.
On your first point about services, well, I said that we don't enter into details about the amount of contracts. I said that it's not going to change the profile of business of GTT in terms of figures. I said that it's going to be a continuous flow of money over the years, which is appreciated, but once more, it's not changing drastically the business profile of GTT. On the second point on the delays, I can tell you that shipyards are not delaying ships, to the contrary, in fact, so there may be some other reasons and shipowners trying to defer a little bit the deliveries of their ships. As I was saying, there are some, but it's not really significant, or at least to be candid. Up to now, it's not significant.
I'm not sure that we are going to see anything significant, but particularly as the market is going to need new ships. But we'll see. We'll see. But what we hinted is that we don't expect that in 2020, it's going to change our guidance. It's a phenomenon which is going to change our guidance. We don't see that. For 2027, it's true that it could lead to certain delays in decisions. But it depends very much on what projects you're speaking of. Projects in Australia, it's about six to seven years to build. Projects in Arctic, it's four to five years. Projects in Africa, it's four to five years at least. Project in the US, it's four years. Projects in brownfield projects in America is a matter of several billion dollars. A project in Australia, it's a matter of several tens of billions of dollars.
And the feeling we have is that once American gas or American energy is really back in the money, and due to the amount of flared gas in the U.S., due to the agility of the American economy, in fact, projects in the U.S. may restart and may preempt the market compared to much larger, heavier cost or CapEx-intensive projects. That's my feeling. It's very personal. I'm sharing that with energy specialists who are telling me, well, that I'm still very much U.S.-oriented as far as projects are concerned. And I'm telling them, well, for the last 10 years, we've not been wrong.
So, I think that, in fact, if there is a lesson that we can draw from the past years, it's that the flexibility that American energy has brought through the shale gas, the fact that these shale gases are existing, through the fact that facilities, export facilities are existing and are more or less easy to convert into, or import facilities are existing and are more or less easy to convert into export facilities. All that is making American energy great, flexible, CapEx not so incentive. And we can expect some dynamism from that part of the world in the energy offering in the years to come.
Hello.
If you want again to ask a question, please press star and the number one on the telephone keypad. The next question comes from the line of Jean-François. The line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Jean-François Granjon from Oddo BHF speaking. Good morning. I just have two questions, please. Due to the excellent performance reached during the first half in terms of earnings, why do you are not more optimistic regarding the full of the guidance? Why do you don't fix or target the high-range level of the guidance in terms of sales, in terms of EBITDA, due to the pretty good first half? Then the second question concerns the margin. You have published very high-level EBITDA and EBIT margin. So can you explain if such level of margin remains sustainable for the full year and for the future? Thank you.
Guidance, I would say we had a guidance at the beginning of the year before COVID. The situation has been sound in the first part of this year, but we are in a volatile world. And so we don't see reasons why we should revisit the guidance for increasing the figures. Maybe we may expect that the deliveries may be not so numerous in the second part of this year. There could be some delays in ships to be delivered by the second part of this year to next year. So while we stick to our guidance. On the high level of margins, Marc.
Thank you. Just a final point on guidance. It's quite paradoxical that only a couple of months ago, some people were wondering why we were not suspending our guidance. So I guess we're keeping a steady position on that. Now, when it comes to margin, clearly the level of margin in the first half was quite high, as you point out. But I also mentioned that some of the costs were rather lower than you would have in a normal semester, in particular due to the COVID situation and the lockdown. There was the case for travel, but it also impacted other costs. So although the cost base is increasing, it probably increased less than it would have in a normal situation.
Of course, depending on how the situation on the epidemic evolves in the second half, one would expect that we would revert to a more normative, I would say, situation in terms of margin.
Thank you.
Yes. Our next question comes from the line of Jan Richard from Berenberg. Please go ahead. The line is now open.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for taking my question. I have just one. It's a question on hydrogen. We have seen discussions and plans in Europe accelerating over the last few weeks and months on the role that hydrogen could play in this transition to a greener ecosystem. So could you please comment on the role that GTT could play when it comes to hydrogen in Europe? And the follow-up question is, where did you see discussions around hydrogen in Asia? Because Asia is obviously today a very large consumer of LNG. So yeah, any thoughts on this would be great. Thank you.
