Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great pleasure for all of us to welcome you here, to be in a room where people are present physically. It's very nice to have an audience here, to have people actually here in the room with us. We'd like to thank you very much for taking the trouble to come all the way here. For those of you who weren't able to come to be with us, thank you very much for being with us online as we've been doing things for a couple of years. Along with Clarisse Gobin-Swiecznik, and Bruno Krief, we're going to be presenting to you the 2021 full year results for Rubis Group.
We're very fortunate to have Robin Ucelli and David Guinard here with us, who are the Founders and Shareholders and Managers of Photosol. Of course, we'll be talking to you about Photosol today. We've reached an agreement to form an association, and Rubis will take a controlling stake, but mainly it's an association which is going to come to closing, actual fruition in the next few weeks. I thank the two of them for taking the time from their schedules to come talk to us about these business activities of theirs. End of 2021, beginning of 2022. It's an interesting period. It's the end of a two-year period which was a very exciting time, 2020, 2021. Several special features in those years. You're familiar, of course, with some of the main features, clearly.
The COVID pandemic with lockdowns, restrictions on mobility and the impact that had on development and so forth. A second item I'd mention, another feature, we've seen huge changes in oil product prices. First of all, they plummeted in the first year up until reaching around $15, then skyrocketing in prices, reaching a level of $80 and even beyond $80, now toward the beginning of this year, as we all realize. In a fairly short period of time, there were huge fluctuations in oil prices and big slopes. A third highlight in 2020 and subsequently, we saw as CSR policies became ever more important. It was ever more important to take into account environmental targets and objectives and to speed things up.
It also appears to me that people have become less and less interested in fossil fuels and carbonized fuels that are important part of the landscape. Now, why do I bring the two years together in talking about this? Some may say I'm an optimist. During the COVID pandemic, I think we can say that I'm an optimist. I think, I hope we can say it's over with. Secondly, just after 2019. Of course, 2019, there wasn't COVID. For Rubis, 2019 had been a record year in terms of profits and contributions from all group units. Our comparison, end of 2021 - 2019, I think, is a very interesting comparison to make. How did Rubis respond to this two-year period, as I've described it briefly?
Well, yet again, during this time when oil prices were going swinging up and down and there were a lot of external shocks due to the pandemic, the group demonstrated exceptional resistance, resilience. To oversimplify, 2020, the first year, about -10% compared to the record year of 2019 and 2021. We once again are seeing the figures, we'll be commenting on them, that are similar to our 2019 record figures. Now on to CSR and decarbonization and those issues. We've been working to step up all the restructuring of CSR policies to get top quality ratings from several rating organizations that are internationally recognized. We've also worked on a decarbonization program for current activities. A very ambitious program, which its targets were already given in September, and we've worked these and improved on them further. Lastly, there was some external growth.
In our external growth, we're talking about green energy. I'd remind you, we both invested and established a partnership with Hydrogène de France, HDF. Plus, there's a partnership I mentioned earlier that we have with the Photosol group. They're a major specialist, French specialist in photovoltaic farms. On our first page, I think I've already gone through most of the points. Let's move on to talk about some of the specific figures. As you see, 5,400,000 cu m , this is a growth in volume of 7%. Strong growth in volumes versus 2020, and down 2% compared to 2019. We'll talk about this. The unit margin has remained very strong, EUR 117 per cubic meter. This is an average unit margin.
It's just down by a few points compared to both previous annual periods. EUR 392 million. Here we can see +7% compared to 2020 and -11% in EBIT compared to 2019. At this juncture, I'd like to make a clarification. The downtick in the reported figures compared to 2019 isn't an across-the-board reduction. We'll come back to the point later. Mainly, almost completely actually, this comes from one or two countries. It's due to one or two countries, each of them having their own characteristics. If we restate, if we take that into account, if we sort of adjust this, we end up right back at the level of 2019.
For instance, if we talk about net income group share, EUR 293 million, up 4% compared to one year and -5% compared to 2019. Now, if you take into account the change in structure of Rubis Terminal, as you know, we've set up a joint venture, 55/45, with a U.S. group in 2020 for Rubis Terminal. So the adjusted net income is 16% greater than 2021, reaching the 2019 level, actually. Now if we look at our cash flow, which is a very good indicator of business strength and soundness, we see cash flow is up 7% and up 1%, which is therefore a big increase compared to both 2020 and 2019. This has all been achieved all the while maintaining strict financial discipline.
At the end of 2021, our net debt EUR 438 million, which is lower than a year's worth of EBITDA. After EUR 200 million in investments, EUR 150 million in share buybacks, EUR 200 million in WCR increases due to the increase in nominal prices for oil products, and EUR 80 million in investments in Hydrogène de France, HDF. Later on during our presentation, you'll see that after taking a stake in Photosol, these ratios necessarily will increase, but will nevertheless remain entirely reasonable. Broadly, those are the main points I wanted to make to you to give an overview. I'll hand over to Bruno now to delve into greater detail.
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Continuing with the presentation of the various business units. To begin with, Rubis Énergie, the umbrella company of the group that presents, as its name indicates, in our traditional businesses of LPG, fuels, lubricants, bitumen, and all the subsegments that make up this industry. Continuing straight into some data here, where, in the context of the year 2021, it's a recovery of volumes that you can see. That's the red line versus 2020. We're moving towards the end of Q4, towards the 2019 volumes. We see something rather strange in these three lines, but the red line is between the two, and it tends to join the record level of 2019 with 7% volume growth in 2021 versus 2020.
The unit margin, now a key component of profitability, you have the graph showing you the resistance or the resilience of the unit margin over the three years. Thanks once again to the positioning of Rubis, multi-country, multi-segment, present downstream, present also upstream with great many clients, highly diversified client base. Maintenance of margin in this highly volatile context. At least for Africa and Europe, a level of 21 that exceeds the level that we saw back in 2019. That helding good prospects. Moving on to a description by region. Europe, Caribbean, Africa form the three regions where we're present. I begin by saying that in Europe, we experienced a pretty limited impact of COVID on LPG. LPG that makes up 90% of profits.
I'd say that the margin in this European segment was higher than 2019 levels that clearly demonstrates the quality of results. I'd also add that the subsidiaries on the whole progressed very well commercially with notable market share gains, be it in Switzerland, France, and Spain, where some segments really have the wind in their sails. EBIT EUR 71 million, sharply up versus 2020 and above the 2019 level. Caribbean. Caribbean was obviously exposed for the reasons due to tourism and aviation that represent a large part of the business. Aviation that since March 2020 and across 2020 and H1 2021, it was very calm level. Since that date, we're seeing a recovery in the market. In 2021, we're about half the levels seen in 2019.
