Welcome everybody to the first Lamor Capital Markets Day. This is really the first one we are ever been having, and we are really proud to be here. Welcome everybody. We were listed one year ago about on First North, and as most of you most probably have noticed, we have today published our updated strategy and long-term financial targets. We will naturally walk those through more in detail today, among other many interesting topics. My name is Johanna Grönroos. I'm the Chief Development Officer at Lamor, and I've been working with the strategy update for the whole autumn, so it's really nice to be here with this excellent team. First, a couple of words about the agenda for today.
Mika will start with going through the refined strategy, giving a bit of a details what we are actually talking about there and what are the goals we are searching or reaching within the next strategy period. Our CFO, Timo Koponen, will continue with the long-term financial targets, giving a bit of a background there as well, how we are able to reach those targets going forward. We will be having 2 Q&A sessions during the agenda, and we will start the first Q&A session after these 2 sessions. We have audience here in the studio, so happy to have your questions on site with a microphone. For those who are joining online, please place your questions right from the beginning. We are happy to answer your questions.
After the Q&A session, we will continue with one of our strategic growth drivers, Middle East, and then we will continue with our project delivery models, going a bit more in details with those topics. Pentti Korjonen and Johan Grön will be on stage during those presentations. We will close the actual presentations with updating a bit where we are with the plastics recycling initiative, how we are progressing there, and what we are actually searching for. Another Q&A session will take place after that, and then we will summarize the whole afternoon with key messages in the end. Please be active during this day, and really nice to have you all here in place and also joining online. We will move on to the refined strategy, supporting growth.
Our CEO, Mika Pirneskoski, will take the stage together with me, and we will walk through the strategy more in detail.
All right. Thank you, Johanna. Before we go to the updated strategy, we'll start with a bit of history. History is important. If you don't understand the history, you will not understand the future. We'll work through this part in a few minutes' time, and with this slide, we are going to look at what we want to achieve in the future. Some of you might already remember from our IPO roadshow that the company was established already 40 years ago. I mean, we started a cleantech business here in Finland in the 1980s when cleantech wasn't even a term at that time. I mean, the history is in family business.
The Larsen family founded the company. They had a strong history in trading, especially in eastern trade, as a result, they invested in shipyard capabilities in Eastern Uusimaa. We all know what happened to that trading business in the 80s, but being an entrepreneurial family, they wanted to find some business with the existing assets, and I think this is also the type of value or the type of values that we still really much appreciate at Lamor, I mean, being entrepreneurial, I mean, taking advantage of the situation and really trying to find the solution in difficult market situations. The history is pretty similar to a Finnish small cap company.
We started the internationalization in the 1990s, like many companies do here. We went to Scandinavia, Baltic countries, Russia, during the mid-1990s. We did something a bit different from the usual suspects. I mean, we started a buy and build strategy. Between 1997, 2007, we bought three of our competitors in the equipment manufacturing business, and that made us the largest equipment manufacturer in oil spill response equipment industry globally. What we bought there, we bought a product portfolio, but also a better distribution network. Once this step was done, I mean, we started seeing a lot of feedback from our customers that, "Okay, you are helping us being prepared for environmental incidents.
What if something really happens? We started working for the service provision part as well, so really making sure that our clients are prepared in case something happens. That's how the service business started. It was still being prepared, I mean, trying to teach our clients, build the processes for our clients, for them to be prepared. Eventually something is going to happen. I mean, natural disasters, natural incidents do occur, unfortunately. We started engaging with our clients during these incidents, during environmental disasters, and that's how we went to the next stage of the value chain. We started with the preparedness; we went to the cleanup during the incidents. The next natural step for us was to deal with the waste that was generated, deal with the contaminated soil, deal with the contaminated water.
We really had the full value chain in terms of spill response, our portfolio. From that point on, we quite quickly realized that this waste that you generate during the environmental disasters is more or less similar to the waste that they generate, whether that's solid waste or liquid waste, that our clients generate in their everyday processes. That was the next step in our business diversification. That was the Lamor that listed last year. I mean, we talked about oil spill response, we talked about waste management, we talked about water treatment. Today we're going to teach you or introduce you to two new terms, environmental protection and material recycling. Why is that? I mean, environmental protection, where we've done it traditionally is with soil and water.
There's a third dimension that we need to consider if we really want to be a sustainable company, and it is the air. Then again, I mean, we've said this out loud, that our solution for waste management and water treatment solutions, it is always about environmental solution. It is not waste management or water treatment per se. We want to emphasize that we consider waste as raw material. We want to reuse as much of the waste, recycle as much of the water as possible as a part of our operations. Where does this lead us? For the first 38 years, we were hovering. The biggest turnover in 2011 was approximately EUR 62 million. We had some smaller years in the beginning, but it was between EUR 40 million and EUR 60 million.
Our guidance for this year is plus EUR 120 million. We already see a significant step change. With this refined strategy, larger portfolio, we do believe that we are entering a significantly larger market. We've established ourselves in some of the key strategic markets that we've defined, which gives us a great venue to scale up our business.
There are words like globally local, Lamor way of working, increased resources and competencies, and clear strategy. How would you explain these as an introduction before we actually jump into the-?
Globally local operating model is probably the easiest one here. I mean, environmental solutions are always provided locally, we need to have local presence. For us to be scalable, for us to be efficient, we need to have a global portfolio, global processes, and global management of the way we operate. I think Lamor way of working is more or less there already. How does that, well, what does that mean? I mean, it is a seamless cooperation between the market areas where we actually provide the solutions, we run the business, we run the BD functions as well, and the global function, which is then about the portfolio, the processes, and how we make this business repeatable.
We also mention here increased resources and competencies. We refer to this, that in our release as well. Any comments around that?
Yeah, I mean, we said it already in Q3, I think, as the year has passed, it's been a long year since the IPO. I mean, we've understood really the market potential in a clearer manner. We've anticipated some of the growth investments, so we've started really increasing the resources that we have available, especially personal resources. I mean, we've split our operations in three different market areas. We have Middle East and Africa, we have Eurasia, and we have Americas. We have structured the way we operate in a new manner, and obviously we believe that this will help us win the business in all of these three market areas.
Excellent. I guess we can jump into the clear strategy, hopefully-
Yeah
... it sounds like that for the outsiders as well.
Maybe this is just my opinion. I mean, maybe I'm a bit biased 'cause I've worked with you and the team for this for such a long time. One of my friends asked that, I mean, "How would you summarize that? What is different in this strategy from the previous strategies of Lamor?" I said, "We've always been growth focused, but have we been focused on growth?" I think now rather than saying that we want to grow, I mean, everywhere, we're going after every market opportunity that we identify, now we've really pinpointed that where do we want to grow? I think that's the biggest difference that we now have the resources in place.
We've made the investments in our key strategic markets to win the business there.
Good. As you can see the curve in the picture as well, it is illustrative just to highlight. Yes, that's what we are now searching for, significant growth going forward with this strategy. Good. We will go through three different sections, first starting with the world and what we do, why we succeed, and what is our Vision 2025. I would actually like to start this with highlighting a bit of a mega trends which we find really important to us. Climate change is here. We can't avoid it. There isn't any company who can say that climate change is nothing for me. All the companies need to work around climate change to try to decrease the warming. That is, of course, our mission as well.
We do it as Lamor, but we want to do it together with our customers. Resource scarcity is something that is more and more raising the head as well, meaning when we try to solve the climate change, we often tend to use resources more like metals and we need to really put our efforts how to reuse and reuse materials and use them more efficiently. Both, once again, on our agenda really heavily. Then the third one being decreasing biodiversity. Some people say that this is the really biggest problem going forward, biodiversity decreasing continuously. We need to take actions to make sure that this will end or at least become slower.
That's something that we are, of course, working heavily with all of our environmental solutions continuously, once again, together with our partners and customers. That as a background. We have the customer in the center, and then we have our solutions which you already referred to. Please walk us through what are we actually are looking for here.
All right. I think for us internally, one of the most difficult tasks of this strategy update was to define that. I mean, how do we define our clients? I mean, 'cause we serve so many different types of customer segments. I mean, the public-private, that is easy. We work a lot with governmental agencies, governmental companies, semi-public companies, but we also work a lot with the private sector. That's one way to put it, one dimension how to put it. We started looking at what are really the key solutions that we provide for different segments and from that point, trying to identify or give a big name for that client group. Obviously, energy sector, that is a huge client segment of ours.
