Good day, and welcome to Vallourec 2025 full year results presentation, hosted by Philippe Guillemot, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and Nathalie Delbreuve, Chief Financial Officer. For the first part of the conference call, all participants will be in listen-only mode. During the question and answer session, you may ask questions by dialing pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. Now, I would like to hand the call over to Daniel Thomson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for Vallourec's fourth quarter 2025 results presentation. I'm Daniel Thomson, Director of Investor Relations at Vallourec. I'm joined today by Vallourec Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Philippe Guillemot, and Vallourec Chief Financial Officer, Nathalie Delbreuve. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that this conference call will be recorded. The replay will be available following the call. You can find the audio webcast on our investor relations website. The presentation slides referred to during this call are also available for download here. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements. Future results may differ materially from statements or projections made on today's call. The forward-looking statements and risk factors that could affect those statements are referenced on slide two of today's presentation.
They are also included in our Universal Registration Document filed with the French financial markets regulator, the AMF. This presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. I'll now turn the call over to Philippe Guillemot.
Thank you, Dan. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us to discuss Vallourec's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. You can see today's agenda on slide three. I will move directly to slide five, where I will start by discussing the highlights of 2025. 2025 was another transformative year for Vallourec. We progressed several major strategic initiatives and achieved key financial milestones. We continued to drive operational excellence through the organization, including the execution of our cost reduction program in Brazil, completed in Q2 ahead of schedule. We significantly narrowed the profitability gap with our primary peers, demonstrating the effectiveness of our strategy and execution.
We stayed true to our value over volume operating model, securing a new and enhanced long-term agreement with Petrobras, winning major high-value tenders across the Middle East, and driving market share and margin growth in the U.S. through our domestic footprint. We continued to streamline our sources and uses of capital, executing the sale of our non-core Serimax welding operations and redeeming 10% of our long-term notes. Importantly, we also positioned the company for profitable growth. We successfully acquired and integrated Thermotite do Brasil, adding to our line pipe coating capabilities. These are increasingly serving as a key differentiator in a deepwater project. In the U.S., we broke ground on a $48 million premium threading line investment in Youngstown to increase capacity to thread VAM high-torque connections, which are increasingly used in onshore wells with long laterals.
We made further progress on the phase 2 extension of the mine ahead of expected completion in 2027. As Nathalie will discuss, we built on our growing track record of consistent cash generation with over EUR 400 million of total cash generated in 2025 for the third straight year. These improvements in our profitability and financial resilience were recognized with investment-grade credit ratings across all three rating agencies, setting the stage for further optimization of our balance sheet on more favorable terms. In May, we paid a substantial dividend to shareholders for the first time in a decade, executed a minor buyback, and worked to enable our much more significant 2026 share buyback. Let's turn to slide six to discuss our results and outlook.
In the fourth quarter, we delivered solid results once again, with group EBITDA of EUR 214 million, above the midpoint of our guidance. This came with a robust 21% margin. We delivered excellent total cash generation of EUR 177 million, thanks to robust collection and inventory management. In the first quarter, we expect Tubes EBITDA per ton to remain stable sequentially, while volumes will be below the Q4 2025 level due to slower international bookings in H2 2025. In Minério de Ferro, production sold is expected to be around 1.4 million tons. As a result, we expect Q1 EBITDA to range between EUR 165 million and EUR 195 million. In the U.S., our assets remain highly utilized, and recent booking activity remains strong.
Industry pricing has softened slightly, but we are encouraged by the downward trend in imports and the resilience of our customers' activity. In international markets, commercial activity remains somehow subdued in H2 2025, but in the Middle East, we are now seeing clear signs of acceleration, especially in markets with higher level of unconventional activity. We see potential for activity to increase in the second semester and beyond as the oil market rebalances, gas-related activity increases, and our customers face accelerating decline rates. Turning to capital allocation, we are making good progress with our EUR 200 million buyback announced in January, with EUR 150 million remaining under the current program. We have purchased 3 million shares year to date. Now, let me provide you with an update on 2026 shareholder return on slide seven.