There's a reservoir of growth with the recovery of these volumes into 2022, 2023. Volumes, as you can see, are up 5% between 2021 and 2020, and for these reasons, are 10% lower than the level seen in 2019. In terms of the results, we're at EUR 82 million. That's flat versus 2020 level seen in 2020 remains strong lag behind 2019. The explanation is the decline of Haiti over the period that was strong precipitous for social economic reasons, coupled with the impact of COVID and the authorities abandoned the price structure regime, which led to a significant decline in results.
I'd say that over the past few months of 2021, we saw an effort on the part of the government to begin discussions with the oil industry and to try and find a solution for better price regulation. The situation, we're still in a country that remains very chaotic, but a realization on the part of the authorities that it's important to move ahead, to make available to the country and to open up the oil sector is vital. I would also add that Haiti, being what it is, second point that had a negative impact is, of course, aviation that towards the end of the year is up sharply. Africa now. Well, Africa, how can I characterize the excise? Second record year for bitumen. Strong increase in Eastern Africa, Kenya and the surrounding countries.
You have the LPG segment that once again held up well. The bitumen sector in terms of sales and earnings. If we take the bitumen overall, that is, upstream Support and Services and distribution, it's a record year, a year of progress. We managed to penetrate new markets both in Western Africa, as in Southern Africa. That's a new window for Rubis because this market has become short of bitumen because the closure of two refineries that were previously exporters balances. Gabon is clearly in a situation of importing. We're trying to take positions. Also positions in Gabon. We're seeking to enter Angola, Guinea.
There's a big effort underway and there's strong demand because Africa really is in demand in terms of building new infrastructure and the bitumen that goes with that. For East Africa, an area acquired in 2019, as you know, a major re-management program is underway. To date, at the end of 2021, management has obviously taken control of that, revisited all the contractors, set the terms and conditions with the major clients. It was a big cleanup operation from the management standpoint. The challenge was to get the customers back in the service station through a rebranding of service stations under the Rubis brand. It's a rebranding doubled with the installation of convenience stores in these service stations.
We saw that in the two, three months that follow the revamping of these stations, we're seeing a very strong increase in footfall and unit throughput. There are 170 stations equipped in Eastern Africa. If I take Kenya, in 2021 alone, volumes are up 26% as compared to 2020. 2021 was once again a year during which the country and the region suffered chronically from the health restrictions and COVID. The outlook is clearly there. The Indian Ocean that was heavily impacted in 2020, the results are rebounding positive once again, and with the exception of Madagascar, which for about eight months now, a country in which the authorities have decided on price freeze.
The price formula, the price structure is no longer applied, which obviously led to a deficit in the results. A deficit in the results, but a certain understanding of the situation on the part of the authorities which allow us not to pay the taxes. There's a result impact, but there's not a cash impact. We managed to offset the lack of margin through less cash out because the taxes are levied at entry that are not returned. We experienced a similar situation in 2018 and before, until a decree transformed the tax situation and to erase the loss of earnings in the region. EUR 136 million EBIT for the year up versus both in 2019 and in 2020. The next slide is really just a summary of what we've just described.
EBIT per region with the various impacts that I just mentioned. Let's now move to Support and Services, which is the upstream segment of our business. That is to say, refining, supply, trading, and logistics. You have a further increase of earnings over the year, coming in at EUR 123 million, with quite an unusual situation of SARA, that's the refinery that operates under an administered price regime, an administered profitability, 9% of equity, the profit for shareholders. There's a lag this year between the accounting result and the cash flow. The cash flow that's stable at EUR 42 million. That's the average cash flow for the year over the past five years.
This year, we've seen a situation of major stoppage with major works that led to provisions on amortization and booking of these major works that had an impact on the EBIT but neutralized in the cash flow from operations, also dividends paid to shareholders and net income, because the 9% net income at corporate level will be 9% of the equity returned to shareholders. In terms of trading fuel or bitumen, we're EUR +8 million and EUR +11 million. So that's excellent performance achieved as regards shipping. New vessels, new ships that have joined the fleet to better optimize the routes and also to generate productivity efficiencies. You have earnings growth, ditto for bitumen with new logistics tools.
In the Indian Ocean, we're playing a role in the region, Réunion and Madagascar that also brings in these EUR 15 million up over last year. EUR 15 million of EBIT. Support and Services, strong in bitumen, strong in Caribbean trading. As to SARA, decline in EBIT, but cash flow stable. Let's turn now to what is our major business unit, which is the Rubis Terminal JV. Specialized in the storage of liquids, industrial fuels, food oils, and chemicals, and fertilizers. It's interesting to note on this chart that over the space of three years, the shape of the group has changed and so far as the capacities and resources of the petroleum group have moved to 65%, thanks to the acquisition down to 45% because of the acquisition of the Spanish unit that brought in both chemicals and biofuels.
Recent exit of Turkey, which was a specialized depot, 600,000 cu m in petroleum products. There's clearly a shift of Rubis Terminal into chemicals, agri-food and biofuels. If we extend the chart into 2022, 2023, we'll see continued decline of exposure of petroleum products, 'cause a large part of the Rotterdam depot, 75,000 sq m, anchoring heavy fuel for vessels, was already in process to be leased 100% to Shell. That is transforming its major Pernis refinery at Rotterdam into a biorefinery and was looking for additional storage capacity nearby. The facilities that we had were leased long-term to Shell. It's these heavy fuel will become 100% biofuels, down to reducing down to 40% the share of petroleum products.
What else can I add? Income was up. 6% growth in EBITDA, excluding Turkey, high use factor of capacities, 95%. Excellent integration of the Spanish unit, Tepsa, making Rubis Terminal a pretty unique player in Europe, 'cause the only to be present both in ARA, in the Mediterranean, with an important position in France. It's ARA, France, Mediterranean where Rubis Terminal is positioned that allowed it to weather the COVID period with a steady increase in earnings. This is what we're seeing here. Revenues up EUR 130 million, excluding Turkey. EBITDA, as you can see, at EUR 121 million. Above all, free cash flow that's sharply up if we take account.
We presented data excluding Turkey because the depot exited at the end of the year 2021. If we take account of maintenance CapEx, free cash flow is materially up over the period and 15% up over 2021. I'd say that in terms of cash return, that is the free cash flow after tax and after financial expenses, that is significant 'cause the shareholders have a level of financing. That's EUR 38 million of financial expenses, but it's part of the leverage setup that we put in place with I Squared Partners. The free cash flow after financial expense and tax reaches EUR 50 million, which gives a cash return of 9% for shareholder. That's a level as compared to our peers, that's quite high. Let me also say, there's potential for improvement.