What is their challenge today? It is the transformation to more sustainable operations. It is not just about the green transformation, I mean, going from fossil-based energy sources to renewable energy, but it is also the effect that the climate change, for example, has in the energy sector for water intake protection. How do they protect extremely important assets from natural disasters? That was one segment. Infrastructure, I mean, it is a huge term. We work with port operators, for example. We work with pipeline companies. Infrastructure in this sense means also cities. I mean, if you look at the pollution, the legacy contamination that you have in urban cities nowadays, it is a huge problem.
I mean, the diversity loss that we have, having these brownfield sites in urban cities, it is huge on a global scale. Other industrial customers, this is a bit vague, but then again, I mean, most of our industrial customers, they need to become more sustainable to stay competitive. I think for us, sustainability is not just something that you show on paper or it is not something that you use in marketing or communication. Sustainability for us means that you are able to sustain your business over the long term. It is not so much about the reporting part or the corporate responsibility part, but it's about sustaining the competitiveness of your business.
Good. If we think about that this is the customer segment, which is quite large, as you mentioned, what about the services we are providing them? How do we categorize them? What is the progress within the offering we are planning to have in the period?
If we start from the very beginning. We start with preparedness, I mean, being prepared for environmental incidents, environmental damage. That is the sort of the starting point. That is where the customer journey starts. It could start before the customer is even in operation. We do the environmental planning for our customers. We provide them with the solution, whether that's technology or service, for them to be prepared in case something happens.
continuing to.
Once we've started with the prevention, then in case something happens, there's the response and the immediate cleanup of the environmental incident. These two parts go very much hand in hand. I mean, in order for you to be successful in response and cleanup, you need to be prepared. I mean, there are certain estimates in the industry that it will cost you 10 to 15 times more if you are not prepared. It is a huge difference for the customer in terms of the economic impact an incident might cause in case you're not prepared.
I guess same applies for the nature in that case. About the material recycling, what is the, or the core, principles and goals we are searching for there?
Yeah. Like I said, I mean, we used to talk about waste management, water treatment solution. It is a broad area, what we really do, the applications that we offer, the solutions that we serve, I mean, everything is in the circular economy's sphere of things. We want to be able to utilize the raw materials that the customer has in their waste stream. I mean, a good example of this is our project with Exxon in Guyana, where we treat their drill cuttings and it is the first proper treatment of drill cuttings for that particular client. We recover the base oil from the drill cuttings, that base oil is then being used to create sustainable drilling mud. That is a simple solution.
I mean, maybe it's not a simple solution, but it is a sustainable solution that we offer to our clients.
The last one being here remediation and restoration, anything specific you would like to describe there?
And I think now that the world is changing so fast, and this is something that we didn't see five years ago at all. When, for example, the oil and gas companies were stopping their drilling activities, I mean, they just left. They closed the site and left. Nothing was being done to clean up the legacy, so to speak. I mean, now that we see new licenses being issued, new legislation being passed, that the mess that they've created, the legacy contamination that they've created needs to be cleaned up, and I think this also applies to old industrial site, not just in the energy sector. I mean, we look at other types of industrial sites.
I mean, we have here in the live audience, people from Helsinki, I mean, the legacy contamination in Hanasaari, for example. It is a well-documented contamination, and if that area, I mean, if the city wants to develop that area, something needs to be done. There is a huge legacy cleanup operation ahead.
Excellent. I guess that was about the world and what do we do. We will come back to this topic several times during the session, during the afternoon, let's move on to the why we succeed. I guess all of you who have been reading our quarterly reports have seen quite many times due 2 different phrases, local presence and the partner network. What does it mean in practice? Why do we say that these are our success, why we are successful due to this?
Okay. I think for the local presence, I mean, you could look at it from two different angles. I mean, you could look at it from the market entry perspective that, okay, I mean, we have a strong local presence. It is faster and cheaper for us to take new technologies, new applications to the market. For us, it's not only about that. I mean, it is about understanding the culture, understanding the operating environment. It also works as a risk mitigation method for us in our project delivery.
Why do we actually say that it's a competitive advantage? We can see here a map with a lot of yellow dots, and then we can see a bigger line which somehow tries to describe why we think that the partner network is the thing we need to have.
Yeah. I mean, we are still a smallish company from Finland. We have rather broad offering. I mean, we can't invent everything in-house, and this global challenge, environmental challenge is so huge that no company can do it alone. We need a network of partners both on a global and on a local basis.
I'm sure we'll come back to that in the following presentations as well, giving some highlights and examples how it actually works. Then about positive impact, we are an impact company, and we are creating positive impact with our business. I would like to start with the Earth and society. As I mentioned already in the megatrends part, we are protecting biodiversity with our solutions. We want to create positive impact together with our customers and partners once again. We want to increase the recyclability of materials going forward. On top of that, from the social perspective, we are working in countries which are developing currently, and we are providing them places to work for and trainings and education to learn more, new things.
It's quite obvious that, yes, we are doing positive things for the Earth and the society. What about the rest of the stakeholders? There are a list of other stakeholders. How do we see the impact there?
Okay. If we start with the customers, I mean, we are a customer-centric company, and I mean, I'll start with the efficient fit for purpose solution. We believe that providing our clients solutions that fit their operating environment, their environmental set challenges, it is the largest positive impact that we have. Then again, if you look at the broader stakeholder group from our clients' perspective, it is that we also help our clients to increase their positive environmental impact or positive impact as a whole.
The partners.
Partners and I think we've been a network company for a long, long time. I mean, we do not believe in this sort of old-fashioned agent principle type of relationships where one is really the principal and dictates the relationship. It needs to be beneficial for both parties. I mean, otherwise it will not work in the long term. We want to really build partnerships both with our global and our local partners.
Excellent. Lamorians, so all of us.
I mean, we want to, of course, be a great employer, inspiring purpose for all the Lamorians. I mean, we want to offer global opportunities. We want to offer continuous development of competencies. I mean, people are our key resources. I mean, we are in the knowledge industry, in professional services, it is really that people are our key resource.
I guess there are quite a many owners online and here at, in the studio. What about them?
Fast, profitable, and sustainable growth.
Mm.
That's what we want to offer. I mean, I think, I mean, if you look at our mission statement, "Let's clean the world," I mean, it is also a call for action for our shareholders, that if you want to be a part of cleaning the world, I mean, this is the right company.
Excellent. We move on to the Vision 2025. quite a busy slide as we have heard several times already. let's start from the middle of the slide. what we are aiming for going forward is to be a preferred partner during the journey towards a cleaner tomorrow. What does that mean in practice?
It means that within the scope of solutions that we offer, we want to be the company that comes to our client's mind whenever they think of an environmental challenge. That's the type of water print that we want to leave in our customer's head.
small promise. As you can see, there are 5 different targets which are clearly defined what we are searching for. Could you walk us through all of those?
I mean, you could look at it that, I mean, how does success look like for Lamor in 2025? I mean, we started with the brand promise being the preferred partner, so number one partner in selected strategic markets. I mean, we've communicated clearly that, in this strategy period, we are going to focus heavily in the Middle East, as well as South America.
Continuing with the 3 new markets.
There are certain markets where we are very strong, in the Middle East and in South America nowadays, but we want to open new markets within this strategy period, winning, I mean, going to the next point already, winning these first significant service solution deals to establish ourselves in the local market. I mean, this is something that investors typically ask from me, is that, "Okay. How should we see these big projects in Saudi Arabia or in Kuwait? I mean, is that a project risk you're taking?" Okay, there is a project risk involved, but the way we see it is that it is a market entry for us. It is a paid market entry for us to a new market area or a new country.
plastics recycling, quite a ambitious target for 2025.
I mean, we're talking about project portfolio. I mean, we are not talking about built capacity at that time. We see that there is a huge potential. I mean, it is both a huge environmental challenge but also a huge business opportunity. By 2025, by the end of 2025, we believe that for us to be successful in this part of the business, we need to have a significant project portfolio at our hands.
Then the last target is relating to efficient and effective solutions globally and provided with the local operating model. Why is that one of the targets?
I mean, we talked about the global part, the scalability. Really, I mean, it is a very close cooperation with the local solution provision and the global processes, the global offering. We believe that we need to excel on both ends, both locally and globally.
Excellent. There are a couple of so-called enablers, what makes us successful, Lamor way of working, I guess we touched upon already. What about the rest? How do you see how they are supporting our growth?