Today, I am pleased to announce Vallourec's expectation to propose, in addition to the EUR 200 million share buyback, an interim dividend of approximately EUR 450 million to be distributed in the third quarter of this year. This would take the total return to shareholders to approximately EUR 650 million between January and August 2026, representing a year-on-year increase of around EUR 280 million. This distribution represents approximately 90% of our 2025 total cash generation and 100% of the proceeds of the warrants, which are expected to be exercised before the end of June. We have adopted a balanced distribution framework, limiting warrant dilutions through buybacks, growing our dividend, and maintaining a defensive balance sheet.
Based on our current share price, this distribution represents a potential interim dividend of EUR 1.75 per share, including the anticipated dilution from the exercise of warrants. This is a healthy increase of EUR 0.25 compared to last year's EUR 1.5 per share. Turning to slide eight, we show the usual comparison versus our primary public peer. The trend is clearly positive over the past year. We remain focused on eliminating the gap entirely. We continue to outperform in terms of return on capital, which is a key focus of our medium-term roadmap. On that note, let's turn to slide 10 for an update on our strategic priorities. We have made substantial efforts to streamline our core asset base over the past several years, but there is still work to be done.
Our key strategic priorities in 2026 are directed at unlocking this potential. First, we will continue to drive operational excellence throughout the group. This is not a passive process. We are actively implementing a new management system, which is firmly results-driven and embedded in daily operations across all business functions. Bertrand Frischmann, our Chief Operations Officer, is responsible for its implementation. We look forward on sharing more about this program with you in the coming months. Secondly, we will continue to optimize our asset base to drive improved return on capital. Third, we are actively investing to position ourselves for profitable growth. Let me talk about a few examples on these later 2 initiatives now. Let's turn to slide 11. Here you can see the targeted set of high-return projects we have executed since the launch of the new Vallourec plan in 2022.
You will recall, we began with a major downsizing of our rolling capacity in Germany and rightsizing in China and ultimately Brazil. We made the strategic decision to close loss-making capacity and exit low-margin business. More recently, our focus has turned to the upstream and downstream elements of our value chain and is more about enabling profitable growth than shrinking our assets. In our upstream process, we have invested to expand capacity for high-quality iron ore production at our mine in Brazil. Production from the phase 1 extension started at the end of 2024. We are now working on phase 2, with completion still scheduled for sometime in 2027. We are now undertaking project to reconfigure our steelmaking assets in Brazil to reduce complexity and maximize operational flexibility, including the ability to run our steelmaking operations without the use of our blast furnace.
In our downstream operations, we are investing heavily in our threading and coating capabilities, where technology barriers and returns on capital are higher. We are adding to our threading line capability in the U.S., adding both large diameter and high torque capabilities. Meanwhile, we see significant opportunities in advanced coating solutions, and we'll be investing in both line pipe and OCTG coating line this year. All of these projects will be executed within our expected CapEx envelope of EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million, on top of significantly increased spending on safety initiatives, as laid out in our capital allocation framework. Let's turn to slide 12, to discuss one way in which we are positioning for profitable growth. At our Capital Markets Day in 2023, we highlighted our favorable positioning in the conventional geothermal market and the upside that could materialize in more advanced technologies.
We are now seeing clear signs that these next-generation technologies are moving towards widespread adoption. The momentum is driven by rising demand for low-carbon, baseload, and dispatchable power, with AI hyperscalers investing heavily to secure supply. The IEA has recently highlighted a five-fold surge in next-generation geothermal financing over the past three years to $2.2 billion in 2025. The increase in financing has been underpinned by rapid technological progress, much of which relates to learnings from the shale industry. With drillings and well costs representing up to 80% of total costs, significant improvements in drilling speeds are dramatically improving geothermal project economics. You can see the high potential of this market in the chart on the right, which comes on top of expected growth in conventional geothermal.
