New journey. Strategy 2030 will guide us into the future. Over the past years, Strategy 2023 has proven itself. We focused on service quality first, digitalization, and enjoyed remarkable progress in customer satisfaction. Additionally, we strengthened our finances, grew our terminal business, and expanded in key markets, and we committed even more to creating a more sustainable future. These successes are notable. We can be proud of them. However, the global landscape is changing. It is time to adapt and chart a new, ambitious course. Dynamic markets, geopolitical uncertainty, fierce competition, evolving customer needs, and regulations shape our environment. Simultaneously, addressing climate change is crucial, and the ever-evolving digital landscape transforms our industry. To thrive in these waters and position Hapag-Lloyd at the forefront, we must raise our ambitions, stay flexible, and smartly adapt for sustained growth. Over 200 colleagues globally were involved in developing our Strategy 2030.
It is a collaborative effort, reflecting our commitment to growth, openness, and adaptability.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Hapag-Lloyd Capital Markets Day 2024, here in our digital port in Hamburg. My name is Michael Kastl. I'm heading the Treasury, Finance, and Investor Relations team, and I'm happy to host this day's event. With me on stage, we have Rolf, our CEO, Mark Frese, our CPO and CFO, and both will guide you through the five pillars of our Strategy 2023. Afterwards, we are happy to take your question. You can either raise your virtual hands in the Zoom call or post your question in the chat box in the Q&A tool. Please make sure that your real name is entered into the system, so that we can invite you to our live session. With this, I would like to hand it over to Rolf. Stage is yours.
Thank you, Michael, and thanks, everybody, for joining us here today. I think we're happy to give you a quick introduction of our strategy towards 2030, and then afterwards, as Michael said, take any questions that you may have. As you can see here on the chart, there's a number of things that we would like to cover. Probably first, a quick glance back into our Strategy 2023, as we're just wrapping up that planning period, and then talk a bit about strategy at a glance, where I will take you through the first three pillars around Pure Play Plus, about our ambition to remain a top- five global container line, and then a number of things on our ambition or aspiration to become the undisputed number one for quality.
Mark will then talk about sustainability and also what we intend to do to ensure that we remain a top-performing carrier, also in the next planning period. Then we'll wrap it up and hand it over to you. Maybe starting with a quick look back. I mean, in the end, I think our Strategy 2023 has served us really well, yeah. And because of that, we have been working hard over the last 12 months with our entire organization and with our teams across the globe, to define what we are going to do in the next planning period that lasts until 2030.
I would say that by and large, we build on many of the things that have gone well in the last planning period, and at the same time, we try to react to new markets, challenges, and also opportunities that have arisen. So yes, 2023 planning period has ended. The market is definitely changing, yeah, and now we are ready to explain to you what we intend to do over the next planning period. But maybe let's have a quick look back first at in the last five years. We had set ourselves three overarching objectives initially. One was to be profitable throughout the cycle. The second one was to retain a market share that is around 10%, excluding intra-Asia.
The third one was try to become, the number one for quality, and the fourth one that we added, more or less midway through the planning period, was to step up our efforts on sustainability and try to become a sustainability accelerator. If we look back at, how the last five years have gone, then I think we can be fairly pleased with what we have achieved. On the profitability side, we've had record results. We today have an excellent balance sheet, and plenty of room to invest into the future. Our credit rating is up, and also, when we look at unit cost, I believe we've kept that reasonably well under control.
Of course, we were helped here by the excellent, exceptional years, 2021 and 2022, as we were going through the pandemic, but I believe that also when you look at our results in 2018, 2019, 2020, and also in 2023, our results were good, also, if you compare them with our peers. On the market side, we have retained our market share of around 10%, in dry, excluding intra-Asia. We think that's a good achievement. On the reefer front, we wanted to do more, and we have also crossed the 10% mark there, after significant investments over the last 5 years. In terms of markets where we wanted to grow above average, I think Africa and India are the 2 highlights, as in both places, we have been able to deliberately expand our services and also gain market share.
On the quality front. We set ourselves initially the objective to achieve an NPS, or a Net Promoter Score, of above 20 consistently. If we look at the last couple of surveys, we have been around or above 50, so I think that's really a signal that we have been moving in the right direction there, especially when it is around customer service. An important enabler there, definitely also our global network of QSCs or Quality Service Centers that we have established between 2019 and 2021. On the sustainability front, we have written a comprehensive strategy. We have set ourselves the target to become Net Zero by 2045, and we've also taken first measures. I would say, though, that as we start looking forward towards 2030, there's probably still more that needs to be done.
Before we look into strategy at a glance, maybe a few words on the market, because I mentioned in the beginning that the market has changed. I think there's a number of things that are worth calling out. First one being that supply-demand is, as we called it here, a volatile balance. When you look at the, at this year, and also if you look at the next couple of years, then supply growth will likely outpace demand growth for 2024 to probably roughly 2026. On the other hand, I think the notion that supply and demand always need to be in balance is probably wrong, because as we move into the energy transition, we very likely will have to sail slower, which will require more capacity.
It's also not bad if there is a little bit of spare capacity to react on supply chain disruptions as we see them, for example, now around the Red Sea. Without having some excess ships, we would not have been able to react on that as an industry, whereas we have been able to do that quite well, in my view, this time. When we look back on the last five years, we've seen a lot of disruptions, and I don't think that we're going to be completely without disruptions also over the next planning period. As such, I think we need to rethink a little bit about whether supply and demand should be completely in balance. Competition is dynamic, especially on the back of the pandemic.
A lot of money has been invested by liner companies in ships, in terminals, but so also sometimes into, for example, logistics. The geopolitical uncertainty, we all read the papers. That has certainly not become any better over the last three, four, five years, and is also an element of unpredictability for the next planning period. Customer needs, I would argue, are largely unchanged. Price is important, but service and operational quality are equally important. Sustainability, definitely on the up, and the personal touch and relationships, in the end, still determine, in many cases, whether we award the business on personal company A or B. The industry must decarbonize, certainly much higher on the agenda today than it was a couple of years ago.
When we look back at the last three or six months, it's not so much in the center of attention anymore in the public domain, but that will certainly come back. Then finally, the digital transformation. That's something that's been ongoing for a longer period of time and certainly accelerated also throughout COVID. And with more and more things around AI and other new digital tools around the corner, that will also play an important role for the upcoming period. So how would we describe our strategy? I think in the header, we said that with our new strategy, we strive to make Hapag-Lloyd the undisputed number one for quality in the market. What does that mean when you look at our strategy towards 2023 and where we now intend to go direction 2030?
First point being that from a pure play container line, we believe that in the next couple of years, we will more and more develop into a Pure Play Plus container line. That means that container shipping will remain at the core of our business, but we will supplement that by further investments in terminals and in inland. Of course, that has already started, because when you look at what we've been doing over the last 2, 2.5 years, we have already made significant investments in that field, but we believe that there are still more that can be done. We want to remain a global player and have put ourselves that ambition to remain in the top-five.