I think, and we touched upon this a little bit, that, I mean, we are talking about environmental solutions. We've identified certain demands from our client side that need to be fulfilled. Our portfolio is not complete yet. There are certain challenges that need to be addressed. We're investing quite heavily in expanding our offering, and that will open us new markets, and that will enable growth in this strategy period.
Excellent. Of course, all of this is built up on our values, which are passion, innovation, and trust. They remain the same. No changes there. Whatever we do, we follow those values at Lamor. Of course, all of this is based on our personnel, whatever we do, we need to have a lot more heroes globally and locally everywhere to make sure we are able to meet these targets and have satisfied customers all over the world. Anything else you would like to say to close this section?
I mean, we've worked really hard on to define the world and what we do, why do we succeed and how does success look like to us in 2025. I really do hope that it clarifies the things that we want to achieve, it clarifies the things we are going to do during this strategy period, and I would urge everyone to ask as many questions as needed to even further clarify it.
Excellent. Good. Thank you, Mika, for this session. We will move on to look a bit more in detail the long-term financial targets. Our CFO, Timo Koponen, will take the stage and walk us through how we're able to make it. Please.
All right. Good afternoon also from my side. Okay, now we have seen the five main targets for the next strategic period. We have just heard Mika's presentation of this. Where does Vision 2025 takes us in terms of the long-term financial targets then? As we have also released this morning in our stock exchange release, we have redefined our long-term revenue target and aim to increase annual revenue of over EUR 250 million at the latest during the financial year following this period. In practice that means the latest during 2026.
What we have also done, we have simplified a bit our profitability target setting, and going forward we will focus on Adjusted EBIT percentage because we feel that that will describe our performance better than the earlier used combination of EBITDA and EBIT. On that one we reiterate our profitability target of Adjusted EBIT being 14%. In terms of the capital structure and dividend policy, we also repeat our previous statements, saying that the capital structure of course has to be suitable to support the growth going forward, accommodating the targets and risks involved. Our dividend policy, while we aim to distribute annual dividends, the main focus with the company remains in growth. Where are we today then?
Let's have a very brief recap on the Q3 numbers that we released last week. On the revenue, we reached EUR 99.7 million within the first three quarters of the year, which on year-on-year basis is 183.2%. On Adjusted EBIT, we reached EUR 11.4 million, which in turn is 428.3% year-on-year. In other words, it means that by tripling the top line, we have been able to make the 5x Adjusted EBIT number.
When looking at the quarterly revenues, we can also clearly see that the past quarters have been clearly on a new level in terms of the performance and that obviously, we aim and we will continue going forward. Also kind of a recap, we have discussed many times in the past that we have a strong order backlog. We remain to have a strong order backlog, which obviously is one of the cornerstones for our growth also going forward. When looking at the end of September, the order books stood at EUR 221.2 million, meaning that practically, we have been able to replace all the executed deliveries for this year with the new order inflow. Moving on to the financial position.
First looking at little bit about gearing, we can see that the gearing is on a very low level, it's 20.3%, demonstrating or any further movements being well available for us. As we have communicated previously, the IPO we did or performed a year ago, that was only the first step in our public capital markets path. It's also maybe worth mentioning that when we did that we took a conscious decision to list the shares on a First North Premier, for example, followed and complied with the requirements there, IFRS standard was taken into use in reporting and so on.
Which once again means that any further moves would be easier to take and on that one, for example, no action would be needed. When looking at the right-hand side, our situation compared to the financial governance, we are very well positioned to take further steps when and if necessary. Timing of any such steps, of course, is much dependent on the development on the business side when the need appears, and to be prepared for that. Nowadays, cannot go beyond mentioning that it all depends, of course, on the general situation at the financial markets. One maybe an interesting piece of information about how the scale works for us.
We have communicated early and also it was referred by Mika in his opening, that we have invested quite heavily in the past in the business development and resources to facilitate the growth ahead. Meaning that, when the growth happens, we wouldn't need to continue the investments, the resourcing at the same pace. This year we can clearly see it, an evidence that the business model is working. We have seen that the volumes have been growing, the revenue has been growing, but the pace at the fixed cost growth has actually been slower. Fixed cost share has decreased significantly.
Despite of the further investments that are clearly needed, since we are again planning to double the volume, this pattern will continue, so we will be more efficient also going forward. If we look at the various cost items, we can see of course that the variable cost share has increased, and that consists mainly of direct materials and services. Employee benefits obviously consist of both fixed and variable elements, whereas the variable element has been growing with the projects with the strongest pace. Just the one highlight then also on the depreciation, there the share has more or less remained the same.
One interesting element there is that actually that cost item is very much variable in nature as well because in our reporting, the big part of that whole depreciation consists of IFRS 16 rents, which is purely project-based. Of course, when the projects do not exist anymore in that particular scope, that will also disappear. We can get back to the long-term target setting and how do we see that we can bridge the path from this year's guidance to our newly defined long-term targets? Regarding the revenue, obviously, the same five areas that was depicted earlier are very much present here.
Untapping the full potential in existing markets, mainly in Middle East and South America, are consisting of significant potential in terms of the revenue. Extending our business to the new markets and projects as also mentioned by Mika, is another part. Plastics recycling obviously is a very exciting opportunity and new opening, which starts to then generate revenues towards the end of the period.
Maybe, last but definitely not the least one, we can see that the increased accountability, as it's called here, it means that we have with the new organizational model, with the new resources and people being on board, that already now is yielding in new prospects and much wider sales funnel than we had before. In terms of the profit, we already touched upon the scale and scalability of our business model in a previous slide with the cost base that will continue supporting also our profitability improvement. Becoming a bigger player also means that our purchasing power is getting stronger.
That is clearly an area which we need to focus on even more and exploit the global opportunities, whatever it brings. In terms of the delivery model, we will soon hear more about Lamor's world-class model, which is then expected to give us improved efficiency as well as an improved quality. Once again, lastly, increased accountability works also in the profitability improvement, being able to have more attention and better speed to address any issues that will arise for sure. To close, let's have a very quick sneak peek on the year to come. We have said that where we are, we have a strong growth behind.
We have still a very strong backlog. We have said that we have invested in a team, that will definitely help us also gaining the next step. Tailwinds as we call them, what we see going forward or 2023, the backlog is still there. Obviously we see in the pipeline, very promising prospects to build an also continuation going forward.
The organization we have once again, even though not that heavily anymore, but we have been building and will be build further capabilities and now the organization is all ready in a way to take the next step. As always, there are headwinds, overall uncertainty in the world economy, nobody can deny it. We can feel it, everybody in our daily life, both work at home. That is still there and of course, that is a big question mark. What if something even bigger would happen? We just have to live with that and try to mitigate.
Cost inflation as well, it is there, and as mentioned already earlier, the under-supply market, that means that we just need to keep running even faster than before. On the market obviously and unfortunately we are not here alone. The competition has definitely noted Lamor and noted a success in the key growth areas and that means that once again, we have to be better and have to be better choice for the customers to keep winning the deals. All right. Thank you from my side. I'm sure we have questions, let's move on them.
Good. Happy to take questions here on site as well, so if you have any, please raise your hand and, we will walk through the ones which we have received online as well. Please, go ahead.
Thank you for the great presentation. This is Antti Koskivuori from Danske Bank. few questions I would say. if we could kick off from the new markets that you target. could you little bit talk about what would be the criteria you're looking after in the new markets? Is it only the business potential, euro-wise, or what are the key things to look at?
That's a great question. It is a combination of things. I mean, business potential is one of them, of course. The operating environment then coincides with the business potential, so when we do the evaluation, we try to take into account the complexity of that particular market. I think the third element is then again, I mean, how near is it to our current markets? I mean, if you look at South America, for example, I mean, we have operations in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, so for us, expanding to another Spanish-speaking country in that region, it is not a huge step. Then again, if you look at Middle East and Africa, going from the Middle East to Africa, it is a lot bigger step.
It is a combination of the business potential, it is the how complex is to market the operating environment, and what does it take us from operational perspective to enter that new market area.
All right. Thanks. If I may continue.
Please, go ahead
... with question or two still. About the 5 targeted project wins in coming years. How does that tally up with the targeted revenue of EUR 250 million on annual level, which is roughly EUR 120 million above this year's level? I.e., I guess EUR 25 million per project, if you will. I remember your prospect list from the IPO. If I remember correctly, you had quite substantial potential revenue streams from those projects. How would you describe... I mean, how should we think about those 5 projects that you are aiming? Is the level going to be EUR 25 million, or is there those bigger ones still that you are looking after or...?