We are already experiencing a significant increase in our geothermal bookings as our customers begin to execute on development pipelines that are orders of magnitude above today's installed capacity. We are uniquely positioned to benefit from this growth, thanks to our domestic footprint in the two largest markets for geothermal today, the U.S. and Indonesia. Our cutting-edge research and development expertise has allowed us to continuously improve our product offering to meet the high demands of geothermal wells placed on tubular products, and we can pair these products with our world-class service offerings. Let's look more closely at the next-generation geothermal opportunity. I am on slide 13. You can see the elements that differentiate traditional geothermal from next-generation applications. On the left, you have conventional geothermal, which has seen steady growth over time, but is restricted by the requirements for hot water reservoirs and sufficient subsurface permeability.
In the middle, enhanced geothermal mitigates the permeability constraint by using shale-like technology to add subsurface fractures into deeper conventional geothermal systems. In closed loops or advanced geothermal, the only requirement is hot rock, with no need for an external water source or permeable rock. Naturally, this opens up the resource potential exponentially. Turning to slide 14. You can see the typical characteristics for each geothermal development type. Much like the oil and gas industry used rapidly advancing technology to tap into unconventional and ultra-deep water fields in the early 2000s, the geothermal industry is pushing technological boundaries that open new markets. Vallourec is ideally positioned from its expertise in shale development to serve enhanced geothermal markets. Similarly, our unique vacuum insulated tubing solution is ideal for closed-loop system. This is not a fantasy. We are already serving customers across all of these product categories.
Clearly, though, the growth potential in next-generation solution, coupled with Vallourec's higher revenue opportunity per megawatt, makes the growth in advanced and enhanced applications quite compelling. As you may have seen, in January, we announced an exclusive partnership with XGS Energy to support their delivery of a 3-GW pipeline of commercial advanced geothermal project across the Western U.S. We hope this will be the first of many such fruitful relationships in this industry. Now, let's turn to our usual discussion on the OCTG market. I am on slide 16, where we focus on the U.S. market. On demand front, the horizontal oil rig count has been stable since mid-2025. Gas-directed drilling activity has increased through 2025 and into 2026. A wave of LNG project startups and growing domestic gas demand is supporting market expectations.
Rigs drilling for gas now account for a quarter of the total count, up from 17% a year ago. Looking at the supply side, imports continued to decline for the fourth quarter following the administration's increase in Section 232 steel tariffs in June. Notably, we can see from the chart that the tariffs have been more effective in curbing seamless imports compared to welded imports. On the right, seamless spot pricing has moderated slightly in the third quarter, though prices increased in both January and February alongside improving sentiment. Overall, we are encouraged by the improving supply side dynamics and the resilience of our customers' activities. Let's move to the international OCTG market on slide 17. Demand remained stable in international markets, but was somewhat subdued in 2025 compared to the beginning of 2024.
We saw slower tender activity in the second half of 2025 that will cause us to start 2026 at a slower shipment cadence. In most of our core regions in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, we have continued to perform well, in part due to our strong positions in high-value markets like unconventional gas and deep water. Looking ahead, in the Middle East, we are seeing some signs of an activity acceleration, especially in markets with higher levels of unconventional activity, for which we are supporting customers today with our high torque premium connections. Our premium portfolio often allows us to outperform the price indicators we show on the right side of this slide. That said, the latest outlook from ICAP does show an improvement in market pricing in January.
I confirm that our average booking prices for international markets have remained at healthy levels due to our ongoing focus on value over volume. I will now hand the call over to Nathalie to comment on our financial results.
Thank you, Philippe, and good morning, everyone. Let me now lead you through our key figures and results for Q4 and the full year 2025. Let's turn to slide 19 to discuss our full year results and the key figures. As you can see, tube volumes were 1,244 kilotons for the full year 2025, down slightly year-over-year, with lower Tubes volumes in South America and Eastern Hemisphere, not fully offset by stronger volumes in the U.S.. The full year EBITDA was EUR 819 million, versus EUR 832 million for the full year 2024. This slight decline includes a significant adverse foreign exchange impact of EUR 47 million.