We think that in order to stay in the top-five, we will have to grow slightly ahead of market, mainly because we'd like to gain some share or be more exposed to some of the markets that grow faster than others. On quality, our aspiration was to become the number one for quality. Going forward, we'd like to take that a step further and would like to become the undisputed number one for quality. In order to do that, we believe that a step change in operational quality is needed. When we look at operational quality in this industry, very few people over the last five or 10 years have been able to consistently bring an on-time delivery that is above 80%, and we think that we can find a formula to do that.
On sustainability, we'd like to become more of a driver, not only an accelerator. And that also means that we explicitly commit ourselves to the 1.5 degrees target of the Paris Agreement, and Mark will talk a lot more about that later on, on what that actually means. When you look at our financial performance, I think our financial performance over the last planning period was good, yeah, also compared to our peers, and we would like to continue to see that also when we look ahead, in the period up to 2030. So what does that bring us? That's five main building blocks that we are going to talk about. In terms of strategic direction, we talk about Pure Play Plus, that I already explained. We talk about trying to remain a top-five global container line.
How do we intend to win? By becoming the undisputed number one for quality, by being a driver on the sustainability front, aligning ourselves there with the targets in the Paris Agreement, and also delivering top financial and operational performance year- in, year- out. A bit more about each of these topics. Let's maybe start with the Pure Play Plus. A couple of words to that. I think the Plus, yeah, will help us to build a superior quality liner product. That means, as I mentioned before, that we will continue to invest in assets around container shipping that will allow us to strengthen the core of our business. We know that there is also a segment for integrated end-to-end logistics. We believe that segment is not so big.
We also think it's fairly crowded and very competitive, and not only with liner companies, but also with many people on the logistics front. I think we have a strategy that's pretty clear, yeah. We focus on our core business, and we'll continue to do so in future, even if that means that beyond investing in our fleet, in terminals, we will also look at inland services, and of course, we will invest in data and technology, as those are important enablers to deliver that excellent service to our customers. A bit more on the terminal side. We've said we'll continue to invest in growing our terminal portfolio, but only there where it really makes sense for the group.
If we want to focus—put a stake in the ground, we think that we will further grow our terminal portfolio by up to 10 or 15 terminals until the year 2030. We will establish a new terminal and infrastructure division, yeah. And what does that division have to do? First of all, going from bottom to top, as a standalone business, it needs to be able to serve all the shipping companies in the world, and needs to also generate a return on its own. In the investments that we are doing, we will push for strategic and operational control, yeah, as we're not looking predominantly for minority interests, where we mainly get access to capacity. And the terminal division also has to generate synergies with the liner business, but of course, yeah, also needs to contribute to our overall earnings.
Here you see a map of the world, where on the one hand, we have illustrated those ports where we have already invested, in South America, some in North America, also some in Europe and India, but we've also put a couple of dots on the map in places where we believe that it might make sense to invest a little bit more. What will be the role of the terminal segment in our business? Well, first of all, they will have a responsibility to deliver safe, sustainable, reliable, and efficient terminal operations. They need to generate their own profitability, they need to deliver synergies, and we will only invest in those cases where we believe that it makes sense and also is economically viable.
Of course, we'll try to secure capacity in some strategic markets that will help us to implement also our commercial strategy. How will we do that? We'll do that by establishing the new division in Rotterdam. The team is being built up as we speak. They will be an independent business unit that will run with their own brand, and we have clear Chinese walls between the terminal and the liner business, yeah. It will also be reported via a separate segment, and of course, they will also serve other customers. On the inland side, it's probably one of those areas where if we look back at our Strategy 2023, we have not made the progress that we wanted.
We do believe, though, that to have the ambition to grow our inland share from in 2022, round about 18% to about 30%, is something that is definitely possible. How do we intend to do that? We intend to grow our inland products. We intend to come up with a different type of sales approach than we've had so far. We'll build different partnerships with inland vendors, and we do believe that also here, having an excellent customer experience is going to be a differentiator. In addition to that, we are not for nothing, the first ones that have invested in dry container monitoring. Meantime, we have equipped already well over 1 million of our boxes with trackers, and also that will be, in our view, a differentiator going forward. Why do we do it?
Because we think it makes us a more complete shipping company. It helps us to, to lock in, customers and to create more stickiness. We see that others are also investing that, and there is a logic to that. And of course, also this will be an additional source of profitability at probably a relatively low capital commitment. Going to our market position, we've said we'd like to remain that, in that top-five. That also means that we need to slightly outgrow the market, as we see that also others that are close to us intend to, to grow a fair bit. How do we intend to do that?
We believe that it is possible to grow above market on a global basis by making sure that we are serving new growth markets, while we, on the other hand, try to protect our position in well-established markets. We also think that when you look at our book of business, that has grown a lot over the last 10 years, particularly on the NVO side. We intend to continue to grow the NVO business, but also, as we are continuing to offer better quality and better on-time delivery, we believe that it is not unrealistic to grow the BCO segment over proportionally to rebalance our business a little bit. Keeping all of this in mind, and also not forgetting that as we go through the energy transition, we most likely will have to sail a little bit slower.
That also means that that growth will need to be backed up by a higher standard capacity than we have it today to ensure that we retain a competitive position, yeah, even if we have to sail, in many cases, a bit slower. What does that mean in terms of commercial strategy? I already alluded to that a bit. We put it in three buckets. On the one hand, we talk about attractive markets, because we believe that not all markets are growing at the same pace, and if you have more exposure to fast-growing markets, that will allow you to grow a bit above average on the whole.
The second one, when we look at our customer mix, as we continue to improve our quality, and as we continue to work on on-time delivery, we think that it's possible to grow our BCO share a little bit over proportional to sort of rebalance a bit the book of business that we have. In that process, we will look predominantly at what we call global and key customers, yeah, which we consider ring-fence, and that means that they get all the bells and whistles that we are able to offer also on the customer service side. In addition to attractive markets and specific customer groups, there are certainly also a couple of niches and pockets of growth where we can do that can contribute to our growth over the upcoming five to seven years.
First of all, the reefer segment, we have been successful in growing our market position in that segment over the last years, and we will continue to invest in that segment, as we do believe that also given the exposure to specific to the markets that we have, we can still do more in that space. We also believe that the transportation of dangerous goods and specials is a segment where we have traditionally been doing well, and where we can still do more. Of course, there will always be attractive opportunities or selected pockets of growth, as we today, for example, see around solar or EVs or battery. A bit more detail on the markets. Just a couple of examples here to give you a bit of insight in the way we think.