There's the possibility in the next few years, or maybe within this year, of reviewing the current debt structure to make best use of low-ish interest rates to cut financial expenses by EUR 12 million-EUR 15 million versus the EUR 38 million that we had in 2021. In summary, here's our income statement highlight. Sales not highly relevant, as you know.
EUR 4.589 billion, 2021. Of course, $120 per barrel oil prices could bring us up even further. The reality of our performance isn't to be found in our sales or revenue, but rather in our margins, our net income and EBIT. Let's make this point. The important thing is the restatement we mentioned. We're talking about net earnings adjusted for continuing activities, which means excluding Rubis Terminal for the full period. If you look at this growth, EUR 248 million in 2021, growth of 16% compared to 2020, basically flat, down 1% compared to 2019, which was a record year. 2019, of course, excluding Rubis Terminal.
Here we're comparing fully comparable things because we've excluded all of 2019 results that had been consolidated at a 100% for Rubis Terminal. We restated for the portion of earnings at Rubis Terminal EUR 5.9 million and EUR 4.3 million. EUR 4.3 million being 2020. As Jacques has said a few moments ago, the past three years made it possible for us once again to see just how resilient our business model is. Rubis is able to produce growth. Let's talk briefly now about cash flow before changes in WCR. Now, before 2020 and 2021, there was a big swing. We talked about this during the introduction. Barrel prices plummeted in 2020 and then started going up strongly at the beginning of 2021.
This, you see, the EUR 113 million and the EUR -200 million. Around EUR 300 million worth of swing in terms of working capital requirements during those two years. We can see this very clearly. This was a major effect on our balance sheet. Capital expenditure around EUR 200 million, around 1/3 of this in investments for growth, and then 2/3 in investing in maintenance. We've talked about the various investments and acquisitions, divestments in recent years. Mainly it was the acquisition of HDF, EUR 79 million. You've also got the share buyback program, which was in 2021. This was EUR 153 million. These were then canceled, of course.
In spite of the major swing in WCR and increased investments and share buybacks, we see financial debt for the group as a whole is EUR 438 million. If you measure this in terms of EBITDA, it's modest. Below one, which means that we're moving into this very unpredictable period, things going in many different directions. We're entering this period with a very strong and sound balance sheet. Those were the highlights of 2021.
Good afternoon, everyone. If you don't know me, I'm Clarisse Gobin-Swiecznik. I've been in this group for 11 years. I spent nine years in subsidiaries and a few years at Rubis Terminal, and then I was at Rubis Énergie. I then came to Rubis as deputy managing director a year and a half ago in charge of energy transition, CSR, and communication.
Today, I'd like to talk to you about our CSR policy, which for two years now we've worked on a great deal. 2020 was the time when we put together the architecture of our CSR policy for the group. 2021 then was a year of factoring in CSR into the group's strategy. Let me talk quickly about the commitments and the actions we undertook in 2021. I already outlined for you during the quarterly reports the first roadmap of ours, 2021-2025. We're currently implementing this roadmap in all of our subsidiaries. There are three main pillars here in our CSR policy: environment, climate, social, and societal, focusing on nine indicators. 19 indicators, sorry. I'll talk to you about our membership of the UN Global Compact.
This formalizes many of our corporate actions, so we've already been involved in it several years now. This is something that's very much part of the policy that we're implementing groupwide today. Now, in addition to the membership of the Global Compact this year, we also became part of the Sea Cargo Charter initiative. It has to do with decarbonization of cargo shipments. Also for the first time this year, we're involved with the CDP. It's a specialized non-financial ratings agency that specialize in the environment. They gave us the B rating, which is very important for the group. I'd like to talk to you briefly also about the two investments we made this year in the framework of renewable energy and our energy transition. First of all, initial stake in HDF Energy's IPO.
This is last June, 18.5% stake that we took, which makes us the number two shareholder of HDF Group. A most especially important point, this also includes an investors pact for majority stakeholder in any HDF projects for development where Rubis is established. Acquisition of 80% of Photosol. Also, we announced this end of 2021. I'll talk about these deals in greater detail in a moment, but I do believe that these are a great illustration of our momentum in additional decarbonized energy alongside our long-standing energy activities. These developments will continue. This is our third branch of activity. We've got a third branch now called Rubis Renewables. The long-term objective will be to balance our long-standing activities with energy transition activities which are fully decarbonized.
Another priority objective of ours under our CSR policy at Rubis is to decarbonize to the extent possible our historical activities as well, and to support them toward further diversification. All the details of the non-financial data are available in our 2021 registration document, which will come out in April. In 2022, we'll be continuing our action plan to reach the targets that we set for ourselves in our roadmap, specifically implementation of our climate strategy and also the establishment of a target to cut our CO2 emissions under Scope 3A. We'll also be setting an internal carbon price. In the social area, we'll focus on training to help our employees in upskilling, and also we'll be doing a mapping of human rights in the societal under the societal pillar.
This is a slide I won't spend a great deal of time on, but I believe it's an illustration. It gives us some of the non-financial ratings agencies and the ones that we're gonna be focusing on in our CSR policy. We're selecting four of these. We think these are the four that are best in line with the Rubis profile. As I mentioned previously, we got the B rating from the CDP. This ranks us in the top 25% in our industry, and that's highly encouraging. To talk to you now about our climate strategy, there are three main points here showing that we very much intend to continue decarbonizing our historical businesses, diversifying our distribution activities at Rubis Énergie, and developing new businesses in renewable energy.
Now regarding decarbonization of our businesses, we've identified actions which should enable us to reach up to a 30% reduction in our carbon emissions at Scope 1 and 2, aligned on the SBTi, of well below two degrees versus the 20% we'd announced last September. About 150 actions have been identified amongst our affiliates to set up the decarbonization plan, such as solarization of assets at Kenya, West Indies and Guyana, and also biomass at SARA, and also using alternative biofuel in some of our shipping. Regarding our CO2 emissions, we based our 2019 carbon balance sheet using the ADEME's methodology. We reviewed that methodology to align our carbon balance sheet with the GHG Protocol, so that it's based on the global scale.