Tubes volume decline was more than offset by positive price mix effect in Tubes, stronger contribution from Mine & Forest, and continued cost reduction initiatives, maintaining a strong 21% margin. Net income was EUR 355 million, versus EUR 452 million in 2024. Let's remember that 2024 was impacted by positive one-offs, with the sale of the Rath site in Germany, generating a gain of sale of EUR 139 million, and with our refinancing last year. Overall, we continue to build on our track record of generating consistent net income. Net cash ended the year at EUR 39 million, slightly higher than end of 2024, and after EUR 370 million having been returned to shareholders. Moving to slide 20, we can see that we continue to build on our track record in Q4.
It has now been 13 quarters that the EBITDA margin has been around 20%, showing the strong resilience of the group, its ability to adjust costs and maintain a strong margin. Since 2022, we have been reducing our working capital requirements in number of days, as you can see on the top right. In Q4 2025, we further improved our working capital requirement with robust collections and inventory management. You can see on the bottom left that we have a track record of healthy, positive total cash generation with EUR 177 million total cash generated in Q4 2025, which leads to positive cash at the end of the year, as you can see on the right. Let's turn now to slide 21 to start discussing our Q4 results and key figures.
Revenues were EUR 1,042.33 million, down 2% year-over-year. But again, impacted by negative currency effect of - 6%. Revenues at constant foreign exchange rates are up 4%. Reduction in volume sold were more than offset by improvement in price mix and minor positive effect in Mine & Forest. EBITDA was EUR 214 million, or 20.5% of revenues, stable compared to Q4 2024. Foreign exchange impact quarter-over-quarter is negative by EUR 10 million. Like for the full year, the positive price mix effect in Tubes across all regions, as well as lower costs and cost savings, did offset the impact of lower volumes, which I will comment in the next slide.
Adjusted free cash flow in Q4 2025 was EUR 204 million, to be compared to EUR 178 million in Q4 2024, which I will comment in more details later. This led, as we saw, to a net cash position, EUR 39 million achieved at the year-end. We will now look at Tube performance in Q4 on slide 22 and also 23. Looking at volumes, page 22, you can see that volumes were stronger quarter-over-quarter, as we guided. They were lower year-over-year, mainly due to our U.S. import business in the Gulf of America, as expected, and certain regions in Eastern Hemisphere. Average selling price was higher year-over-year, as mix shifted more to international in Q4.
Overall, Q4 Tubes revenue was 2% higher year-over-year, and even 8% higher at constant foreign exchange rate. Revenue mix by geography, that you see in the bottom left, shows a reduction in imports versus Q4 2024, but also to a strong contribution from Middle East. Slide 23, we can see the Tubes profitability. Tubes EBITDA was EUR 183 million and 18% of revenue. As you can see, our margin is very stable and resilient. Tubes EBITDA per tonne, at EUR 548, increased by EUR 37 per tonne year-over-year, and even EUR 65 if you consider constant foreign exchange rate, confirming again, the positive impact of our value over volume strategy.
The decrease versus Q3 2024 EBITDA per ton is due to a less favorable mix this quarter and a lower proportion of services. Let's move now and look at the Mine & Forest performance on slide 24. The production sold in Q4 2025 was close to 1.5 million tons, outperforming our expectations voiced during our Q3 call, leading to full year volume of 6.2 million tons. Mine & Forest EBITDA, as you can see on the right bottom, reached EUR 38 million and 48% of total revenue, increasing sequentially by 10%. This reflects higher iron ore market prices, partially offset by seasonally lower volumes. For the full year, EBITDA reached EUR 171 million, up significantly year-over-year, reflecting higher quality in ore after the startup of the phase one extension in late 2024.
Let's look now on slide 25 at our net income key drivers and evolution. We continue to deliver a solid bottom line, as you can see on the right. In Q4, net income was EUR 96 million. That is 9% of total revenue, net income group share. You can see that Q4, 2024, net result was higher at EUR 163 million. Again, as already explained, in 2024, the group net result had benefited from the one-off book gain on sale of the Rath site in Germany for EUR 139 million. Looking on the left at Q4, you can see that the bridge from EBITDA to net income group share, you can see the depreciation and amortization amount to -EUR 52 million, very much in line with previous quarters and Q4.