Here we talk about strongholds. What are the markets where we have always been strong and where we'd like to retain our position? Here is examples, of course, Germany as our home market, but also, for example, the trades on Transatlantic and Latin America, where we have strong positions and where we have a good customer base that hopefully will allow us to grow further with them, Italy being another example. In our Strategy 2023, we focused a lot on India and Africa as growth markets. They will definitely remain on our target also in the next 5-7 years. But in addition to that, we may look also at a couple of other markets like Southeast Asia, like Intra-Europe, where we are definitely somewhat under represented.
And then there are, of course, also a couple of others that are, that I mentioned here. A small example on what we are trying to do to tap into some of those growth markets is what we announced in January, when we announced a joint venture with Norsul, called Norcoast. That's a joint venture that is focused on the Brazilian cabotage market.
Certainly, also one of those markets that grows faster than average, and with us getting exposure to a market like that, together with a strong local partner, we believe that we can not only improve our offering in and out of Brazil, but we can also benefit from a segment in the market that's going to grow more than average, and where we very likely also will see a further shift from land transportation to goods that are being transported over the water. Then let me get to the points on quality. Maybe a quick look back here. As many of you will remember, we have defined our 10 quality promises in our strategy towards 2023. And here on this chart, you actually see the progress that we have made on many of them, yeah.
Where we've tried to give you a bit of a flavor of what are the objectives that we are trying to achieve, and you also see the targets that we have set ourselves. I mean, the first one, I won't go through all of them. A fast booking response, yeah, this is all about how, how are we able to give you a response on a booking within a predefined period, where on the one hand, we look at, I believe, one hour, two hour, but also at eight hours. And you can see on most of these objectives, we have actually achieved the, the targets or have also exceeded them. Keep in mind that in almost all of them, we were well below them when we started in 2018. Where are we not yet exactly where we want to be?
I think the most important one being reliable transport or on-time arrival, where we today are at about 55%. That is definitely not satisfactory. I think when you look at the entire industry, we have been hovering between 50% and 70%, for the last 3, 4, 5 years, and we just need to find a way to get out of that situation, because otherwise it will always be very difficult for customers to award us their business on a week in, week out basis, and it will also make it difficult for them to then optimize their supply chains and the amount of goods that they have stuck in it. On the right-hand side, you see the measures on customer satisfaction that I already mentioned. Initially, we had set ourselves a goal of 20.
We exceeded that goal for the first time in 2022, yeah. Meantime, we have now upped that goal to 50. Since then, we have been going up, but I think for now, it's much more important to sort of stabilize or stay at that level, as I don't think there's that much more upside potential. Then when we look at how do we drive that best-in-class performance? I think there's a couple of things that need to be measured here, and we called out three of them in terms of core beliefs. Because in the end, it's about two things. On the one hand, it's about the customer experience that people have when they do business with us and how easy it is also to do business with us.
It is also about operational quality, which is something, as I mentioned also on the previous page, where we definitely still have more to do. Whereas we have been able to achieve our objectives on all of those 10 quality promises, where we set out our goals in 2018 for 2023, we now need to do something similar, yeah, on the operation side, and we will also do that. At the moment, we are pretty confident that we will indeed be able to deliver that. Why do we focus so much on quality? Just one step back again and see what do our customers tell us. We did extensive customer research when we started the process towards our Strategy 2030.
We did that on the one hand, in a survey, for which you see an extract of the results here, but we also did many in-depth interviews, spoke to experts, et cetera, et cetera. I think what's interesting about this graph is when you see, and in this case, this is the feedback from over 6,000 customers, then yes, of course, price is important. Yeah. It was always important, and it will always remain important. But when you look at service quality and operational quality, for in total, slightly over 50% of the customers, in the end, that is a decisive factor. When we did some more research on that, it's also quite clear that there is a willingness to pay for that as well.
And we can discuss about how much that willingness to pay is, whether that is $100 a container or, or 200, that remains to be seen. It is certainly not a $1,000 per container, but even if it's only a 100 or a 150, that really makes a difference. Going to operational quality. We believe that if we want to become the undisputed number one for quality, we must make a step change in OTD or On- Time Delivery. Today, we are at about 50%, yeah. Schedule reliability, a separate measure, but of course, a very important enabler, yeah, has been too low, yeah, and that means that we need to find a breakthrough there, as I believe we've also demonstrated that we can do it on the server side. What does that mean?
A couple of key measures from our side. First of all, we need to standardize our global operating model. There are many things that we should do exactly the same and very consistent around the globe. That process is ongoing. We also need to have a simplified network, yeah, and also be brave enough to only work with those partners which we believe are like-minded. And we believe that there are multiple like-minded partners out there, as we are not the only one in our industry that probably feels that in terms of operational quality, we need to do better. And then the third element, which I already referred to when we talked about Pure Play Plus, is that we need to ensure that we have more control over our involved assets.
So the first one, certainly one that we can control very much ourselves and that we need to do, and that process is ongoing. When we want to simplify the network, we need to do that together with our partners, and when we look at assets, let's make sure that we only invest in those that make us a better company. Of course, in that context, I believe it's quite logical that we announced in January that we are going to embark on a long-term operational partnership between Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk on the East-West trades. We believe that our companies are indeed not the same as we have a fairly different commercial strategy, but there are also many things where we are very aligned. When it's around our commitment to, to quality and, and on-time delivery, I think we think very much alike.
When we talk about should we change the way we run the network, we think alike. We both believe that when you go more to a hub-and-spoke type of concept, which has already been implemented in many other transportation modes, long time ago, you will be able to deliver higher schedule reliability, and as such, a higher OTD. We think it's important to have control over terminal operations, especially in the hubs. As we explained earlier on why we are doing that, I think that's very similar at Maersk, and they have just started with it already quite a bit earlier. Also, when we look at sustainability, I think we have a similar commitment. They're both committed to the to tough decarbonization targets, not only toward 2040 or 2045, but certainly also for the next planning period. How will that partnership look like?
I think many of you will have seen that. It will strengthen our key east-west trades, yeah. While we will serve the north-south trades with multiple other trusted partners, the network will look roughly as it is here, close to 300 ships, 26 mainline services, 32 shuttles, additional feeders will be there as well. In total, we'll deploy between the two parties about 3.4 million TEU of capacity, which is split roughly 60/40 between Maersk and ourselves. As I mentioned, the Gemini network will be centered around owned and/or controlled terminal hubs, which will significantly increase the reliability of our services. Very important to keep in mind there, that the terminals that are in this network are there to serve the liner business.
And in that context, it is important to have control over them, and you see them here, defined: Southeast Asia, Singapore, and TPP, Salalah in the Middle East, Damietta and Port Said in the East Med, Tanger and Algeciras in the West Med, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven, and Rotterdam in the northern part of Europe, and then also, Cartagena and Lazaro on the other side of the North and South Atlantic. We have good experiences with all these terminals, and we believe that they will play a key task to, enable that on-time delivery that we are all striving for. Of course, that means that ships need to be on time.