I mean, the potential that we've identified in the past, I mean, it is still there. I mean, it hasn't gone away. I mean, we can see it clearly from the project that we just won in Bangladesh or the first part of the project we won in Bangladesh. I mean, we've publicly stated that we've taken part in the Schedule II, the second phase of the Kuwait remediation project. I mean, the bids or the values of the bids are public information, one project is roughly EUR 200 million and up to EUR 250 million. That, putting that to a multiple years, sharing that with our partner, that gives you an idea of one potential projects.
Johanna, you may interrupt me if I'm going towards this, that, where I shouldn't go. The way we've looked at these long-term financial target is we've done it both bottom up and top down. We've gone through the market potential, the project or the sales funnel that we have for each of the particular market areas, and trying to synthesize something that is round.
Got it. Maybe two questions still. About the cost inflation. You said that it's there. Is there anything that you can give us, number wise, you know, how much cost inflation, for example, you expect to see next year versus this year, if you talk about variable cost or fixed or total?
No, yeah. Not any number to give. Maybe that will surprise you. Of course it, in our case it very much depends on what we're talking about. We have a project where the cost base is kind of a fixed, it's a local, being for example the project in Kuwait we have all those in-house already or at least there's a earmark on that one. Obviously we have projects and equipments which are turning faster where we receive price increases by our suppliers almost on a weekly basis unfortunately.
Of course the good news is that we can then also put the price ahead to our customers. Once again, we have seen the huge rise in the transportation. Now seems to be a little bit cooling down, I mean, who knows? I mean, there's a clear evidence when we look at some equipment margins for example that we have to fight back to keep them where they were in the past. If I may add, I mean, really the biggest risk from commercial perspective is that, I mean, when we take part in a public tender, I mean, the tender validity could be up to 12 months.
We quote today, we sign in a year's time. We commit to fixed pricing. The cost inflation pushes the price up 7%. That is really the sort of the biggest tangible risk that we have in pricing. I mean, when we're talking about equipment sales, I mean, everybody's facing the same thing. When you have a public tender, I mean, there is a certain element of winner's curse at the moment with the high cost inflation 'cause you need to commit to those prices for the next 12 months. Of course we take that into account in our cost calculation, but whether we are, I mean, pragmatic enough, whether we are conservative enough in our estimations of the cost inflation, that is a risk.
I think we can understand the risk, I think we can manage the risk, but we can't hide away from the risk.
All right. Last one from me is about the increase in competition that you talk about. If you could little bit describe how you see it, in which markets, from, you know, from where the competition is arising. Is it new participants in those markets or existing ones being more aggressive? What's it about?
It's a combination of both. Going back to the tender in Kuwait, we saw a lot more movement there. All the pricing of the previous tender, public information. A lot of cowboys trying to win the project, and that's complicated the evaluation period, but that's another thing. Again, if we look at Saudi Arabia for example, they've openly said that they're going to invest 1 trillion to reach the Vision 2030. Of course that raises the awareness of every player in every industry. Whether it is a threat to our existence, time will tell, again, if you look at our presence in both of those key markets of ours, we are already there.
We are with existing projects. We know exactly how much it costs to execute those services. I mean, we have something that they don't. I mean, they don't understand really what is the cost at the end of the day. I mean, we do believe that we are very competitive, and if someone wants to enter the market, start competing with us, they probably need to take certain risks in their pricing, and it is something that we can't really control that what is the risk appetite of these newcomers.
Still continuation on that. Would you say that the newcomers are more like, as you said, cowboys maybe from East or are they like big players from the West?
You see both, but mostly what we've seen so far is less established players. Let's use that term.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the excellent questions. We have a couple of more questions here. Let's take these, and then we continue with another Q&A session after the following presentations. Sorry. Questions there.
Oh, hardly.
Good. I'll take this one in the middle and then I'll let you continue. One more question around the five new projects. Is it something that we are wishing for? Are they somewhere far away in the funnel or is it something concrete?
The way I put it, I mean, this is what success looks like for Lamor in 2025, so it is something very tangible. It is easy to set target, so it is not anything wishy-washy. It is something that we need to do in order to get where we want to be. Like we've said already here today, I mean, we have extremely strong sales funnel. We've identified the projects that we want to win.
Excellent. Over to you, please.
Yes. Aapeli Pursimo from Inderes. Thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions. Firstly, if we think about the big picture and those legacy cleanup projects that you mentioned at the start of the presentation, can you elaborate where is the funding coming from for these projects?
Yeah. Basically, I mean, you could probably divide those in three different baskets. I mean, you have the commercially viable assets or commercially viable plots, like the example of Hanasaari, where it is commercially viable to invest in the cleanup. It will be funded by the developer, for example, or the city or the municipality. Again, you have the more industrial legacy. It is a result of industrial operations where the liability lies with the company who was there for the past X tens of years. Again, we have these global mega projects like the one in Kuwait funded by the UN. Combination of that in a few places in Africa, for example.
Similar type of project in Ecuador, where it is, if not national, international funding to restore the biodiversity of the area. This is the story I like sharing with a lot of people. I mean, when we talk about the project in Kuwait, for example, I mean, the big thing is not really to restore the nature as such, but it is to have those migrating birds back after 30 years. That is the story of restoration activities.
Yeah. Maybe if we talk about the Kuwait project, it happened more or less 30 years ago. How you see the timeline going forward for, like, this kind of big project? Is there a pretty big lag when the funding is coming, or how do you see the picture right now?
Yeah, I mean, that has traditionally been the case. I think moving forward, it will depend also on how critical the contamination is, for example, in terms of what is the risk of groundwater contamination? What is the risk of that contamination spreading into the potable water system of that particular area? That is one of the drivers, for example, in Ecuador. I mean, the contamination is in an area where you have the surface water that, I mean, it doesn't feed. It gives them water in that particular area. We have the project in South Sudan, for example, where the whole groundwater has been contaminated with oil.
The reason why Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in the legacy cleanup is that, I mean, some of the pits are actually jeopardizing the very scarce freshwater resources that the country has. I believe that it will move forward in terms of that. What is the most critical? What poses the greatest environmental potential damage? Then again, what we've seen from legislation perspective is that the requirements from the regulators, they are really starting to be more stringent. I mean, if you look at EU-wide legislation, I mean, the market changed completely some 15 years ago when monitoring was considered or was approved to be a remediation method. Now we see also a bit of a trend moving away from that direction as well.
Of course, we need to admit that, I mean, as a result of the pandemic, I mean, there has been a lot of public spending going for different types of sources. There are also risks with the funding part.
Yep. Thank you. Couple of questions about your financial targets. Firstly, can you specify the investments that you need to do to reach those targets?
Yeah, there are obviously project-related investments as we have seen with this megas we have done in the past, which we will kick off only if we get the project, which then of course is calculated in the calculations and a payback. Then, the other part obviously is the building or complementing our organizational setup, where, as I said, we have now taken huge steps within this year, and I would expect that pace to cool down. It is then we have still areas which we need to strengthen to enable this next jump to happen.
Then again, if you look at the business model and the type of business we're in and you look at the requirements, for example, for a project the size of Kuwait, I mean, the funding need is not only about the CapEx part. It is about having a strong enough balance sheet to be able to raise, for example, performance guarantees, advanced payment guarantees. It is not just about having the liquidity to do the investments, win the projects, but it is also about maintaining a strong enough balance sheet To really win the business.
Mm, yep. Lastly, about your revenue target, what is the plastics recycling share of that EUR 250 million growth target?
I mean, going back to what we've said before, that we want to have a capacity of 40,000 tons by the end of 2025 here in Finland. I think that's all that we're going to say on that forecast.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you for the excellent question. One more for Timo before we close this Q&A session. We've been referring to the balance sheet several times during this session. Are there any plans for capital market transactions during the strategy period? Anything you can comment on that at this stage?
Yeah, I, as I guess I hinted possible directions, no decisions, no concrete plans, but obviously we have both ways to elaborate. I mean, both the debt and the equity paths.
Maybe if I, if I may try to understand the life of an investor, I mean, if you look at the balance sheet of today, I mean, and the covenant ratios and the gearing, I mean, you can clearly see that there is a lot of room for debt funding available. Again, I mean, the need for that debt funding will only take place if our volumes grow significantly. It is a two-way street that if we are going to need external funding, it means that we've been extremely successful with our business.