Financial result is - EUR 16 million. In the other pillar of the bridge, includes restructuring and some one-off impacts, such as in the quarter, a positive reversal of impairment of assets in China for + EUR 38 million, reflecting the good operational performance and evolution of China. Income tax is - EUR 35 million. Effective tax rate was 26% in Q4 2025. Let's look now at cash flow analysis on slide 26. We can see how we convert EBITDA into cash flow for the quarter and for the full year. We had excellent total cash generation in Q4 of EUR 177 million, resulting in over 80% conversion of EBITDA to cash, thanks to robust collection and inventory management, driving the change in working capital that you see on the left.
CapEx was - EUR 55 million, a bit elevated versus prior quarters as work continues on our growth project. As you can see on the right, we did remain within the EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million range, as disclosed in our CMD in the full year of 2025, with total CapEx for the year of EUR 176 million. For the full year 2025, we delivered over EUR 400 million of total cash generation for the third straight year, with restructuring costs halving year-over-year and continued structural improvement in our working capital as we optimize our operations. In the last slide, let's look at our debt and liquidity.
Thanks to the excellent net cash generation I just commented, we turned net cash positive in Q4, with + EUR 39 million of cash on the balance sheet at the end of the year. As you can see on the right, we have significant liquidity above EUR 1.6 billion, of which nearly EUR 1 billion in cash.
Thank you, Nathalie. Let's turn to slide 29 to discuss our outlook. Starting with our tube business, in the first quarter, we expect volumes to decrease sequentially. EBITDA ton should remain similar to the fourth quarter level. For the full year, we expect our North America Tubes business to see sustained trends in volume, thanks to market share gains during 2025. We expect a slight near-term decrease in U.S. market prices, with improving industry supply-demand conditions, setting the stage for potential improvement later in the year. In our International Tubes business, we expect lower sales volume in H1 2026, due to slower booking in H2 2025. We see activity recovery in the key Middle East-Eastern markets, setting the stage for higher second half volumes. We expect market pricing to remain broadly stable versus the second half of 2025, with discrete customer contracts driving selective price upside.
For Mine & Forest , we expect production sold to be around 1.4 million tons in the first quarter. We expect full year production of around 5.5 million tons, slightly lower year-over-year, due to an improved production process focusing on value over volume. At the group level, we expect our first quarter EBITDA to range between EUR 165 million and EUR 195 million. Let's conclude on slide 30. We are driving further improvements in return on capital through a relentless push towards operational excellence and asset streamlining. We are positioning for future profitable growth through targeted research and development and capital investments to solve the energy challenges of today and tomorrow.
Finally, we are delivering on our commitments to shareholders, targeting a substantial EUR 650 million in shareholder returns in the first 8 months of 2026, while maintaining our crisis-proof balance sheet. Thank you again for your attention. Nathalie and I are now ready to take your questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. We have a question from Paul Redman from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thank you very much for your time. I just wanted to ask 2 questions. Firstly, was about the buyback and the distributions. You've guided EUR 650 million of payout to shareholder in 2026. I just wanted to ask about the allocation and why you've allocated the additional cash to dividend rather than to buyback, to kind of offset some of the dilution impact of the warrants in 2026. My second question was on working capital. You've had a big release this quarter. I want to go into a little bit more detail on what the drivers of that is, and also how do we think about working capital into 2026? Thank you very much.
Okay, first, I will take your first question. As you know, we have launched a share buyback plan for EUR 200 million to be executed by end of June. Given the daily volume traded and obviously, how we can execute share buyback, I think, we were a bit capped, and that's why we only allocated EUR 200 million out of the EUR 650 to share buyback. Remaining being, as you have seen, the sum of the proceeds of the share buyback, of the warrants, and what was not used for the share buyback from the total cash generation of 2025.