Now, to talk about diversification of activities at Rubis Énergie, it's a very important point we worked a great deal on this year. We'll be focusing on three major areas. First of all, studying changes in mobility in the Caribbean and in Africa. Next, diversification when it comes to distribution of bioproducts. I mentioned this earlier last time with the HVO, BioLPG, and rDME, among others. We'll also be proposing innovative solutions for professional clients, so that facilities can operate either with diesel, LPG or photovoltaic. Here we're talking LPG or photovoltaic, and we're thinking of professional clients in Africa and the Indian Ocean, among others. Now to talk to you about our two investments in new energy.
Before giving the floor to David and Robin to present the company to us and talk about our shared adventure, let me talk to you about Hydrogène de France, HDF. They're a pioneer in hydrogen electricity, developing.
Our renewable energy power plants, using solar or wind, and they also make high power fuel cells that are required for hydrogen power plants. Green electricity production is then stored. This storage of power through hydrogen makes it possible for them to make up for any shortfall, intermittent production. This is very meaningful in locations where we're located, where electricity is expensive with high carbon content and not highly reliable. Think of the CEOG project. The construction was begun in 2021. CEOG, that's an example. In French Guiana, we're currently duplicating that CEOG project in Barbados. The CEOG project should begin construction in 2024 in Barbados, and in 2025. Let's talk about Photosol. This acquisition, I believe, means it's safe to say that we are becoming a multi-energy group.
Photosol, the number two independent player in the solar market in France. The transaction, the deal will be finalized through the end of the first half of the year, 2022. With this deal, I believe we're moving and making a major step forward towards renewable energy. We're becoming a major player in solar energy in France. I'd also like to add that this deal in the medium term for this group will represent about an EBITDA of about 25% compared to our historical operations. This will all be under a third branch of activity called Rubis Renewables, as I mentioned previously.
I'd also like to add that our ambition with this third branch is to continue studying all opportunities which we can build on further, and we hope to achieve a great deal of things with Robin and David at Photosol, who now will be coming to present Photosol for you. Just a moment's time.
We have the same remote control. Don't forget to say a word in the way you set up. I find that fascinating the way you created the company.
With pleasure. First of all, Clarisse, Jacques, Bruno, thanks very much for the trust and confidence placed in us. We've known one another for many months now, and thanks for giving us this opportunity to present Photosol. It's a new exercise for us. As for David, and he'll tell you why.
We're gonna present Photosol, simply the business, what we do day to day, and the ambitions with the group. Photosol is a photovoltaic energy producer. We produce power that's sold on. Before reselling the electricity, there are various skills to be put in place. Firstly, project development, secure the land with lease promises of five-six years. Takes five-six years in France for projects to take shape. Fauna, flora studies, impact studies, obtain planning permission. That's a long-term, laborious process. Once we've obtained permission to sign a contract to sell the power with EDF, these are long contracts with 20-year contracts, and as David will. Increasingly we're gonna move to contracts with private companies, PPAs.
Photosol is first and foremost a developer, but once the project's developed and it's got all the authorization, we fund, and we own 100% of our plants. Funding is essentially bank debt project without recourse on the shareholder over very lengthy periods. We're looking at maturities of 20-22 years, slightly longer than the PPA with Natixis, La Banque Postale, BPI, large French banks. We own 100% of our plants that we develop for ourselves to own the plant. Once the plant is built, we operate, and we maintain the plant. That's to say we receive all the data from the plant, then we can intervene preventively or remedially, curatively to optimize the plant. A few figures that position us well on the French PV market.
Photosol operates at just over 450 MW of power, making it the third, fourth portfolio in France behind ENGIE, Total, EDF with a lot of M&A. This Photosol portfolio is really internal growth. We have a pipe of about 3.5 GW, 4,000 hectares. It's just over 4,000 soccer pitches to give you an idea. We're a small player, small Tom Thumb in terms of many players. We have 80 people in France, 60 in Paris and 20 in the region. 80 employees doing the maintenance and running the plants. As you can see on the map, a geographic positioning center of France South. That was the strategy from the outset, as I'll describe in a moment. Photosol was set up in 2008.
It's emerged as one of the major players on the PV market in France. We've won 100% of the projects. The tenders were the second rank, second in independent, not far from the giants I mentioned earlier. This positioning, this position in the market really was forged over time. There are actually two phases in Photosol's growth. First period, 2008 through 2014, 2015, where both of us, we started from scratch in our Paris apartments to develop our initial, first few projects. We built Photosol gradually, third, fourth, fifth person, and gradually integrated the businesses. One of the big challenges was, of course, to convince the banks to partner with us. They're highly capital intensive.
We need 80%-90% leverage for a project to emerge, so we necessarily needed that trust. It took a few years, but as of 2015, all the foundations, the base was there. We had our initial plants, our teams, our operation and maintenance team. We accelerated strongly as of 2015, in particular as of 2018. I think that over three years, we recruited. We were at 40, we moved to 80 employees over two years. The operational portfolio moved from 200 -4 50 mega in the space of two years and the pipeline times four over a few years. A strong acceleration since 2018. That's one of the reasons for the tie-up with Rubis. Now this growth was based on a few factors that I would describe as differentiating versus our peers.
The first is that from the word go, we decided to focus on projects and geography that I would describe as somewhat different, somewhat unusual. On the map, we saw that we were very present in the center and Southwest of France. They're not the sunniest region. If we're in the Southeast Mediterranean, there's 15% more radiation, 15% more revenue. But our positioning on this second area of France was dictated simply by the possibility to have more land, cheaper land, better connection and faster connection conditions and greater political support rather than going to competitive areas. We chose that different geographical positioning and to focus on projects that other players weren't looking. Technically rural areas, the air bases that everyone has looked at that, but we wanted to find project of some 200 MW, some farmland.
David will tell you about that. We're strong believers in agri PV, which first ones date back to 2013, whereas our peers have only just started. Our positioning is somewhat unusual, somewhat out of sync with the market, and that really allowed us to get this very good place on the French market. Second differentiating factor where we incorporate all aspects of the business. We're developers for ourselves. We monitor, we track construction. We own 100% of the assets, whereas many developers develop and sell. We have our own maintenance teams. Photom, our maintenance company, is one of the leading maintenance in France with close on 500 MW maintained. Very often players of our size tend to be developed for third parties or maintenance operators.
For others, they develop, they keep the plant, for a year and then sell it to circulate capital. We include all the values on all these segments, development, financing, development, refinancing portfolios, and repowering soon. That is redevelopment, reconstruction of the plant. To own the plant creates a lot of value, made great sense to us. Third factor, I don't know if it's differentiating, but at least it's very valuable to us. We provide a lot of value. We ascribe value to entrepreneurship. We're dyed in the wool entrepreneurs for 13 years now. We have a team of some 12 managers, very independent, very self-reliant and agile. Development rests on two strong pillars, local agility and a strong record.