Maybe two more words about the hub-and-spoke network, because we do believe that a hub-and-spoke network, in general, makes a network much more reliable and resilient because you simplify the network, and you don't make everything dependent on everything. In the end, it will be a setup where there will be two to three main port calls per region, which means that compared to the situation that we see today with many end-to-end and direct services, with five, six ports on each side, there are simply less possibilities that something will go wrong.
In addition to that, we will have shuttles that are illustrated here on this graph, which will be independent from the mainliners, and as such, when, like in this example, cargo needs to come from Tokyo, we need to ensure that the shuttle is on time in Shanghai. From Shanghai, it goes down to Singapore and then to Tangier, where things get unloaded, and in a ship that's waiting there, it goes to Antwerp. That sounds probably complicated, but in a way, it's a lot simpler than it is today, because if anything goes wrong in any of these parts of the supply chain, then we can make adjustments and can steer the cargo differently.
Whereas today, if something would go wrong, for example, in Tokyo, and that needs to go on a ship, that in the end, has to go all the way to Antwerp, you already know in the beginning that you are going to have a problem. Of course, there's many people that have questions to this. I think we have also been looking at this for a long, long time before we felt really, really comfortable with it. But I'm sure that when we talk again in a year or a year and a half from today, we will be able to demonstrate that all of this works. It's not only about partners, and it's not only about network, but it's also about people, and it's also about IT.
I think we have to deliver our service and have to improve it further by digitizing our services, but also ensuring that there remains personal interaction, because both are absolutely critical if we want to deliver on that quality ambition that we have defined. That means on the digital front, a one-stop digital experience, real-time responsive tools via web, mobile, and API. And on the people front, customized proactive solutions and consultative support through trained experts. And as such, before I wrap up my part, it's clear that we have to invest in these things. Let me maybe start with IT. What have we done on IT? In IT, we've stepped up our efforts. We have today three technology centers, one in Hamburg, yeah, one in Gdansk, and one in Chennai.
We've built those up over the last couple of years, and that means that we have also more or less tripled our development capability. When we look at our architecture, we have modernized that, and we have not only worked on our back-end systems, but also on that customer interface, and we are continuing to develop digital solutions for our customers day in, day out. Many of you will have heard also that we have installed and are continuing to install real-time container trackers on all of our boxes, not only the reefer boxes, but also on our standard dry boxes. That will improve transparency along that supply chain. Through Hapag-Lloyd Live, you are able to get insight in where your boxes are, and those will give you a signal every 15 minutes, so that's really near real time.
On the dry side, we launch our new product Live Position in the course of still this month. Meantime, we have equipped more than 1 million of our boxes with trackers, and we are continuing to install them as we go, which means that by mid-year, we will have probably between 80% and 85% of our boxes equipped with healthy devices. On the tech side, I already mentioned that we have invested a lot in building more capability. What does that give us? It gives us a good web offering. It gives us that supply chain visibility also enabled by the trackers, and we are also building comprehensive API connectivity. That is important for customers. We show it here one more time.
Many people feel that the way that we interact with them, and the way that we make it easier for them to interact with us, is decisive on who you choose. And of course, that also requires that we take the right type of initiatives on the back end. I already mentioned the migration from the legacy FIS2 to FIS3. We also migrate to SAP S/4HANA, and of course, when it's on IT resilience and cybersecurity, we also try to do whatever is in our ability to minimize the risk on that end. Then on the people side, we're not only growing our digital offerings, but we are also continuing to invest in people. And that means we have our people that can interact with customers in over 400 offices in more than a hundred... in about 140 countries.
We've consolidated our many of our customer service activities in quality service centers, 11 across the globe. We also have three global capability centers that support that. In order to make the most out of that, of course, we need to continue to invest in our people. Here you just see a number of examples where you also see focus for the upcoming couple of years. But let me also talk a bit about what we have already done, as in the last years, we have rolled out our values. We've modernized the way we work. We've established the Hapag-Lloyd Academy. We've started regular employee engagement surveys, and of course, we have our talent programs and invest there where needed.
When we look ahead, we'll continue to progress on that front, yeah, as we must continue to invest in our team, also in the future. And that goes beyond diversity, that it goes beyond career opportunities. It's also about the way we work. It's also about making sure that people feel well treated, and of course, we need to ensure that the leadership is also equipped to do their jobs properly. So with that, let me wrap up my initial piece and hand it over to Mark to talk about sustainability. Thank you, Mark.
Hello, so thank you. Thank you, Rolf. Let us now continue with two further core pillars of our strategy, 2030. On the one hand, being the sustainability or sustainability driver and on the other hand, top performing carrier. Starting with sustainability, our industry is jointly responsible for 3% of global CO2 emissions, and as you can read in our 2023 sustainability report, our vessels emit about 15 million tons CO2 equivalent last year. And one thing is clear, based on our core values, based on the conviction of Hapag-Lloyd's management team, and as a stock-listed company, we have and feel the clear responsibility to do our crucial part in tackling the global climate challenge.
Beyond doubt, this is the right thing to do, for the planet, but also, and that is important from a commercial point of view, if we want to retain our right to play in the markets we operate in going forward. As our customers have set up emission reduction targets already, and even more relevant, many of our top 30 customers have set themselves Scope 3 reduction targets. It's important that we look at that, so their Scope 3 is our Scope 1. To serve these customers, we must be able to offer green transportation solutions. Furthermore, our customers are starting to pool their green transportation demand, for example, in that zero emission buyers alliance called ZEMBA.
When we look at that, we estimate that demand for green container transportation will grow to 20 million TEUs by 2030, which would mean for Hapag-Lloyd 2-3 million green TEUs as a potential market, at least. As a company playing our part, we deem the 1.5-degree Paris Agreement the only acceptable yardstick by which our sustainability strategy should be measured. Increasingly, we also see regulators tightening emission reduction targets and rules, and introducing or at least discussing carbon taxes, foremost in the EU, but also recently on IMO level. So things like a global carbon tax and a greenhouse gas intensity standard on fuels are really being discussed right now. So having sustainability targets is nothing new for Hapag-Lloyd.
Also, in our 2023 strategy, we had comprehensive targets, which we deemed ambitious at that moment when we wrote them down. Technology development has progressed further over the time, and it has progressed further than anticipated, and some technologies are even maturing by now. Prices for renewable energies have come down significantly, and solutions, especially in the fuel space, are becoming more widely available, which is maybe one of the key scarce resources. With our Strategy 2030, we would like to develop Hapag-Lloyd as a driver in sustainability. We see decarbonization not only as something nice to have, but as a prerequisite for winning businesses in the future. So hence, we align our strategy with the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees.