Second, the return on capital employed and working cap, you clearly understood that since I joined, my main focus was on deleveraging the balance sheet of Vallourec, we reached the zero net debt end of 2024. Again, end of 2025, we have a positive net cash of EUR 39 million. The levers we have used to achieve such performance was obviously to work on every aspect of our capital employed, starting with the working cap. By the way, there is a nice slide in Nathalie's presentation, where you can see that our working cap in days of sales, continue to decrease, we still see further room for further improvement.
On our asset base, as I have mentioned in my presentation, we continue to question and challenge any asset we have in Vallourec, which is not absolutely needed to generate, obviously, the performance we are contemplating. Great. Thank you very much.
We have a question from Matt Smith from BofA. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to start on the mine, if I could. You talked to a new strategy, sort of value over volume there. I wonder if you could give us any update in terms of where, you know, you might put new guidance, perhaps, for annual EBITDA for that business versus what you've presented in the past. You know, what is the net-net of that strategy? I suppose a follow-up would be, does that have any implications for future mine expansion plans that you've talked to before, please? That'll be the first one, and then the second one would be, thank you for the updates as ever, around the U.S. sort of OCTG market. I can see those seamless imports coming down.
I think the one sort of topic that scratched my head out a bit is domestic supply in the U.S. There was actually a source of a lot of supply growth in 2025, which doesn't seem to get much airtime. I just wondered if you could talk to the drivers of increased supply, domestic production in 25, and if you saw the picture, you know, any differently for 26. Your insights there would be really appreciated. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Let's start with the Mine. First, we are very consistent with what we said in September 2023, about what we expect from the Mine. You remember phase one, now fully executed, around EUR 100 million EBITDA. Phase two, completed, EUR 125 million. There is no deviation versus what we said in 2023. What has changed in the meantime is that we have applied our recipe for success, value over volume, to the Mine too. Today, we extract less Run-of-Mine, but we are able to generate, to produce more iron ore, more high-quality iron ore, and obviously, the EBITDA we are looking for. That's the logic behind this. Again, I insist, no change versus what we said in September 2023 about what we expect from the Mine.
As far as the U.S. OCTG, U.S. market is concerned, several, first, imports have declined since the implementation of the Section 232 import tariff, which obviously led customers to buy more from domestic capacity. In fact, first effect is a better use of existing domestic capacity, starting with ours. As I said, we have nice volumes, and we are well loaded with our capacity today. On top, what we see is a better sentiment, and as you have seen, Pipe Logix slightly going up in January, in February again, which obviously give us confidence that at some point, the balance between supply and demand will translate into upward pressure on prices. This is likely to obviously happen in 2026.
On top, as we mentioned, we have invested in additional capacity to produce high torque connection for unconventional drilling. That's a change in the market, and the market is becoming more premium. As you have seen, our customers are able to produce as much oil with less rigs, less wells, thanks to this technology. Obviously, there is real appetite for this technology that we have developed and for which we have gained market share. Obviously, we intend to continue to gain market share.
All right. Thank you. Appreciate all the color. I'll hand it on.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. We have a question from Kévin Roger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have two, if I may. The first one is maybe to understand a bit more the Q1 guidance, because at the time of the Q3 earnings, we were mentioning some shift in volumes from Q4 2025 to H1 2026. I was wondering, is the lower volumes that you mentioned for Q1 means that those volume has been shifting to Q2? Maybe to understand a bit more, you know, the implication that we saw between the two quarters. The second one, you talked about the geothermal activities during the presentation quite a lot, and recently you signed a deal with XGS.
When we make some math with the elements that you shared with us, this framework agreement could represent quite a lot of revenue, maybe something like EUR 1.5 billion. I was wondering if you can share a bit with us how you do see this XGS partnership impacting the revenue for Vallourec in 2026, 2027, and 2028, please.
Yeah. Going back to Q1 volume being lower than Q4, I remind you that our volume in Q4 were much higher than Q3. Obviously, this has to be put in perspective. When oil price started to go down, we have seen last year in H2, our customers not canceling investment plans, but taking more time to decide on their investment and placing orders. That's what's reflected in our bookings and will translate in H1 in our invoicing. Again, as I said, we see clear pickup since the beginning of the year, as by the way, oil price went up EUR 10 since. That's why I think the profile of this year, volume-wise, is likely to be similar to the one of 2025. As far as geothermal is concerned, yes, thank you for noticing.