Mm.
If we are not extremely successful with our business, we don't have that need for funding.
And even that with the caveat that it depends on the timing. Yes, sir.
Correct.
Exactly. All right. Thank you for the good questions. Please place more questions during the sessions. Now we are moving us to the Middle East, and we will continue with a short video from the project in Kuwait. It has been taken during late summer this year, so you can see a bit what does it look like on our site currently. Welcome back from the excellent video where we were showing what it looks like. There is a lot of contaminated soil, as we can see, and the project is progressing there in Kuwait. Now we move on to Middle East as a focal growth driver for Lamor. Together with me, I have here our Senior Vice President, Pentti Korjonen, who is taking currently care of our Middle East and Africa area.
Welcome, Pentti. You joined Lamor recently during the autumn. Could you tell a bit of your background before we move on to the actual agenda topics?
Thank you, Johanna. Happy to be over here today. My background, I'm very new Lamorian, as you know, but I'm not new in the Middle East. I do have a pretty long history over there. I moved first time already 1997 to Dubai, more or less, I'm still continuing that same trip. I do have experience from multiple industries. I have been located Dubai many times. This is now third time I'm living over there. I have a good number of years in Kuwait, good number of years in Saudi. Happy to be now Lamorian. We will see what can we do in the Middle East in the future.
Excellent. As we highlighted in the strategy already, Middle East is one of the growth drivers for the strategy period, and that's why we will walk through a bit more in detail what the market looks like, what we are currently doing there, and what we are aiming for. We will start with a bit of a background here. We have taken a couple of articles or headings from the articles from the Middle East what the area is actually looking for. They somehow sound to me a lot like sustainable topics. Why is that?
That's a very good question, and as it a well-known secret that sustainability, green values have not been very high on top of the agenda for different governments or private sector in the Middle East, but it has changed a lot in the last couple of years. The attitude has changed, and most importantly, fundings are nowadays available. As you see from the left side of the slide, that Saudi Arabia to invest a very precise number to develop a green economy in the Middle East. If you go to the right-hand side of the slide. If I open that little bit, if you don't mind.
Please.
As of PIF, Public Investment Fund, they established the SIRC, it was 2017, to take care of the waste management challenges in Saudi that point of time. SIRC at the moment, I would say it's like a platform to enable circular economy in the country by 2035. At the moment, in Saudi, they are generating roughly 53 million ton of waste annually, and 95% of that are landfilled. Only 5% are treated somehow or recycled. The target of SIRC is that they will change the number around by 2035, that 5% only 5% will be landfilled, and the 95% will be treated or recycled.
That's quite an ambitious target, I must say.
That's a bit challenging target. If we go to the left side to the SAIL is owned by SIRC. It was established by royal decree earlier this year, they should take care of protection of the marine and offshore in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Then there was-
That li-
Yes, go ahead.
Please.
There is quite an interesting headline, Putting a Price on Soil, that is written by a Kuwaiti, a newspaper. What does that mean, actually? And what does it mean for us?
It's a pretty interesting question. Should we have a price on soil? For me, certainly we should, because if you think about that, if you would like to eat or drink in the future, we should have a clean soil. If you would like to grow something, vegetables, you need to have a soil. If you would like to drink fresh ground water, you need to have a clean soil on top of that. It's a no-brainer to have clean soil out there.
tell-
A price on top of that soil.
Exactly, tells maybe something about the situation in Kuwait.
Mm
with the heading written 2 years ago. Good. Let's move on with this introduction, what kind of market we're actually talking about and what is happening in the Middle East. Let's move on to the areas where we are currently working. Of course, Middle East is also something else than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but as an example, we will walk through these, since these are the countries we are already providing services. Starting with the Red Sea area and Saudi Arabia, what are we actually doing there? What is the status currently?
I would say that our project is going pretty smoothly at the moment over there. We have established all of those three sites what we have planned to do, so we do have a service available over there, capabilities, so we are doing some knowledge-sharing with the customer. Last week as SAIL publicly announced that they do have a target to increase the capacity of the oil response over there, up to 530 barrels per day. As of right now, so we are pretty far out of that, so quite a big opportunity in front of us still to go over there.
Excellent. The shoreline of Saudi Arabia is huge. You mentioned now the amount of daily barrels to be covered going forward. What kind of potential do you see in this country for us?
It's a pretty big. As I said, that SAIL has a target at the moment to provide that 530,000 barrel of capacity in oil spill response. At the moment, those bases are only located in the west side of the country, so there is nothing more or less in the east. If you think about the traffic in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, so roughly 20,000 vessels goes through the canal every year. The Red Sea acts as a parking place for those vessels who are not able to get into the canal. So there is a quite a big risk if something happens, so it will affect plenty of people out there.
I read some article that if some big oil spills will take place over there will be a millions of people without the water because of. In the Saudi coastlines, there are, I don't remember the number of the water inlet points next to the Red Sea. It was a really big number.
Exactly. The importance is there for the nature, but also for people to live alongside-
People to live.
and the traffic
and fishing business. If you think about those mega projects what the Saudis are planning to build, NEOM, Red Sea Project, Amaala, value of those are totally roughly $1 trillion. If something happens really in the Red Sea, you can just imagine what kind of impact it will give to the projects, what they are planning to have over there.
A lot of work to be done, a lot of opportunities in the area. Let's move on then to the neighboring country, Kuwait. There we are providing the soil remediation projects we've been referring to several times also today. What is the status there and how do you see the projects as a, so to say, key driver in our growth journey in Kuwait?
As you see the video, so we are executing a project, so we are more or less on schedule, and it has been executed more or less on budget as well, if I understood correctly. For me, and I guess that this project is one of the most important one for Lamor at the moment and in the future as well because of the size of it right now, so it was $200 million. That that was tendered a year ago, so in that point of time, 5 different areas was tendered, and we won 2 out of those 5. Now there is a tender ongoing for additional 3 areas, and the value of those would be roughly $500 to 600 million.
All together, so it means that once they have decided that phase two roughly $1.5 to 1.6 billion USD has been tendered, so there will be additional $1.5 billion available to be tendered later on in the next couple of years.
As we can see, Kuwait is quite a small country if we compare it to the other Middle East countries. Is there anything you would like to highlight what comes to the areas when we compare them?
As you said, Kuwait is pretty small. If you look at the map over there, so you'll find Kuwait as a pretty small dot in the map. If you compare a size to Iraq or Saudi, and so they have been drilling since Iraq, I guess it was 1927, once they started drilling, and oil production, Saudi started, it was 1938. Do they have contaminated soil over there or not? I believe they do. At one point of time, those should be cleaned up as well. There is a huge opportunity in front of us, maybe for us or someone else.
Exactly. Work to be done. Good. How do you see this? You said that this is one of the most important projects for us in Kuwait. We talked about those globally local and local presence and having the project as a key way of entering the market and then expanding our share of the market going forward. How do you see these projects from that point of view?
Very important, I would say because of business in the Middle East, it's more or less the same as everywhere else that you need to have a local presence. You need to have local capabilities in a product point of view, service point of view. You need to have a good relationship with your customers. You need to execute what you promise. All business, what you do over there, it would apply the same rules as anywhere else.
Excellent. Just to summarize, how we are able to win more projects in the Middle East. We covered now those two example countries, but what about the rest of the market?
My personal opinion is that let's execute these existing ones well, so that would be easy to sell more over there in the future. As I said, both of those big projects, so they are great references for us locally and globally. Also, there's the risk that if you don't execute well, so then future would be much more difficult for us. On top of that, you need to have those local partners and the global partners who can provide that expertise, what is needed in a project execution. Like we do have already existing projects in Latin America, so we have brought our expertises from there to Kuwait, and we do have a great experience out of that.
Excellent. We have been talking about Lamor way of working several times. How do you see that in the Middle East area? What are the critical things to be successful in what comes to the Lamor way of working?
I guess that we will hear in the next presentation our world-class project execution as one very good example. We are following our values. We do have a great people over there, and we do have proven processes, what we have implemented and what we implementing in the future as well.
Excellent. Any final words you would like to highlight from the Middle East?
Middle East and Africa, we have been successful over there in the past, and we do have plenty of pretty interesting opportunities in front of us. I do believe that Middle East, Africa would be place to be.
Excellent. Thank you, Pentti.
Thank you.