That consequently, for us, means we must acknowledge that there is a remaining maximum amount for emissions. That is true for all of us, for the society, and it's also for sure true for our company. So what is allowed to emit? And in order not to exceed our fair share of this remaining budget, we are now also strengthening and setting an absolute emission reduction target, and that's for the first time in our company's history. So we aim to reduce our total emissions by one third, from 15 million tons in 2023 to 10 million tons, CO2 equivalent in the year 2030. So what does all of that, all of that mean? Being a sustainability driver and lowering our absolute emission to 10 million tons CO2 in 2030 means to significantly reduce our fleet's carbon intensity.
So we use the AER, the Average Efficiency, Efficiency Ratio, measured in grams CO2 equivalent per deadweight and nautical mile. We have worked together with the classification society DNV, to determine a revised decarbonization curve in line with 1.5 degrees global climate target. And this graph shows the maximum allowed AERs until 2030, at which Hapag-Lloyd's fleet will be 1.5 degree compliant. And this is the efficiency KPI, AER, that an average vessel in the Hapag-Lloyd fleet must not exceed. Considering that we will have a growing fleet, we see that while our absolute emission must reduce by one third, our carbon intensity must reduce by approximately 50% on average for the entire fleet between now and 2030. And it's important to note at that moment that while the efficiency continuously evolve over time, fleet growth may lead to temporarily higher absolute emissions.
Specifically, we expect absolute emissions to rise in 2024, mainly due to the necessary rerouting of our vessels around the Cape of Good Hope. As most of you will know, we issued a sustainability-linked bond in the past, where interest payments are linked to achieving certain emission reduction targets. Those were measured on a well-to-wake basis and for the owned fleet only. To gain underlying our ambition level and support that ambition, this chart shows emissions now, emission intensities for the total fleet, and in well-to-wake terms. Well-to-wake is also expected to be the future regulatory requirement, so hence, our approach here is future-proof in that regard. So if we follow that pathway, DNV would testify that our decarbonization strategy can be considered aligned with the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement.
To gain efficiency in our fleet, we have clustered all possible measures into four buckets, or let's call them levers. These levers are developing and renewing the fleet, slowing down the fleet, making individual vessels more efficient, using alternative fuels, and low carbon fuels as lever number four. And yes, we also acknowledge that there will be solutions emerging over time that are not yet known, or that we don't want to use right now because they are not fully developed to a degree where we feel comfortable to use them today, but that will evolve. So now looking at the following pages, we dive a bit into these four buckets. Starting with lever number four, fleet growth and renewal. Over the next two years, we will receive a significant number of additional vessels, growing our capacity by around about 400,000 TEUs....
Size and technology remain one of the main levers to make the average vessel in our Hapag-Lloyd fleet more efficient. On the other hand, growing the fleet will also increase our emissions. And to make that fleet more efficient, we have started to phase out not so efficient tonnage by either selling the vessel for recycling or not renewing the charter contract, and this will accelerate over time. Looking at bucket number two, this is the most powerful one, and the most powerful lever available to everyone in our industry today. If we would reduce average speed of our fleet by 1 knot, you could say only, we would save about 10% of our emissions. And would we reduce the speed by 3 knots in that magnitude of emissions, reductions would reduce by around 5 million tons CO2, or one third of our total emissions.
Yes, we have to say, however, increasing transit times for our customers' cargo is something that needs to be considered very carefully and has to be aligned for sure. Very important, to be synchronized with our cooperation partners. And the third lever, which is, the one on our efficiency of fleet. This is nothing new for us, because we have an ongoing fleet upgrade program, which we will see, in a total of 150 vessels being modified. This has been ongoing for a while already, and over 80 vessels are retrofitted already. The work done can be clustered more or less in two main categories, so carry more cargo, so being more efficient in, transporting that cargo, for example, by extension of the lashing bridges, thus enabling to load more cargo, or by reducing the amount of fuel a vessel consumes.
On average, we gain 6%-7% fuel savings per retrofit package, which is very clear. With today's fuel prices, it's quickly amortized, usually within a 2-year timeframe. And going forward, yes, we will evaluate additional measures, maybe with longer payback periods, to see whether it would be worthwhile pursuing that and doing additional measures. This is what we call Fleet Upgrade Program 2.0. And we will also evaluate additional technology, such as carbon capture or storage and air lubrication system. And we have to say, as efficiency gains are getting harder to find over time, alternative fuels will increasingly be the solution to go for. And that is lever number four, alternative fuels.
It's very clear that the goal is to maximize the effect of lever number 1, 2, and 3, and first reduce the fuel consumption as far as possible, because what is not burnt is the cleanest way to transport, for sure. But what cannot be avoided eventually needs to be replaced, and currently, alternative fuels still have high abatement costs compared to other measures. But we know very well that in the long run, there's no way around using alternative fuels to the currently used fossil-based fuel, for sure. So the use of biofuel is by now fully established, and Hapag-Lloyd is one of the largest users of biofuels in the container industries.
Biofuels are easy to use, as they can be burnt without any modification in our engines, but the lack of available feedstock and increasing competition from other industries, like the aviation sector, poses significant challenges in scaling up the usage. With the delivery of our fleet of 13 LNG vessels, bio and e-methane are becoming, for us, a viable, real viable alternative. We are presently trialing the usage and starting to scale up our sourcing activities for these fuels, and we will come back to that in a minute. Ultimately, we will need to ramp up the use of bio or e-methane to over 300,000 tons per year to fully decarbonize our existing LNG fleet. So green means bio or methanol is a widely talked about alternative fuel. If produced from the right feedstock, methanol offers real deep emission reduction alternative.
We will likely start using methanol as of 2026, and I will come to this in a minute. Going forward, we need to ramp up our methanol sourcing to over 500,000, and up to 1.2 million tons per year in 2030. Ammonia is a fuel with a high potential to gain real significant share of the fuel mix in future, as it emits no carbon when combusted. We expect ammonia to play a significant role, and a significant part in the fuel mix at the latest in the 2030s, and we will closely monitor and follow that development. Now some details on methanol. As said, we are very pleased to announce today that Hapag-Lloyd and project partner Seaspan will retrofit 5 vessels to methanol propulsion.
These vessels are owned by Seaspan, built in 2014, and carry up to 10,000 TEUs and are long-term chartered to Hapag-Lloyd. Together with Seaspan and engine manufacturer MAN, we developed a concept that will see the vessel being retrofitted in 2026. And afterwards, the vessel will be able to sail on both conventional fuels and methanol. They will be considered dual fuel, and the retrofit will take around 80-90 days per vessel and will cost about $23 million per vessel. Once retrofitted, these five vessels will require about 100,000 tons per year if run on methanol. We plan to employ them on a transpacific service, and this will reduce the carbon footprint of that service by 60%.
The reason why it's only 60% is because methanol requires about 5%-10% fossil pilot fuel to ignite the engine, and the auxiliary engine will continue to run on conventional fuels. Still, the emission of all five vessels taken together can potentially be reduced by 200,000 tons CO2 equivalent per year. We also have started sourcing bio-methanol for these vessels, but it's early now, so early days, and we will report on that when contracts are firm and in place. Coming back to bio and e-methane, on the sixth of April, in the port of Rotterdam, we conducted the largest-ever ship-to-ship bunkering of liquefied bio-methane. Our Brussels Express bunkered 2,200 tons of ISCC-EU certified bunker.