Obviously, we're fact to bouncing back on what we said on geothermal. It's a new market which is opening. Again, three years ago, obviously, we decided to, obviously, invest time and money on research and development on new application for our know-how. This, geothermal enhanced and advanced technology was the right bet. Yes, today, and again, and thanks to the data centers which are popping everywhere and the huge need for base load electricity, this technology now have, obviously, good, good prospect. As I said, there is more project in the pipeline than the existing install base, and we are positioned on it.
We mentioned about XGS, for which we provide unique technology, which we are the only one able to provide, the famous VIT technology, vacuum insulated tubes. When you do the math, yes, I think your conclusion is the right one. I think these wells, because geothermal is based on wells, require technologies, premium technology we have, and obviously this will come on top of our technologies to support our customers on unconventional, more gas-directed production.
Sorry, if I may follow up. How would you, in a way, see the phasing? Would you consider that, you know, those opportunities will mostly materialize in 2028 because those guy needs to get a lot of financing? You do see already a lot of stuff in 2027, for example, or even sooner?
Data centers need electricity now and in the next few years. There's no time to wait. Geothermal project can be executed as fast as they can drill. It's already today, and obviously it will ramp up nicely over the next years, but it's not something for the future. It's already something for project which are currently in execution phase.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad. We have a question from Baptiste Lebacq from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yes, good morning, everybody. Two questions from my side. First one is, if I look at your slide, page 11, I see you still have, let's say, a quite tense investment program for 2026. Does it mean that, in terms of CapEx, we should be in the upper range of your, let's say, CapEx guidance that you gave in 2025? Second question, in on the geothermal market versus hydrogen market, it seems that you are more bullish right now on geothermal than, let's say, on hydrogen market. What is your view on the hydrogen market? Is, let's say, the next wave after geothermal in terms of sequence for you? Thanks a lot.
As far as CapEx is concerned, we gave you on page 11 a sense of what we have been doing since 2022. Many projects, obviously, are in execution phase in 2026, but nevertheless, we will be within the envelope we shared with you, between EUR 150 million-EUR 200 million. No risk to go beyond what we said. We stay obviously very disciplined on our capital allocation. The good news is that obviously the return on investment of all these projects is fairly consistent with our will to increase over time our return on capital employed. As far as hydrogen and geothermal is concerned, it's true that three years ago, nobody was talking about GenAI, nobody was talking about data centers, hyperscale. Today, that's a fact. There is a lot of investment.
There is need for base load electricity. Geothermal is one of the solution to provide these huge quantities of base load electricity. It's clear that it's come now faster than hydrogen and green hydrogen. Nevertheless, on green hydrogen, we are in touch with many customers whose project are in the FEED phase, so engineering phase, which sooner or later will reach the FID stage, investment decision stage. That's something to come, that will come on top, and as you remember, our Delphy storage solution is the only one available today to store between 1 and 100 ton of hydrogen. More to come, and as you remember, we have decided to manage this business as a turnkey business, obviously it could be a nice addition to our revenue and profitability in the future, and it's fully part of our five-year plan.
Thank you very much.
Now we have a question from Julien Thomas from TP ICAP. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have two, please. The first one would be about maybe your take on your German partner's agreement regarding HKM JVs. Do you have something to share with us or something like that? The second question about your improvement in EBITDA per ton. Could you give us what can come from those three investment versus, let's say, historical restructuring of existing capacity? Thank you.
Well, first, on HKM, the agreement between thyssenkrupp and Salzgitter opened the door for us, as thyssenkrupp will do, to sell our shares to Salzgitter and terminate our shareholding of HKM. Obviously, there will be. We'll have to provision for all the work Salzgitter will have to do when they will be, but this is fully already covered by our balance sheet provisions. I think it's, for us, it's a good news. I think thyssenkrupp and Salzgitter have reached this agreement and that now we can execute this transaction.