You can place questions for Pentti as well, after the following session. Johan will take the stage now, then we will continue with the plastics, then we will have a final Q&A session still. Now I will invite Johan Grön to join me on the stage. He's working as a Chief Operating Officer at Lamor and will be talking to us about world-class project deliveries, how we will make it happen. Please, Johan.
Thank you, Johanna. Yes, I will start with this beautiful picture. This is from the Sundarban mangrove in Bangladesh. This is one of the areas where we now announced that we will have a new project where we will work with Mongla Port in protecting the port, and that's a very important project that is starting up as we speak. On the other hand, talking about world-class, we want to be quite modest here and talk about world-class project deliveries, and that starts actually with what we say in many cases, that it's a question about trust and also repeatability in respect to the business. That's something that I want to point out with this picture, is that we do not by a chance go into the larger projects.
This is something that has been built up through references over the years. An example in this picture is that we have technologies that have been put in play, for example, in Peru, in Deepwater Horizon, when we're talking about environmental protection. The material recycling, where we started then with Ecuador remediation projects and Guyana oil sludge. I will talk a little bit of details around the projects here. The technology in respect to environmental protection. It was mentioned earlier that we have the large project in Saudi. When talking about Peru, what is then the connection to Saudi? Where in Peru, where we have been using equipment that we have in our portfolio for onshore and nearshore applications.
This means that our expertise has been in the country, together with the local authorities, with local resources, working on speccing the how to address an spill when we are talking about onshore and nearshore applications. This is something that has been going on. At the same time, earlier, 2010, but it's a very good example of the basis and what we've been building on. Deepwater Horizon. Roughly 65% of the equipment that was used in Deepwater Horizon was based on Lamor technology. We had people at site planning the response in respect to Deepwater Horizon. We were working offshore, so now we were going from onshore, nearshore to offshore. Again, a good example.
You could imagine that during the 160 days that we were deploying people in Deepwater Horizon, for example, Finnair had daily flights to the US and had space in the cargo then reserved for us, shipping equipment to address the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was up to, if you calculate all together, up to 1,000 pieces of equipment that were being used with Lamor as a provider, and 350 km of booms that were deployed out in the sea. Again, going from planning and being part of the command for addressing the oil spill, to then deploying equipment, training people, and making sure that this was happening. This was a good example of response, and then also recover afterwards.
That what happened to the equipment, for example, maintaining, making sure that it's ready for use later on in certain cases. Going over to the big solution in this place, where together with officials and government representatives in Saudi, we are doing the national response planning for what was mentioned in the previous talk, the whole, let's say, shoreline around Saudi. Being responsible together with the locals then in the three bases that we have in place at the moment. Preparing for making the preparation plan together with national governments, also looking at the risk assessment regarding the shorelines.
The proper plan with equipment, here showing that in the bases that we have now in place on the shore that are good examples what could be maybe multiple bases along the shoreline later on, where we have airplanes, large vessels, equipment, personnel, and we are participating in drills, exercises, just to make sure that the plan that is in place also can be put in play to respond. This is something that is new compared to the earlier ones. It's a development and a larger context. This, let's say an incident would happen, then also what happens with the material that are being collected. Material recycling, that's another area that we've been that is very highly connected to this, what I ended in respect to environmental protection, material that are being collected.
That material usually contains of water, oil, and then solid substances. In Guyana is a good example that was mentioned in one of the early presentations too where we are working with drill cuts. Again, water, oil, and then solid substances that needs to be treated to make sure that the recycling of the components are being tended to in the right way. In Guyana especially, where we have thermal desorption that is then taking care of the material, we are treating the water, we are separating the oil, and these three different components.
From the thermal desorption, the material, the aggregates are being used in construction industry, recycled, and then, for example, water for reuse, and oil is being returned back to the original, to the user or to the producer. Then Ecuador, where we are treating the land masses that again are contaminated or have a high content of oil in the material. It's solid components and then oil and water in some cases that is being treated with microbes to be able to reuse the land, the soil in horticulture, in agriculture, and also in landscape. That's again a recycling of the material and treating oil contaminated or materials with high oil content.
The remediation part in Ecuador and then the chemical, thermal, and reuse type of an approach in Guyana. If you're combining those, you're getting to what we have in Kuwait, an integrated treatment facility, facilities in two different locations that is based on what we learned in previous projects. Again, we in Kuwait, we are planning together with the authorities, preparing for the treatment of the land-based masses. We are responding in applying, building up the treatment facilities, getting the material in there, and doing a chemical separation of the land masses. If you have a high oil content and a lower content, we're using microbes to address the land-based masses.
References, if we're talking about oil, or the environmental protection, you could say that roughly 100 to 150 different oil spills is where our expertise or equipment has been used. In respect to material recycling, we have references in respect to the remediation, soil remediation, and then the chemical thermal separation type of process that is now being used in Kuwait. Again, a solid basis for building on the next projects that we have in respect to references, and it's a repeatable business. If you talk about the approach again, that we have, we are locally present globally. That's an important aspect that needs to be taken into consideration.
You could say that it's a local, approach, where in Saudi, for example, where we are very close to the customer, we have local, project management capabilities that have been put in place that are on-site 24/7. This is based on then, you could say from the product portfolio, we have a structured tendering process that we are following. We do also right time engineering. The engineering could be outsourced or inside our own company.
Also the procurement process that is based on a network, a global partner network that we're working together with, where if we have the hubs where we are assembling our products, the network is very close by and supporting that hub with the right type of components in the right size and right timing. Going towards the logistics and this whole process, it's a global process that extending throughout the market areas that we have. Defined in our new process going forward, and is also repeatable based on the references that we have in place from previously and now currently. An important area here is that with this references and the global approach and repeatability, we are then
We are creating a trusted and committed process with the resources in place to be able to attend this market. The competence, the competitive advantages that we pointed out in our strategy and was mentioned earlier regarding the global approach. The global approach is the process that we are running the projects with strong partners that are supporting then from supply to project execution, and also in respect to the deliveries in a global sense. Here, the Lamor offering is the basis for all of this, that it is based on strong references that are then being applied into the new projects and in the operating environment locally. A global process with a local execution.
What we want to do here is to generate a repeatable business that is agile and lower risk in that sense. We are very close, staying very close to the customers in this delivery model.
Before we move on to the plastics part, I would actually like, since you joined also Lamor quite recently, only in May, could you please describe your background? You are quite fluently talking about our business already with quite a short period of time at Lamor.
Yes. My background is, I've been involved in renewable gases in my previous work where I was responsible for renewable business, renewable gas business across the Nordics, and before that, waste-to-energy project business globally. That is probably the most relevant and, the closest background that I have that is important to Lamor's business.
Excellent.
Thank you.
Thank you for the-
Thank you.
... introduction as well. Good. Thank you for the good presentation. Once again, please place questions after the following session. We will move on to the plastics recycling supporting green transition. This will be more like a discussion. We will sit there. Please join me. Let's walk it through. All right. We told it was not less than a half year ago that we are entering into the plastics recycling business as well. That's why I think it's a good time to discuss a bit about the background, maybe try to be a bit more concrete what kind of things we are talking about and how we see why did we actually enter into this business.
Before going into that discussion, I would like to highlight just as a background a couple of words about what kind of problem we are talking about when we talk about plastics. It's said that it's one of the biggest environmental problems of our lifetime. There is huge amount of plastic waste in the seas and in the land areas, something that we really must solve. If we have a look at this paragraph, which is included on the slide, it's prepared by OECD, and it highlights with the orange color the amount of plastics, which is basically ending up in not even landfill but really going to the nature without any procedures taking place. The dark blue one is the part which is landfilled, so basically, nothing to do with recycling.
Then the light blue and the color on the right-hand side is the amount which is currently being recycled, less than a 10% currently globally. We have a problem we must solve. We must have more recycling for our plastics going forward, and we must have methods to treat the recycled plastics going forward. It is an initiative that EU is also having on the agenda currently, and I guess that's why we're talking about it today as well. Going a bit about to the background, why did we actually enter into this transaction with Resiclo and what is the plan for us?
I mean, going back to the picture you showed and summarized pretty well, I mean, plastic, it is a pollution. I mean, there is a significant leakage to the nature. I mean, if you look at the annual leakage to nature, I mean, it is estimated somewhere around 8 to 12 million tons. I mean, the whole leakage in the history of mankind is estimated to be 50 million tons, so that gives you an idea that how fast that rate is actually increasing.