Now, we built it over time, but we need to remain agile and at the same time have the firepower of a multinational. A few words about the business model and why it's particularly relevant and resilient in an inflationary context or in a context of rising interest rates. Once the plant's been built, it can generate cash flows that are very predictable. The revenue is a feed-in tariff defined by a contract signed with EDF or with a strong counterparty. These are 10-year with a set tariff, with an index clause. Depending on the sunlight, the radiation varies from 2%-3%. We have a top line that's very predictable. Then below, costs that are for the most part contractual, maintenance, insurance contract, rent, it's in a lease, 20 years, renewable 10 years, 10 years.
We have strong predictability of EBITDA of a PV plant, which we can put in place very long-term project finance, 10, 20 years, with fixed rates from year one. I see a few bankers in the room. We're very fortunate, banks, for to finance. We have very low margins, about 100 basis points by way of margin. When the plant isn't yet built, in other words, we have planning permission and before the financing, we can, during the tenders, we can define our price, the price that we will charge, that'll be in the contract, depending on the economic factors, based on the CapEx, on the costs, on inflation, on our forecast. Even if prices of PV modules of components, steel, raw materials increase, supply chain, we can pass on these increases in the tenders.
The risk area is between when we've won a tender and when we sign the financing contract. A few months during which we can be slightly exposed to an abrupt macroeconomic change. Of course, the general context for the development of renewables and PV in particular is very positive.
David Guinard, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Photosol and the association between Robin. He was actually more in charge of financial part. I was in charge of development. I'm gonna tell you a bit more about this and two major challenges that we're facing on a daily basis, and they're more kind of topical of the political environment, discussions about energy, the future of energy in France, and more broadly on a European level, and access to land, which is our basic resource and from.
We're talking a few hundred hectares. In terms of France's ambitions announced recently by the President and part of several reports published, we're talking several hundred thousand hectares that will be needed to receive PV. These issues must progress. The development both in compliance with biodiversity, without conflict with other uses such as producing food, hence agri PV, and very fascinating, especially in the current context of the presidential elections and, more tragically, energy supply issues that we're facing today. Maybe just to give you some key figures. When we founded the company 14 years ago, the first contracts that we could sign. In fact, we have one plant that's selling its power at that price, EUR 650 per megawatt-hours.
Whereas today, the last tender published, two days ago, the average price is EUR 58, and it was up versus a previous tender where we went down to EUR 56 per megawatt-hour ratio over 10, 12 in the space of 12 years. The trend is ever downwards, whereas the reference prices that we're facing, be it the base price, EUR 40 of the wherein price at which EDF sells power to its competitors. The market price, which in 2021 was on average higher than EUR 100 kWH, never seen before, and recently I've looked at the figures, but is over double that. Today, we see that solar power has done the work of becoming a competitive source of energy with the role that's important in the energy mix today, which is no longer denied by anyone.
We've spoken a lot about nuclear power revival. People saying, "Is it the end of PV if we revive nuclear?" It's not the same timeframe. That's today. Even if, of course, I'd like it to go far. We develop a PV power three, four plant four years. It's a lot shorter than developing a new nuclear power plant, and we can develop that across France in far more significant volumes. We produce power another time. This is a good fit with wind, hydro, and nuclear. PV is really coming to the fore and becoming part of the overall energy mix. For this, you need hectares, acres. You need to have land. Our RTE report a few months back talks about several hundred thousand hectares. Even 200,000 hectares would be required.
This must not conflict with other types of land use. We opted a few years ago to start working with the blended use in farming, setting up plants that would maintain farming underneath
The PV panels and actually making it possible to increase yield per hectare. Initially, it was empirical. Lots of people didn't believe us. We asked the INRAE to study this and give us some tenures with the data on power plants. In a few months now, we and others as well, the industry as a whole, have been able to think this through and get the government to move forward. The parliament did a quick committee task force on this recently, and they did a hearing that we were present at. They issued a recommendation which is designed to put together regulations, making distinctions between real agri PV projects from sort of fake agri PV projects, smoke and mirrors projects. This will make it possible to move in this direction.
Photosol is well-positioned here. For 10 years now, we've been working on these types of agri PV projects. Beautiful picture here of some sheep at one of our power plants. It may seem anecdotal, like a funny story, but it's important. The French president talked about 100 gigawatts by 2050. 25 by 2028, and another report that talks about 214 GW by 2050. Reaching these objectives will require this type of project. Rubis. We were laughing a few months ago when I talked a lot about sheep and it's not just a joke. It's very much a part of these projects and our strategy. Later, we'll talk about why we got together with Rubis and began work together on our shared future.
Let me say, though, the four points we have on the left side of the screen show items where we've got a real agreement with Rubis. It's a good fit. Robin and all the Photosol teams realized that we could write our future together based on these themes, such as Driven by Excellence. When we created Photosol, we built it in an industry producing electricity that had major players active already. We said, "But we've got an ability with our strengths to compete with EDF to develop major projects," and then systematically for every megawatt installed, we would produce the maximum of megawatt hours. Our maintenance teams were to be best in the class, so we could produce the most amount of power from each individual panel. This is really the genetic makeup of our company.
We're true entrepreneurs as well. As Robin said earlier, all of our teams are driven by this idea. I believe that this is something we liked a lot at Rubis. In spite of their size, they're much bigger than we are, they have nevertheless kept the entrepreneur's mindset, and we're gonna continue with an entrepreneur's focus. As Robin said earlier, agility is fundamental to get the building permits, to continue to innovate in markets that are constantly in transition, and to find the new niches where we can always continue generating power at the lowest price possible in as many places as possible, as much land as possible. Again, we've said, we're positioning in certain areas of the countries that were less in demand by our competitors. For a couple, three years now, we've worked on this ahead of our competitors.
We're reselling electricity outside the CRE bids, the regulated power, i.e., direct sales to people who are selling in over-the-counter contracts, corporate power purchase agreements, PPAs, which gives everyone a good long-term visibility. We can find purchasers who want to secure a green electricity price, which is competitive and which gives them a good long-term price visibility. This will be a major growth driver for us in future projects. CSR, Clarisse talked about this, is a major subject for Rubis, and we fit perfectly in here. Our indicators are slightly different. We don't have exactly the same markets. If we compare the CSR policy to Rubis and what we do on a daily basis, we can say that there's a lot of commonalities. We're very much working in a green sector.