And, yeah, the manure feedstock, which was used, gives a very deep carbon reduction and a very low carbon intensity of that product. We will develop a bio LNG-based green product this year as a second pillar of our product base, along our existing bio fuel, fuel-based Ship Green product for our customers, so that we can sell that and even get more green transportation for our customers, more green transportation solutions for our customers going forward. So coming to the last pillar of our new strategy, which is called Top Performing Carrier, and that clearly indicates our ambition to stay in the top group of the most profitable large shipping lines. Before the pandemic, and as well during the COVID years, Hapag-Lloyd is one of the most profitable carriers globally, and our goal is to maintain and solidify our position.
So because of the strong demand, we have to acknowledge an extraordinary freight rate development during COVID. We, like our competitors, enjoyed an extraordinary financial performance over the last years. Our return on invested capital, you know, that was above our cost, far above our cost of capital. As a consequence, we, as Hapag-Lloyd, were able to completely de-leverage our balance sheet and at the same time expand our business through M&A activities, also paying record high amounts of dividends to our shareholders. And if approved by the AGM, end of the month, the total dividend distribution between 2018 and 2024 will amount to almost EUR 20 billion. However, with the changing market environment, we need once again to sharpen our focus on what is essential to remain one of the most competitive and profitable carriers.
So in our competitive industry, a razor-sharp and clear cost focus is still required to retain the right to play over time. But we also understand that changing demographics and further advanced digitalization requires a more holistic approach to remain a top performer, and that simply focusing costs, on cost will not deliver the full required results. To deliver on our ambition, it is imperative to secure access to the best teams, to the talents, and across the industry, to keep our workforce motivated and very well-equipped to really perform. We need also to continue to strengthen our technology and data foundation and deliver best IT systems to our teams to stay very productive and agile. And on both, Rolf has already reported what it means for our strategy tomorrow.
So following our mergers in 2014 with CSAV and 2017 with UASC, we were very successful in bringing down the unit cost through scale effects and new efficient tonnage. During COVID and COVID-induced supply chain disruptions, high inflation, however, we have seen higher, much higher unit costs, and they were driven up substantially for the first time in many years with Hapag-Lloyd. In 2022, our unit costs were around $1,400 per TEU, which is about 40% above pre-COVID levels. With the dissipation of congestion, our cost-cutting measures we have implemented already, we were able to reduce our unit cost already by 10%. But however, while COVID is hopefully history, we see significant cost drivers on the horizon, like rising sustainability regulations and a stubborn inflation and other effects which are more on the geopolitical front.
At the same time, it's very clear that we must achieve significant cost reductions to keep our competitiveness and stay on top. Until 2030, that will mean we therefore aim to reduce our unit costs by 20% compared to the 2022 base year. We will achieve that through scale effects on the one hand side, and simplification of our network, higher vessel and bunker efficiency, and for sure, process optimization, and on top, procurement excellence with a clear focus. So looking at the financial implications of our strategic initiatives, it's important to say that we expect an incremental EBIT effect of more than $2 billion by 2030, as a direct result out of these just explained strategic actions.
To achieve the goal of our Strategy 2030, it's also clear investments are needed, and they are estimated at around $20-$25 billion, which will be required over the entire period until 2030. And these investments will mainly relate to our ship and container fleet and transformation, as we discussed it, but also to M&A in the terminal liner business, as well as investments in IT and for sure, in the skills of our employees. So ultimately, all strategic initiatives will be decided, that's also very clear, on a case-by-case basis, following strict profitability calculations and decisions. So just to wrap up, I think I would love to conclude my part of the presentation with a brief look at our financial policy and financial targets.
Our prudent financial policy has proven itself, helping us to maneuver through the difficult and rough waters we have seen. For this reason, we will continue our financial policy by keeping an adequate liquidity reserve and equity base. As discussed, we aim to belong to the most profitable carriers in the industry, and we want our shareholders to benefit from that, so we will distribute at least 30% of our net profits to our shareholders in future. At the moment, we still have a very comfortable net cash position, but it's not our intention to maintain this position through the cycle. Depending on profitability, for sure, and our investment needs, as said, sooner or later, we will return to a modest level of leverage, which will be below 3x net debt EBITDA all the time.
While I'm being a strong supporter of a strong liquidity base, having a modest net leverage would certainly result in a more efficient balance sheet structure from a corporate finance perspective, for sure. Important to know, this leverage just talked about, target would still allow us to maintain our credit rating in the upper sub-investment grade range, which is also our ambition. With this ambition, I hand it back to Rolf for the wrap-up.
Thank you, Mark. Yeah, I guess before we move over to questions, just one quick summary, maybe from my side, and then Michael, we'll hand it back over to you. I think if we're wrapping it up, we've tried to explain to you that we believe that our strategy can be summarized in five main building blocks. First one being that in terms of strategic direction, we're looking at a Pure Play Plus strategy. So that means at the core is container shipping, but we also believe that we will need to invest more in terminals and inland, where we think it's realistic to have stakes or ownership in over 30 terminals by 2030, and we also believe that we can grow our inland share to about 30%. We aim to remain a top-five global container line.
That means that we will have to grow slightly above market and also our standing capacity needs to develop further, as explained earlier on in the presentation. And how do we intend to win? We'd like to become the undisputed number one for quality. That means a consistent feedback from our customers that indicates an NPS of above 50. That means above 80% on-time delivery on box level. And it also means that when you look at the digital experience that our customers have with us, that we would like to have a digital customer experience that is at least on par with the best of our peers. On the sustainability front, Mark just explained extensively about that, what we intend to do there.
Stay in line with the Paris Agreement and reduce our absolute CO2 equivalent emissions with about one-third versus 2022. In terms of performance, we intend to stay in the top in terms of profitability, realistically, probably the top quartile or the top third of the industry. That means we will have to reduce our unit cost with around 20% versus baseline year 2022, and in terms of productivity, we'll need to up our game with about 30% until 2030. Hopefully, that gives you a little bit of a, an impression of what we intend to do. With that, we happily hand it over to you for questions, and Michael, I believe you'll be the one moderating that. Over to you.
Thank you, Rolf. Thank you, Mark, for your exciting presentation. I believe one could really feel the enthusiasm, you both put in our Strategy 2030. I'm pretty convinced with this, we can deliver on our, Strategy 2030 in the upcoming years. So now it's on you. We are happy to take your questions, so if you would like to take the Q&A function, you can use the function in the tool, or please raise your virtual hand in the Zoom function so that we can invite you to here, live in the studio, and to pick up your question. Before we start with this, maybe I take a first question to you, Rolf. In April, it's been 10 years that you are with Hapag. One cannot believe it, that the time passed by so quickly.