I mean, it is easy for us to say here or sit here and say that we are doing everything that we can to recycle 'cause we have those yellow bins. That is not the reality outside of the Nordic countries and Northern Europe. Then again, I mean, we are talking about an environmental pollutant. It is leakage. It is a spill in a sense, so we are a spill response company. Then again, I mean, you look at the spillage on water, I mean, we are the largest manufacturer of spill response equipment. Typically, we've treated liquid hydrocarbons. We are talking about solid hydrocarbons. The technology that can be applied to collect the plastics from the water, it is more or less the same. That was the original linkage to Lamor business.
I mean, designing or retrofitting our existing technology to collect plastics from the rivers and from the oceans. Again, I mean, if you look at the cost of that operation, it is not commercially viable. You can do that as a sort of corporate social responsibility. A lot of companies are funding that type of activities. We at Lamor, we strongly believe that an environmental challenge cannot be solved unless it is a commercially viable solution. We started looking at this issue from a different perspective that, how can we enable this type of, sort of non-profitable business taking place? The only solution is that we start with the land-based collection system. We look at great volumes. We see what can be done with those great volumes, and maybe on the side there can be certain attempts to restore the environment.
Two aspects, I mean, it is a spill in a sense. Unlike oil spills, I mean, you don't have an owner. I mean, everyone in the global economy is the owner of that issue. I mean, in OECD, the plastic consumption per capita is 60 kilos. Every OECD citizen is contributing with the 60 kilos of plastic waste on a yearly basis. That plastic in the nature doesn't have an owner. We all own it.
Good. What kind of market potential do we see here? What are we talking about? We have been talking about a huge amount of plastic waste, what about from the recycling point of view?
I mean, you look at the annual plastic production, I mean, it is somewhere around 350 million tons on a yearly basis, estimated to triple by 2060. I mean, unlike we hear in the media and in the public discussion that plastics are going away, I mean, it is the contrary. The plastic consumption is actually increasing at a very fast pace. I mean, we are committed to the green transformation. I mean, the transformation away from fossil fuel, fossil-based raw materials and then we have this other trend that will triple the consumption of plastics. Something needs to be done. I mean, there are, I mean, bio-based feedstocks available. It will decrease the amount of land area used for food production, for example.
It will compete with the production of renewable fuels. That will not alone solve the problem. 350 million consumption today, and let's say that in a perfect world, maybe 1/3 of that can be mechanically recycled. Juhan going to talk a bit more about these different types of recycling methods. That's always downcycling, so you will never upcycle mechanically. There is only certain amount of demand for mechanical recycled feedstock or raw material. We need additional type of recycling to complement and to really fulfill the demand that the global economy has for plastic moving forward. Some estimates say that the potential globally for chemical recycling by 2045, 2050 is $250 billion on a yearly basis.
All right. That is something to search for. What about the legislation? I mentioned already that the EU legislation is changing and requiring to increase the recycling of plastics. How does that impact our-
Yeah, I mean.
... plans?
Depending, there are a few big numbers being thrown here and there, I mean, 55%, 60%. Then again, I mean, we look at the raw material stream or the waste stream and the use of that waste stream and a good estimate is that maybe one-third can be mechanically recycled. In order to reach those targets, I mean, we cannot just rely on mechanical recycling. There needs to be additional technology applied for us to reach the targets. Then again, I mean, if you look at the plastic producers, I mean, they are all committed to more sustainable raw material streams. I mean, they are all committed to carbon neutrality, moving away from fossil-based feedstocks. That is sort of the market where we are playing.
Good. Then we have on the slide, different kind of drivers for us which are driving us further relating to market, relating to processes and technologies. Johan, how would you describe these and how are these impacting the process we are searching for?
I would like to start with building a little bit on what Mika was saying, that if you think about the mechanical recycling at the moment, there is a lot of reject, there's a lot of plastics that cannot be used in the mechanical recycling. It's still a process that in that sense is utilizing quite high grade type of plastics. What happens with the rest then? Today it's been incinerated or landfilled. We know that landfilling, that will be, I mean, across the globe, it will be, it will see a lot of resistance in that sense, and it's been prohibiting in some areas already.
In respect to incineration, we know that there has been for 10 years a discussion about implying tax on plastics that is being put into incineration. There needs to be another other way of utilizing this, and also to improve the plastics recycling, sustainability around the plastics recycling. That's where the chemical, the thermochemical type of recycling is coming into play and has a really important area to play in. I think that from that point of view, there is a clear need for this kind of technology. Otherwise, where do we put it? Landfill is prohibited and then soon to be also the incineration route will be closed.
Shipping out of Europe to countries that has previously been taking it, that route is also crossed out. By that sense, there is a play for the thermochemical processing. Plastic materials will be available for both the mechanical side, the high grade type of recycled products, and then also for the lower grade, the scrap plastics that then go somewhere else. We know that, I mean, the market is also changing. There's a high demand for these kind of products. If you do the thermochemical treatment route, recycling route, then you will end up with monomers that can then be used as raw materials than in new areas. Post-consumer packaging, that's quite clear.
Also electronics, car industry are using more and more polymer-based products, and that's a clear area where these kind of products can also be introduced. Construction materials. The market, and these are large volume areas, so the need for this kind of material is increasing. The availability is very crucial. That means that the efficiency of the processes that are processing and generating recycled plastics need to be tuned also, and that's where mechanical and the thermochemical type of processing comes into play. Acceptance, if you talk about the product drivers, then the acceptance for these kind of products is also increasing. Previously, it was a little bit debatable.
I mean, the odor, the physical, I mean, physical properties of these kind of products were debatable. That's not the case anymore because the processes are improving from where they were previously, that's a very important thing. There are pushes also for this that we talked about, the incentives and also the energy efficiency in this process, that processes that are being developed even further and, I mean, gases that are produced in the process are being utilized then also to improve the energy efficiency of both these combined integrated mechanical and thermochemical processes.
What about the technologies? Are they evolving, changing? What does it mean actually if we talk about the technology around this topic?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we talk about the mechanical part. I mean, the regranulates, that's one thing that is very, very important, where you have then from everything from transparent to black type of granulates. That's from the mechanical side. Then you have the liquids that is now a new feature, a new type of a product area that is being developed through the thermochemical processing process. This is where the end-to-end process technology development has happened. You can take in a wider range of material, and you process it through the process then that you can get uniformity to a level that is required for the product that is then being provided to the offtaker.
The world is opening up, and the demand for this kind of a technology is quite clear. Now this is why we've then embarked on this to make sure that we have a technology that we can, that is proven and we can then get into the first steps of proven technology and reference for that, and then take it into the next step when then a full-fledged production facility then combined with mechanical and thermochemical treatment.
When you talk about technology, it's interesting to hear that you often combine it with the whole process.
Mm.
How is that? Why is that? Why is it so critical for this process?
I mean, this is all about. I mean, it's not only the. Usually when we talk about thermochemical type of a processing, we are referring to the pyrolysis, that part. It's all the material treatment before and the post-treatment, and this is very, I mean, they cannot be divided, separated. It's an full process that needs to be tuned and made more efficient. That's where the energy recovery in the process also come into play. This is not the...
I mean, there are references out there for certain technologies, and that's where we are embarking on making sure that we can then prove the concepts and with the material that we have available and then to get a product that is then sufficient for the offtake.
There we have a process flow picture here as well highlighting once again the mechanical and thermochemical recycling parts. I guess you told quite well already how the recycling process actually is working. Here we are talking about mechanical and chemical recycling. What is our part now? What is the plan, how we are planning to move forward? Mika can take the question as well.
If we look at these two streams, I think, I mean, you typically get mixed plastic waste. You have separate collection for plastic waste where you get something that can be mechanically recycled, what may be one-third in the best possible scenario, a bit more, and then you have the non-mechanical recyclable part. As you had mentioned, I mean, the first plastic waste stream that we are targeting is the reject from the mechanical recycling process. Everything that we do in terms of recycling is to increase the recycling rate of the current waste streams.
What about the end product? How can it be used? Where who will be the users of the end product?
I mean, it really depends on the whole process like you had mentioned, whether you stop at the liquefaction process or whether you have the post-treatment there. If you stop at the waste liquefaction part, I mean, typically, your clients will be refineries such as Neste, who's committed to build capabilities to further refine liquefied plastic waste as they call it. I mean, if you look at the simple distillation process on that pyrolysis oil, let's call it that, I mean, that can be directly used in the petrochemical industry.
It is the playground where Lamor has played for the past 40 years, that we know the end clients, we work with most of them, so we see it as a natural fit.