To tell you why this transaction now, why we've gotten together with Rubis, we mentioned earlier, since the beginning and especially now, where we've come to now with our ambitions at Photosol in the French market and with considering the policy designed to develop photovoltaic in France, we needed to have the firepower. We needed to be able to boost our development and move on major opportunities. That's why we, a few months ago, started considering getting together with another company which would help us ramp things up. There's several stages in Photosol. We wanted to move on to this next stage so we could boost our development and be successful in the 3.5 gigas we've got in the pipeline, and then conceivably look into other markets as well.
Rubis has brought that to us, has brought us this possibility of having the wherewithal together, having the wherewithal to meet these targets and achieve a lot of synergy. It's true we're in two very different sectors of activity. Nevertheless, we were already working with several Rubis subsidiaries on land use and PV projects on their land. We're continuing to jointly develop various strategies and hone our synergies so that we can step up our shared growth. People are talking about hydrogen nowadays. HDF is one of the major players in hydrogen in a couple of specific outlets in that huge marketplace. Photovoltaic also interested, lots of complementarities between producing solar energy and these other areas as well. Last point's on prospects for development, future opportunities.
For 14 years now, we've been in this direction, particularly the last three or four years, we've been making our projects come true and working on our pipeline. We've also looked at other possible areas of development that we could build on. I talked about PPAs briefly. We want to also duplicate the model we had in foreign market. Our policy in foreign markets. We can't be wholly and solely French. That would be limited. There's a lot of possible synergy to have similar activities in other European markets, to use the same rationale and strategy. This is a further focus we're working on with Rubis very quickly in all Rubis geographies. We work on related industries. We didn't talk about storage. Storage of energy, electricity will be a major challenge in the upcoming years.
Photosol is working in our innovation division on storage, so we'll also be able to make our contributions there as well. I hope we'll have an opportunity to talk about this at future similar meetings where we can delve into greater detail. It's been a real pleasure to be on this side of the stage. 15 years ago, I was in the audience, and I'm discovering how it is to be the other side of the table, and it's interesting, different part of the industry.
Thank you very much to Robin and David. I believe that you understand our excitement, why we're so excited in Photosol. You've seen how enthusiastic they are. You've also seen how successful these business people, these entrepreneurs have been, and you've also understood their vision, their strategic vision.
They've proven that they're able to actually implement their strategic vision, and they're very strict and coordinated in doing so and have achieved remarkable results. Thank you very much to both of you for coming to the other side of the stage, so to speak, other side of the fence. Conclusions and outlook. In summary, 2021 sales are good. Margins are good. Results are good. The cash flow is up. The financial situation is sound. The dividend is up by over 3%. This year there will not be payment of a dividend in shares. It'll be paid. The dividend will be paid fully in cash. Now, continuing operations.
Let me say the first two months of this year are getting off to a very good start, following up on the last part of last year, the end of last year. That's a good outlook. Regarding our current activities, bitumen, LPG, networks, as Bruno has also said, renewal of Eastern Africa areas being moved into recently, improving performance there. Now, Haiti, delicate point, and to a lesser degree, Madagascar. These are issues we're familiar with in the industry. We always manage to make do. Geopolitical situation in Haiti, I can't predict anything. We think things are going a bit better. Relationship between oil industry and the government, we have to live together in the long term. The right solutions always end up being found. I'd also add regarding Rubis Terminal. Rubis Terminal grew in 2020. 2021 also grew.
The underlyings are good. They'll probably be refinancing the debt. Bruno mentioned this will further improve the overview. That's on our traditional businesses. To talk about the renewables branch, this is our new growth driver, our new pillar for growth. As you've seen, the investments aren't small, marginal. Over EUR 800 million invested. You saw the additional investments programs. There will be further ones in the upcoming years. Enterprise value will reach EUR 1.5 billion very quickly. I'd remind you currently, Rubis, in terms of enterprise value, around EUR 3.5 billion. When Clarisse said we've become a multi-energy company, that's absolutely true. It's happened. If we look at the relative proportions of the various business activities, there are great prospects for growth in the areas we've just been talking about.
Just look at the official development plans for photovoltaic in France. Just look at the European PV development plans. Just look at basically the great requirements we have. We're especially discovering these in the past few weeks. We need to have several sources of energy, not a single source of energy. This is crystal clear. These are long-standing principles, but that have become very obvious in recent days. Every source of energy has its place, a very important place. You wouldn't want to limit yourself to one single source of energy. We see currently that is not a good idea. It's ill-advised. Many people have understood that. I'd also add that on photovoltaic, to come in on a point that Rob and David made. PV brings us right to hydrogen and developing the hydrogen marketplace, especially green hydrogen. It's an ill-defined marketplace today.
It's in its beginning stages, green hydrogen. Our view is this is going to be an enormous market. We, together with HDF and Photosol, will have to find the right segments that are in line with who we are and who we intend to become to find our position in that specific additional marketplace, green hydrogen. I would say yes, Rubis currently has become a multi-energy group. Two major divisions, one carbonized, but it's of course working to decarbonize activities. Then a non-carbonized division with single-digit internal growth. The green division, which is growing strongly double-digit, one of them providing significant free cash flow, the other more green, which needs investments and needs cash flow, which is used to reduce indebtedness of all the SPVs. One business line has a higher WACC, and the other one, the cost of capital is lower.
The two will develop at the same time. We're fortunate now to have both of these, depending on geography in Europe, outside of Europe, depending on market segment, depending on the different clients that we're working for, we're able to provide a very diverse range of solutions, either separately or together, combined solutions. This is very much what we're offering. It's the best of both worlds in energy, i.e., this is how Rubis Group is going to be continuing its development in future years in the medium and long term. I believe we've looked at all the points from our presentation. Thank you for listening. We'd like to answer any questions you might have now.
Good evening. From CIC, I have a question on Rubis Terminal. What is the level of debt today leveraged or in amount terms, could you indicate what the ambitions are in this area? On the expansion of bitumen, does it require the acquisition of new sources of bitumen, as you attempted to do a few years back? The very swift and sharp increase in prices these past few weeks, how will that impact on your distribution margin? Three questions in one. Thanks.
On Rubis Terminal, debt today at the end of 2021 reaches EUR 760 million net. Of course, that represents a multiple of EBITDA of 5.5 x. That's in response to your question. That's the situation. Turning.