Hydrogen, it's a vast matter. It's true that in Europe, there is a great emphasis on hydrogen. When you say hydrogen, what are we speaking of? We are speaking of, most certainly, of green hydrogen. It means electricity coming from solar panels or windmills, windmill farms, which are transformed into an energy you can transport on long distance, or you can use in other manners. But what are we speaking of also in the form of hydrogen? Are we speaking of a gas, or are we speaking of liquid hydrogen? You know that our particular expertise is in liquid gas, LNG, for example, which is transported at minus 163 degrees. It's a field which is requesting a lot of competencies, and we do have so for a while. Liquid hydrogen, it's transported at minus 250 degrees.
There are considerations of transporting hydrogen through ships, as we do for methane gas. But there are no particular plans for doing so. It would mean that hydrogen would be produced in a certain part of the world and would be transported into another part of the world. For the time being, there are no such plans. And what I see in what is currently discussed, it's much more gas, hydrogen as a gas. And there we are not so much there. We do think that hydrogen has advantages as a gas for applications. And hydrogen is heavily used already, but it's a gray hydrogen coming from fracking of methane. And the industry is using hydrogen, this gray hydrogen now should switch to green hydrogen. So there are applications there.
But I would say that before having some liquid hydrogen carriers, we have to wait for a while that we find a way of producing a lot of hydrogen in a certain part of the world for transporting that into another part of the world. If the sense of your question was to ask us whether we are looking at that, definitely we are looking at that.
Jan Richard. Any follow-up question? Okay. Let's take our next question. Next question comes from the line of Jean Pierre. The line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. Jean-François Granjon from ODDO BHF. You just talked about hydrogen. That was actually my question. A follow-up on that. You're saying that you are looking at it, but as far as I know, your membrane technology may not be suitable for the transportation of liquid hydrogen, given that the size of the molecule is much thinner than methane molecules. So I wanted to ask you whether you are considering developing a new technology. Is it based? Is it a different technology than a membrane that you may consider for the storage and transportation of hydrogen? Can you give us some color about that? And is there actually other synergies between your existing technology, membrane technology, and future technology, and that means the transportation of hydrogen? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm used to say that France is a great country because that's a country who has always given to the world a lot of bright engineers and is still giving to the world a lot of bright engineers. What I like particularly when I am in Paris is to be able to have discussions about technology with partners. Membrane, it's true that the hydrogen molecule is very small, so it raises an issue about porosity. Porosity, that's something that you can manage. There are technological solutions for doing so. I would say that we are in the very heart of the GTT expertise. Membrane is very thin. In the end, our technology is 0.7 millimeters. You can have very small leaks.
Our expertise, or one of our particular expertise, is to manage the methane in the primary insulation space, to detect it and to manage it. So if we do that for a living for 50 years, maybe we could continue on another liquid gas. Of course, I will not tell you that membrane is not appropriate. I think that membrane is a technology or technologies are great. In applying that to transporting liquid hydrogen, I think we will come up with a very strong advantage in terms of costs. Because the other solution is to have a very thick plate for containing liquid hydrogen, and that is a quite costly exercise.
Thank you, Mr. Pierre. Okay. I have no further question at this time, sir. Please continue.
In the last few months, have you seen potential competing technologies evolving or communicating on any prospect of being commercialized one day?
I would say that there are always people proposing technologies. There are always initiatives around the world for proposing technologies. We are used to that. In a certain way, we are pleased by that because it's a way of challenging our solutions. I'm not sure they are mature enough to really challenge what we are doing currently. But there are initiatives and people considering that they could disrupt the solution, which is currently favored by the market. Well, we don't see things which are really changing the landscape. Well, if there are no other questions, I would like to thank you for your questions and for attending this presentation. And I would like to expect to see you very soon to be able to present to you face-to-face the company, our results, and our ambitions. Thank you very much.