As far as the EBITDA per ton is concerned, you know, EBITDA is a result of, obviously, average selling price, which is driven by our value over volume strategy. You remember, when I joined Vallourec, volume were 1.85 million tons. We are now slight above, 1.2, so drastic change with the past, but average selling price has significantly increased. EBITDA per ton is a consequence of cost, and we have worked a lot in the last years, and we continue to do so to continue to lower our cost structure and ensure it's a very highly flexible industrial footprint.
Whatever the volume, we protect our margin, thanks to our ability to flex cost whenever we need it, to adapt to the sequence of bookings and the cycle of this industry. That's why we have been able to close the gap with our primary peer on EBITDA per ton, and you've seen the data on the slide showed earlier. We will obviously continue to do so, and we have projects in order to continue to improve on that front.
Thank you very much.
We have a question from Mick Pickup from Barclays Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, it's Mick here from Barclays. Just a quick one. You talk about the international business improving in the second half. Is there anything significant that we should be keeping an eye on, something like the big Kuwait orders, or is it just a general pickup across the regions?
Well, first, two things. One, when barrel of Brent is going up $10, it's clear that there is an incentive for our customers to go a bit faster on the executing their plans. Second, what we see is that there are major unconventional oil field opening, which require many wells using our technologies, starting with ITOCHU. That's something which seems to, yeah, pick up significantly since the beginning of the year, and we may, yeah, you may we may, yeah, communicate more widely in the future on this.
Thank you.
We have a question from Paul Redman from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Am I able to ask one more?
Yeah, please.
I just wanted to touch on Venezuela quickly. One of your peers spoke in length about opportunity in Venezuela. I kind of wanted to ask about your position in the country, and whether this is a market you think you'll be able to sell volumes into in the relatively near future. Thank you.
We used to sell to Venezuela years ago. What has changed in the meantime is now, thanks to all the investment we did in Brazil, we are able to make the pipe which are needed for Venezuela in Brazil, obviously much closer than it was in the past, coming from Germany. you know, the onshore oil field in Brazil are sour sour service pipes, which we make and which are obviously very premium pipes. From a product standpoint, I think we are uniquely positioned. On top, as you know, given our strong presence in the U.S., we are the two player on onshore business in the U.S., we have close relationship with the U.S. customers.
Today, we have a task force, which is a mix of our U.S. sales team and Brazilian production team, in order to seize any opportunities that may, that may come in Venezuela. More to come, will depend obviously, how fast our customer go forward with their project.
Great. Thank you.
We have a question from Jean-Luc Romain from CIC CIB. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My question also relates to geothermal. You mentioned rightfully that the product you will deliver is very specific with kind of pipe-in-pipe or also. Do you have a limiting factor which will be the capacity to produce those pipes in terms of your growth in sales, or do you have a strong capacity to do this?
We have available capacity. VIT is a process in itself, because we need to weld one pipe inside another pipe, so that's a specific industrial setup that we have and for which we have capacity available. No, obviously, but it's clear that if we double our volume thanks to this new market at some point, we will reach our capacity limit, but it's not yet the case. Anyway, it's good to know that whether to be on more than one market and obviously to mitigate any up and downs on any market, there is a one, not in gas.
Understood. From what you said, the EBITDA associated to this growth in geothermal, could rapidly become in the tens of millions, or could it be maybe at a later stage in the hundreds of millions?
You know, in 2022, I said that we were expecting between, maybe in 2023, that we were expecting between 10% and 15% of our group EBITDA coming from this new energy applications. It's fully part of it. Obviously, we are very strict with our value over volume strategy, and I can guarantee you that it will not be dilutive to our EBITDA pattern.
Thank you very much.
There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you. Thank you, all. I'm very pleased to be in the position we are today. Vallourec is a fully transformed company, evidenced clearly by our investment-grade balance sheet and the robust returns we are delivering to our shareholders again in 2026. We continue to see opportunities as we drive operational excellence across our organization and position for profitable growth. We are well positioned to serve the energy challenges of today and tomorrow. Operator, you may end the call.