How has the company evolved since then, and where are your main ambitions drafting on our Strategy 2030?
I mean, I think, of course, a lot has happened since I joined in 2014. We've had two bigger mergers, yeah, with CSAV and UASC. We acquired a couple of smaller companies. The industry has consolidated tremendously. We've gone through COVID. We've started investing into our terminal business. So all in all, I think today we are in a very different place than where we were in 2014. I'm happy that we gained scale because we needed that to survive. I think right now we are a strong number 5, and now the next steps will be to see how we can build that pure-play model out to a Pure Play Plus model, while we double down on quality and try to also be in line with the Paris Agreement.
I think if we would be able to do that until 2030, I think that would be very exciting.
Thank you, Rolf. Mark, in your previous time, you worked in a retail company. Now being responsible as a CFO and also as a Chief Procurement Officer, you're responsible for the cost in procurement. Is there something container companies can learn from the other industry you worked in, in procurement?
Yeah. You know, having worked for global retail conglomerates, I learned that retail is detail, and that needs a lot of data, that size matters, and that preparation is a prerequisite, especially for procurement. So if we translate that into procurement for our company, I don't want to say that for the whole industry, that for sure can even make it more profitable. So therefore, focusing on that, yes, at least I have learned something.
Thank you, Mark. Again, for the audience, I'm happy to take your question. If you want to raise your virtual hand, please do so. We start maybe with one question we have in the Q&A function from Patrick Creuset from Goldman Sachs. The question is: When you say you want to defend your position in top-five, can you please clarify whether you intend to achieve this mainly through further new builds or charters or M&A?
Maybe I take a first go at that. I think it's probably all of the above, yeah. I believe that also over the remainder of the decade, we will invest further in new builds, as we also need to modernize our fleet and need to add ships to our fleet that have a dual fuel capability. If the right opportunity on M&A comes up, then we will certainly look at that, yeah. But also charters are a way to grow. I think, especially with the uncertainty that we see right now in terms of future propulsion, there is sometimes something to be said for taking on some existing ships and take them on for the next five or 10 years, while that picture in terms of future propulsion systems becomes clearer.
Thank you, Rolf. And there's a follow-up: what should we expect in terms of annual gross CapEx in the coming years? Maybe for Mark.
Yeah. Boys, based on what we have said, so over the period until 2030, we believe to realize what we have laid out today, we need something like $20-$25 million or $10 billion of investments in total. And, it's not to say what is year by year today, because there are buckets in there, as we said, for M&A, so that might change quite a bit over time. But that is what we think we need over time, and with that, you can more or less calculate what it means.
Thank you, Mark. Again, when there are questions in the chat, so please raise your hand, and we can also take you live into the studio here. We have another question in the Q&A tool. Can you please elaborate what you mean by increasing share of inland transport? Does this mean a foray into inland logistics beside the current investment in terminals? Another one, what is the scale of investment, and which geographies will this first be targeted at?
... I don't think we're going to see a lot of investments into inland logistics. I think what we see is that we believe that carrier haulage, whether that's intermodal or whether that's trucking, is something that's a logical extension of the ocean transportation. We already do that in many places, and there's quite a few markets where we are already at 30% or even higher than that, and we believe that that will make our overall service towards the customers better, and as such, we try to grow that.
I don't think that will result in massive investments in that space, even if we see that, when looking at investments that we did, for example, in Italy, in India, in the U.K., yeah, recently, that in some cases, that also comes with an inland capability that is attached to the terminal business, but that is not the primary objective.
Thank you. There is another question from the chat. Do you aim to gain market share by growing capacity above market as well, including replacement of older vessels? What would be a fair estimate for capacity growth in addition to market capacity growth?
Also, when you look at our order book and when you look at the growth of our fleet, we are certainly not the one that is growing the fastest. When you look at capacity growth, that will probably grow a bit faster than market, but that has more to do with the fact that we have to sail a bit slower than if we at any price want to gain market share, yeah? So yes, we intend, we expect that our capacity grows a little bit faster than market. It may also be that if we want to grow faster than market in some of the fast-growing markets, that we have to add a little bit of capacity here and there.
We do not intend to go on a huge buying spree to all of a sudden massively grow our fleet based on new builds, as we believe that certainly when looking at the outlook for the upcoming couple of years, that's not the way to go.
Thank you. Next question goes into the direction of Mark. How do you plan to finance your CapEx plans through 2030?
Yeah, first of all, I think, as said, it's important that we will, for sure, whatever is coming up, tomorrow, we will stick to our financial policy. So we will keep for sure our balance sheet very much intact, but efficient. So, a leverage below three times, is for sure something we will always keep as a focus. About the phasing, what the phasing will mean, it's difficult to say. Yes, there will be, let's call it the standard investments we are doing. That is very much possible to plan, but when it comes to any additional additions to our portfolio, it might fluctuate over the time when the possibilities rise. So therefore, that's, that's also clear. And in financing, what it means, yes, we will take on leverage, especially when it comes to asset financing.
We will use our financing channels we are having to finance that and see what our balance sheet can give us, and we are pretty well equipped with that.
Very good. Question related to CapEx: Will M&A spend be included in the $20 billion-$25 billion number as well?
Yes. That's how we will look at that. We have had an idea about what we are thinking of, so that is something which is included, and therefore, I think it's a full picture we have given here.
Yep. Thank you very much. So as we have many questions in the chat function, I still want to motivate you to also raise your virtual hand to put you live into the studio. But we will continue with another question here from the Q&A tool. You said you want to grow in intra-Asia as well, or it is, was at least listed as a growth opportunity. Isn't that market hypercompetitive, and haven't you reduced your exposure to intra-Asia recently?
I mean, we've never been a big intra-Asia carrier. You are right, I also saw it was on one of the charts. I don't think it's one of the priority markets where we intend to grow a lot. I think it's one of those where if you look at it relatively, we're very small so far. We may be able to grow a bit based on some changes that we're making in the network, but we do not intend to make that a core growth engine over the next 5- 6- 7 years.
Thank you. The next one is on supply-demand. Is Hapag afraid of any overcapacity of vessels over the short, medium term, especially when current geopolitical issues subside?
I mean, you know, there can always... I think we try to comment on the supply-demand balance. I think we need to get a little bit away from that notion that supply and demand always need to be exactly in balance based on a world where there is no disruption, because that situation we have not seen in the last 3, 4, 5, 6 years. It is, of course, correct that if everything would be sailing smooth, yeah, then there in reality is some overcapacity, even if probably less than people think, because the amount of ships that is required to comply with CII and to also ensure that our emissions go down is actually, there's actually quite a few ships that you need for that. I'm personally of the opinion that to have a little bit of overcapacity is not wrong.