Well, Rubis Terminal has a culture of growth, of expansion, a lot of internal growth. That's true. A lot of M&A in 2020, representing about 1/3 of assets with the Spanish affiliate, Tepsa. Also, there's an ability to respond, react with the exit from Turkey recently. Rubis Terminal has changed radically over the past 10 years in terms of its portfolio stored products. It's moved towards biofuels. It's a pioneer in launching a biofuel value chain in France. It innovated. It started from scratch in the Ara region back in 2010 in order to become a major player in Antwerp and Rotterdam in chemicals with, for example, the significant contracts that we have with major players such as Shell, but also other major petrochemical companies in the region.
There's a key role to be played by Rubis Terminal in the energy transition. Note that Rubis Terminal's business is to be rooted, anchored in the territory. It's not agrivoltaics, it's in the ports, the logistics, the supply chain hubs, and has this ability to respond to logistics as you store liquid products. In the energy transition, there will be new needs, be it for the storage of other liquids, biofuels, be it the need for gas storage tomorrow. Soon, hydrogen, why not? There's a whole logistics set up to be built. Rubis Terminal from these locations that are key, that generate value, yes, is seeking to position itself to take part in this expansion. It has the means, it has the expertise, clearly.
Rubis and its shareholder, SCA and I Squared, are powerful shareholders to help it propel itself forward. There's a question on bitumen.
Yeah, question on bitumen. What underpins the expansion? Obviously, if we want M&A growth in the group, I mean, it's something that we know how to do and that we like to do, but you can't forecast that. We can't make plans. What's certain is that bitumen, we're talking about Africa here. There are commercial breakthroughs that are truly remarkable. Our starting point was the Nigerian market, where we have a major market share in the neighboring countries in West Africa.
We found a way of penetrating African markets that don't have the size of Nigeria or South Africa, allows us to insert ourselves between a bulk logistics, very powerful, essentially in Nigeria and South Africa, and logistics across Africa that flow drum-based rather, don't offer operators in the sense of a certain size, don't offer guarantees of origin, quality, regularity. We have a logistics with specialized bitutainers and equally specialized ships that allows us to land in commercial ports, a number of these bitutainers, and offer our new customers on intermediate quantities, the high level service and the quality of an international company. We've been able to move into Cameroon, Gabon. We're currently establishing a foothold in South Africa. Picking up point by Bruno, South Africa, that was long in bitumen, is now becoming short.
Bitumen shortage requires imports in Eastern Africa, where we're penetrating. There's a dynamism on behalf of Rubis Group in Africa. In internal growth, this dynamism suffices to boost this part of the business. Last year, I think it was a question on prices. In fact, we've anticipated your question. This is the magic chart of Rubis on its carbon intensity, 'cause we're gonna speak about carbon intensity or the other, over 10 years, in fact, on screen. We could have done it over 20 years. The graph would look similar. You have diesel, low sulfur content, the red line, low tenor, and the average, the variations.
The variations, at least.
It's quite explicit.
For example, in 2015, listing a 15% margin of 15% in 2017, 2018, you have hikes of 20%-24% of prices, which is considerable, and markets remain stable, even slightly up. The situation closest to 2020, you'll recall, it's anecdotal, but moved it to negative prices for a few days in oil. There was a 40% collapse of petroleum products over the period, down to almost $15. Margins rose 5%. Conversely, in 2011, that's why I like to talk to you about this two-year period, 2021, that's very significant. You have 54% growth, and the margins declined barely by 5%. It's a fundamental chart of our activity, ability to pass on the sharp changes in international prices onto the end user markets.
To answer your question on these price variations, there's no doubt that we'll be able to do as well in the future, which is the specific characteristics of energy markets generally, and particularly that of oil products.
Good evening. I'm from BNP Paribas Exane. I have two questions. My first is, sorry, rather a neophyte's question. Sorry, the question on Photosol. On the PV installation, you speak of 20 years of duration of operation. For the 20s, can you give an idea of the amount to be invested and the total operating profit, EBIT of that after , 20 years? Can it no longer be used, or can you still operate it?
I'll perhaps let our friends answer that one. The last question is very simple. Answer, yes, it's still utilizable. The land is an asset and will increasingly become a key asset. Then you put the panels of whatever color and technology. It's not really up to me to answer that.
Well, yes, just to supplement, I didn't mention repowering. You cited the term. Today the panels that we're installing, have been installing for some 10 years, have a lifetime of the order of 35, 40 years. So these are very long-term things. There are a number of items that need to be regularly changed in a plant, very minor. Just the converters, that's why it's important to have your own maintainer within Photosol, because it gives you a better idea of how the plant is run and have very significant and reliable preventive maintenance so as to increase the life cycle of plants. But it's true that when you have the land, we have most of the leases run for 40 years.
We anticipate the fact that we're going to go beyond the first 20-year phase of power selling and possibly reinvest in panels that see their performance constantly improve. We're already working on repowering our plants of 10 years ago. What we need to know is the first 20-year period is important because it's that to which we design the financing, the bank financings. Beyond 20 years, we're in a rationale where the bulk of the cost disappeared because it's very complicated to have exact figures on total EBITDA over 20 years. To give you an order of magnitude, give or take the business model of an SPV over the first 20 years, 80% of revenue or rather cash generated that serves to reimburse the debt and only 20% to cover the cost and the margin.
When you arrive at the end of debt reimbursement over the 20 years remaining of power production, the operating costs are very low, so there's real value on the selling of electricity beyond that. The average cost of a plant? Well, it depends. Depends on location, nature of the land, complexity, but we're around between EUR 0.70 and EUR 0.80 per installed watt. I'll let you do the math on that.
Let me build on that with two or three ratios that might be of interest. These are capital-intensive businesses. Building a PV plant, lots of initial CapEx, as David said. You have to then repay the debt 80%-90% over the 20-year period. We have a little ratio that's pretty good. We work with it for Photosol. It's operating income over investment. It's highly correlated to the level of debt, the margins between the two. We started the first Photosol plants, our ROI was about 12% for the plants. Now it's around 8%. We used to finance at 5% 15 years. Now we finance at 1%, 1.2% for 23 years. Look at the difference between operating income and debt. That's an important criterion in value creation. Second criterion in value creation is the quality of development.
What we see is that the business of development is where you can generate value for the plant when it's financing. You charge for development expenses and so forth, upfront amounts. The more sunny the plant is, the lower connections, the lower the CapEx, the greater upfront value we can generate. There's a third source of value creation, maintenance, O&M. Of course, this also depends on location of the plant. A lot of these are operated at the same time. Question is can we pool costs? Is it easy land, flat land, or is it a plant that's on a waste landfill and they've got gas emissions and the grass has to be cut by hand?