I mean, if you think back about all that happened in COVID, some may remember that before COVID, even if we didn't know about it, we said that we felt that the order book was too small, and if anything would happen, we would have massive disruption. That's exactly what we saw in COVID, and rates went completely through the roof because there was simply nothing available. Right now, with the Red Sea situation, that's of course also a very unfortunate situation, but you do see that the industry is able to react on that. And yes, it gives some more tightness in capacity, and yes, costs do go up, but I do think that the industry has actually been able to deal with that quite well, yeah.
And maybe that's a situation that you would also like to have in the future, because this time it's the Red Sea. Nobody saw that coming, and I would not rule out that somewhere in the upcoming couple of years, once or twice, or maybe more often, these type similar things could occur. I mean, the draft, not enough rain in the Panama Canal was also not something that anybody was foreseeing, and we also know that, you know, sometimes there is strike or labor unrest or, or other geopolitical effect. And so I, I personally think that we should not have a complete balance between supply and demand, and in that context, getting some more ships is not necessarily wrong.
Thank you, Rolf. Next question goes into the direction of Mark in regard of our four sustainability levers. With respect to our year emission targets, could you give the approximate weight of each of the four levers?
Yeah, as said, I think a very important one for sure for us is right now, when we look at what is needed over the next couple of years, for sure, is the slow steaming in a sense, because it has a direct effect, and it's right at that very moment when we are starting that paying back in a sense, both on our targets and on the cost side. We have introduced; it's not the biggest one, but the efficiency lever is everything we can do, and payback times are short, so we will focus on that and do what is possible there, because it's, let's call it, nearly cheap.
For sure, and that is much more expensive and needs more investments, is a renewal of our total fleet over time, which will be needed over time, partially, but is maybe the most cost-intensive one. And as said, the alternative fuels, for sure, because we will not achieve the full target without that. The alternative fuels are important. Good thing is what we are seeing, that prices are reducing. It's starting to build more and more attractive business cases, so we can invest more into that, so that importance will grow. I know it's not a share of the four different buckets we would be able or would love to give right now, but I think the tendencies we have set are pretty clear, and the importance is also very clear.
Thank you, Mark. We have another question in the queue. Have you made contracts for e-methanol delivery for the five vessels being retrofitted, and with whom? Maybe a question on fuel sourcing to Mark.
Yeah, that is, that is rightly a question into our alchemist kitchen right now. So we are for sure working on that, and I think interesting enough, as I said before, not only to for that one, but as business cases for that are becoming more attractive, I think we are short before securing what is needed for our, for our retrofits. Really interesting what we see as a development. So we will report on that when, when done, but we are working on it.
Thank you, Mark. Another one in terms of financing. What is your strategy regarding securitization? So, I mean, I believe it meant to be maybe to receivable securitization. If this is the case, may we take this as the right question?
Let's put it that way. Let's put it that way. If that is meant, it's not one of our core instruments in our financing strategy, let's put it that way. We are looking and doing a couple of smaller things here, but it's not a core pillar of our financing strategy.
Thank you, Mark. Another one in your direction. Regarding your assets to be retrofitted for greener bunkerings, what is your investment strategy in ships fitted with equipment designated for carbon reduction, like windshield , sails, or others?
The core bucket of investments for ships, on the one hand side, we said that is the retrofits program we are doing and maybe coming to a 2.0 program, as we said, if new technology might arise, we will do that, and that's paying back quite fast and giving 6%-7% positive effect on that. So we will increase that as possible. We also test when things like wind shields or sails are shown. We are testing what is available, so we are open to all technologies, even when we think they might not turn the needle really fully, just to understand what is possible as investments into our ships.
But we are also clear that the key investment we have to do is retrofitting our ships to new fuels over time, and that will be, from an investment point of view, for sure, over the years, the biggest bucket. That is pretty clear. And for sure, new ships, which should also be already then future-proofed in all, for all, possible fuels.
Thank you, Mark. Happy to take further questions here live in the studio, so if you would like to raise your virtual hand, please do so. We have one further question in the chat box. Could you offer us a ballpark TU volume you expect to transport in 2030? Also, a ballpark split of 2030 EBIT between ocean terminals inland. Also, what gives you confidence that the EBIT per container would be higher in 2030 versus in 2019? So maybe we go them through one by one.
I mean, I think when you look at the ballpark numbers, I think we've said that we believe that we should aim to grow a little bit faster than the market, a bit dependent on what you would assume as market growth, and that also means that that number may still change. I think you will end up in something which is between 30%-50% higher than what we have seen in 2023. I think to make a split in EBIT between those buckets, I think is very difficult and also premature at this point in time. Also, because ocean and inland, in many cases, will be connected and will be not so easy to separate the profit contribution from that. And then the question on what gives you confidence that EBIT per container would be higher in 2030 versus 2019?
Well, if you look at all the investments that we intend to do, yeah, in order to, to grow our, to grow our business and to become more profitable, then of course, each and every one of them will be tested against the business case that there is. And if all of those are going to deliver against their business case, and, and basically, we are looking at a, an incremental EBIT contribution in the context of what was described or comparable to what Mark described, then indeed, yeah, then the EBIT per container should be higher at that point in time than it was in 2019.
Thank you, Rolf. There's another one. Will Gemini Cooperation impact your M&A strategy?
Personally, I don't think so. I mean, offhand, I don't really see a lot of logic between or a lot of connection between that and something else. If you look at other corporations that we've had in the past, be it in The Alliance or be it in G6, or in the Grand Alliance, I mean, that never had any material impact on what we did on the M&A front, so I don't really see that here either, yeah.
There's another one. What is the effect of the Iran-Israel conflict, as well as the Red Sea situation on the business? What about Strait of Hormuz?
I mean, we know that. I think the effects of the conflict in the Middle East are well known. That means that all of our services to Europe and the majority of our services to the U.S. from Asia have to go around the Cape of Good Hope. We will do that because the safety of our people comes first, and that's more important than seven or 10 days additional transit time. On the one hand, that results in additional costs. It also means that freight rates have gone up. The Strait of Hormuz, for the time being, we keep fingers crossed, yeah, that there will be no material impact from that.
Thank you very much. For today, this was our final question. Any closing remarks from you, both of you? Mark, you want to start?
Thanks very much for your interest in our new strategy, and we hope to see you soon over the course of the next years.
Rolf?
Not much to add to that. Thank you very much for your time, and we hope that it gave you some further insight in what we, on the one hand, have done, why we chose the direction that we have chosen, and give you, hopefully, a bit of a path that you can follow, yeah, when you look at the things that we're going to put in place over the upcoming couple of years.
Great. Mark. Well, thank you very much for your participation, also from the audience.
Thank you.
It was a great day. This concludes our Capital Markets Day for 2024. If there are further questions, please revert to the IR team here in Hamburg, and with this, I wish you a nice day, and thank you very much for your participation. See you next time. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.