The reason I mention this is because the plus point is to be active in all areas, development, financing, holding the asset, and also subsequent refinancing, when macroeconomics make for that, and also operation to get, margins every year through operations. No one single answer to your question, sorry. Just to talk to you about value pockets and Photosol's positioning in all of those, value areas.
Thank you.
I have another question on the share buybacks. I think there was a plan, EUR 289 million,
EUR 250 million.
Did you finalize the EUR 250 million?
We never committed to buy back all of EUR 250 million worth. The resolution had to do with a cap, a maximum of EUR 250 million that could be bought back. We used that resolution for the amount you're familiar with, i.e., EUR 150 million. Remember, in the meantime, there was that little investment of EUR 80 million made in HDF, and then a little bigger investment, EUR 750 million in Photosol. There'll be further investments. Therefore, the priority is rather than to just buy back our own shares, we want to also ensure the future.
To ensure the future, you don't buy back your own shares, you buy new assets to place them alongside existing assets and create tomorrow's profitability. That's my view on share buybacks. We've done this, that's great. It's actually hard to measure the effect of this. There's lots of talking about the pros and cons of share buybacks and the effect. You know Rubis' share price performance in the past two years. Not all that wonderful. To figure out how the share buyback had an impact on the value of our share price. Well, in our share buyback, the resolution passed in December 2019 is valid until May 2022. You can guess in the next two months, we don't intend to do any share buybacks.
A last question, if you don't mind.
To react, regarding oil prices that are high right now. In times when oil prices are high, there's a significant risk that some countries, some authorities, governments, might question price formulas. This has happened in the past. Do you see this on the horizon in your geographies where you're active right now, in upcoming months?
You're right. Generally speaking, there are limits inherent in every system. Think of Madagascar. That's the case there. We mentioned this subject earlier. My point here is, as I was saying, energy is essential. These are import markets. We can't sell at a loss. Therefore, governments are very well cognizant of the situation. We have to think of the long-term, the governments and we, as operators and importers of oil products in this instance. Well, we have a long-term relationship with them, with each other.
Experiences that go back to the last century tell us that our partnership works pretty well, ups and downs, but maybe there can be a problem from time to time. Often governments, this was the case in Madagascar, recognize the sort of indebtedness they have to the various operators, what they owe them. What it's all about is to figure out how the situation can be regularized. There's no hard and fast rule. It also depends. Well, of course, it can sometimes depend on election dates. It's not only in France that elections are important times. Another important consideration is price changes. Something goes up really fast, can also go down fairly fast. Look at some of the curves you can see on the screen. Things can turn around. This is what your business is all about.
If you're in the oil industry, you have to manage the relationship with governments. Let me specify. We're talking about specific geographies. Countries that have structured prices, and that's not the case in all countries, of course, nor is it the case in all marketplaces. Very often, you have places where service station prices are regulated, but no regulation of fuel for ships or aircraft or CNI's major clients and so forth, because they're unregulated. We have to grapple with all the different parameters at the same time. Are there further questions? Yes, go ahead.
Yes, I had a question. This one's on your policy regarding external growth. In the press release, you say you wish to continue developing through acquisitions. Could you tell us what's your current priority, renewable energy or carbonized energy? Today, in your view, do you have enough assets or might you continue investing in other renewable sources of energy in addition to PV and hydrogen? Could you also tell us what your power is going to be or your how much wherewithal you have for M&A after you've acquired Photosol, and it's in your financials.
Well, on our policy of external growth, you know, it's been a constant. We're continuing to develop this. Whether we'll invest in carbon or decarbonized. Well, let me tell you, we'll invest in companies that are top quality and that fit beautifully or are a beautiful addition to our portfolio, which means we'll continue investing in oil products assets as well. Oil products are gonna become biofuels, they're evolving as well. Clarisse talked about this already a lot.
We're working hard to source various products, LPG and others, that are decarbonized. Various refineries converting to biorefineries so that we as distributors can have access to those biofuels as soon as possible to replace a conventional fuel with a liquid biofuel. We'll do this as efficiently as possible. That's on carbonized to non-carbonized. Of course, we'll also continue investing in PV. Our friends here have just demonstrated very well what their intentions are, which will also in the very near future be our intentions. We have. We're working on green hydrogen and our policy in this area. As to other energy sources, I believe that, well, we've covered most of this. We're not moving into nuclear for the time being. Hydro, fairly complex, have to find a dam that's up for grabs. It's difficult in France and other countries. Geothermal.
This is an activity which so far hasn't been highly successful. Oddly enough, you can say too, it seems easy-ish. If you've got a source of hot water, you can use it. To my knowledge, this industry isn't developing apace. We've tried to invest in biogas. Didn't find the ratios that we thought were right, that would be appropriate for a group of our size. Not as big as some competitors, but EUR 3 billion. We need to invest in well-developed groups. That it's meaningful when we say we're multi-energy, and we've got to the requisite assets and the right proportions on the balance sheet. Jokes aside, photovoltaic and related markets, I believe will be appropriate for quite some time and will be developing well.
Financial firepower, that's your financial. What finances we would have, that was your underlying question.
We said we finished the year with a ratio of net debt over EBITDA of 0.9x. With the acquisition of Photosol, that 0.9x will become 2.5x. Now, out of the 2.5x, 2.5 x EBITDA, there's 1.7x. 1.7x of this is something from the conventional business area, EUR 500 million generated by Rubis Énergie. The remainder, the EUR 400 million, is debt accommodated in SPVs, so project funding, non-recourse. It's the 1.7x, the corporate debt we need to look at. We can have the 1.7x, it can go to 2.2x. This would be viable. This would be around EUR 500 million EBITDA in terms of investment capacity.
If I add to this, the Photosol project in itself over the next five years includes around EUR 700 million in investments, which is basically self-financed through the cash flow generated by the existing SPVs. Basically, all in all, there you see our EUR 1 billion in financing capacity. EUR 700 million spent at Photosol that's basically pre-funded with the leverage of 80%-90%. No injection of cash by shareholders for the initial. For the first EUR 700 million, plus the EUR 500 million, between EUR 300 million and EUR 500 million, which is available through Rubis Énergie. It's a hybrid model, basically, which produces about a EUR 1 billion in development capacity.
I think we pretty much rounded this off. Thanks very much for your attention. I'd be delighted to see you in person unless there are further questions. Look forward to seeing you all next time for the next account presentation.
Thank you. Refreshments next door.