What about where do we receive the raw materials? You mentioned that it is a leftover from the mechanical recycling part. How does it work in practice?
I mean, you have the producer responsibility organization, I mean, "Tuottajavastuuyhteisöt" in Finnish, I can't remember what's the direct translation, that have the requirement to recycle the plastics that they produce on an annual basis. There's a co-op for that. Some of that is then being taken into mechanical recycling. Our plan is to utilize the reject of the mechanical recycling process of one of these co-ops.
Johan, what do you see, which are the most critical success factors for us to be successful in this initiative?
I would say that if you're looking at the whole process, I mean, what we have illustrated here in the, in the slide is that we see this as the optimal way of addressing recycling plastics, that you would have the mechanical route and a chemical route, and these are interconnected. For us now, in the first phase is really to validate the thermochemical route and to make sure that we have the process there and we also, with the raw material that is available, then that we can do, that we can make the end products that is really targeted for this. That is something that we are embarking on at the moment. We are quite comfortable with the mechanical recycling path.
We are looking, I mean, this is not only a vision, it's no promise. Regarding the lower route, that is something that we are embarking on very heavily at the moment to make sure that we can validate this and we are not interested in the individual pieces. It's the whole puzzle that is important here, that we get that tuned and validated.
Excellent. Maybe Mika, you could still summarize what is the current status of the project?
I mean, like we already communicated in June that we expect to close the transaction by the end of the year. I hinted in our Q3 webcast that there have been certain hiccups in terms of the closing conditions, but we still expect to close it by the end of the year. If the time schedule changes, then we'll communicate about it as per the rules, as the regulations.
Excellent. Thank you for the discussion. We will close the plastic session and the sessions overall, and then we will move back to the Q&A session. Happy to take questions from the audience here on site as well as audience online as well. Please join us, Timo and Pentti as well. Yes, please go ahead.
All right. Thanks. Again, Antti Koskinen from Danske. A few questions, firstly on the Middle East and about the Kuwait tenders that are... I don't know if they're ongoing, you know. The question is, what would be the expected timeline to hear something from those tenders?
Maybe I'll take that. Bids submitted, that is officially done, public information. As hinted between the lines, there are certain cowboys in the market, meaning that it could be that not all of the bidders are technically qualified. The way the tender is structured is that you go from the cheapest, and then you go to the next cheapest. If you have a lot of these technical disqualification, it will affect the timing of the award. If we look at the previous project where the bid date was November 15, we announced I mean, we didn't announce. We weren't listed at that time.
We did the signing, if I'm not mistaken, July 7th of the following year, so that would have been, what, seven and a half months. Given the delays, potential delays, we could be looking at somewhere around 9 to 10 months. That would be my best estimate.
All right. Very well. About the competitive advantages that you laid out in the presentation being global approach, strong partner network, and Lamor's offering. Just wondering how do you see it, which of those or what of those are the most difficult to replicate by some, you know, some competitor?
I would like to, I don't know whether this is too bullish now, but, I would say that if you're talking about environmental protection, there are not many total solution providers that you could perhaps name Lamor at the moment. If you're looking at the Saudi project at the moment and the references that are behind that kind of a project, there are not many that kind of players out in the market.
The capability of, let's say, deploying that kind of, let's say, both the equipment and getting the, let's say, the vessels, whether we are up in the air or down in the sea, in that kind of a timescale that is required for this kind of a project, I don't either see that many players out there in the market. Of course, there are, but there are not many. The fast response, that is in the genes of Lamor, that we talked about the oil spill response, that we, within two days we have a team on site that is doing assessments around what is needed in respect to equipment, resourcing, everything, and then to start to deploy it.
I think that in Deepwater Horizon, it took 16 days, and we had equipment started to fly into that area. Being able to execute on large projects and then the response, I think that that is something that is unique.
Then the bigger the project size gets, the bigger the amount of assets is that you're going to need. When we look at the synergies from technology and service provision perspective, I mean, and we look at the global players in the technology market for spill response equipment, I mean, we still do hold something like 40% of the global players. The three next largest players are our size. The bigger the project size gets, it is even harder for the service providers to find the equipment in the time needed. We know that all of these competitors of ours, they rely on in-house production. It doesn't scale up. If they want to provide certain capacity within a very short period of time, either they rely on our technology, or they can't do it.
Maybe also that, of course, there are these fast response type of projects. Kuwait, that is a big project where we are putting in place the national preparedness plan together with officials. That is including also equipment supply, warehousing, deployment of whatever is needed. That gives time also to prepare for it. The earlier you're involved, the more secure you are then also about the next phases. I would say that that earlier-ness in being part of the planning team, that is very important, and that's what we see now in.
Yeah. Then again, if maybe a good bridge to the Middle East market, I mean, you look at the Saudi project, I mean, it is for three years, now they've disclosed that, okay, they're actually going to something like five-fold that. Are they going scale it up with some of the existing service providers? Are they going to kick out the existing one who's the only one who actually has any experience of working there? I do believe that the early wins that we've had in both markets, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, are really sort of the defining points where you create a long-standing competitive advantage over your competition.
It's still a reference business. I mean, what we said, 100 to 150 oil spills globally where our equipment or expertise has been involved.
How big of a reference is actually your own equipment with your own brand and so forth? I mean, I know you use also other providers, but is that a key factor?
It is something visible. I mean, it is acknowledging the market to be the most commonly used technology for spill response, and it is something visible, something tangible. Anyone going to a warehouse, I mean, it is different seeing a Lamor overall than seeing a pile or a line of beautiful Lamor skimmers or Lamor boom. From brand recognition perspective, I see very important, but then again, more important it is from the technology service synergy perspective.
All right. Last one from me. Little bit the same question about competitive advantage, but from the plastic point of view. Where are the Lamor's competitive advantage? What makes you the chosen one if you will, in this field?
Chosen one, the humble ones... like Jürgen Klopp once said. We believe that the plastic, let's call it liquefaction industry, it is going to be a local business. I mean, there is no point in transporting the dry baled plastic waste over spans of hundreds of kilometers. We do believe that it will be a local business, which means that in the early phase, it's going to be a very fragmented business.
Then again, I mean, if you look at us, I mean, you look what we've done in Guyana, I mean, we've built greenfield, a modern state-of-the-art turnkey waste management facility in Guyana with zero infrastructure, understanding what is the waste stream that we're going to get, making a few guesses here and there cause the client didn't know what they're producing, then we get a rather standard feedstock. Designing a process around that is significantly easier than building a process on a few unknowns here and there. Then again, if you look at the ecosystem, you look at. I mean, it is the waste management operation in essence, waste management process.
You look at the off-takers, I mean, we work with those clients for many years, and I think one of the keys is that we understand the process requirements of both the oil and gas and the petrochemical industry. I mean, we understand that what are the quality requirements, what are the process requirements, what are the work safety requirements to even supply the raw material or the end product, if you like, to those customers. It is just that you build a factory, and you start producing something. It is a hugely complicated process to certify your process, your end product, to satisfy the requirements of the off-takers, and I think our 40-year experience in this industry gives us a huge advantage.
The starting point is quite good at the moment too, that we have a good grip on the raw material, incoming raw material. We have a good grip and alternatives to the production process, and we have good contacts with off-takers. I think that also improves the credibility of the process, and we're not going to reinvent the wheel regarding the technology itself. It's proven technology that will be combined, and that's something that we are going for.
I found one more question about that. You mentioned 100 kilotons. How, what should be the level of the business, like, in long term if your clients are Neste and, you know, the steam crackers in the world, what should be the volume it should be kind of, you know, strong in that business? It's 100 kilotons is.
That's very little. I mean.
Yeah
I mean, you look at Neste wants to refine million tons per year here in Porvoo, so it is a very small part, and that's why we're not the chosen ones. We're the humble ones in this business. I mean, it is basically two markets. I mean, we've already said that we target 40 kilotons in Finland, so that would mean opening up another market by 2025, by the end of 2025, having that portfolio in place.
All right. Thank Thank you very much.
Thank you for the questions. Before I let the other one ask from the audience, Pentti, a question to you now that we are talking about the plastics recycling. How do you see the opportunities in the Middle East relating to plastics recycling?
Good question, I would say. When it comes to Saudi, so, and a reference to SIRC, who are responsible of dealing with the all waste in the Kingdom, so we do have some discussions already in place, but nothing to report right now over here.
Good.
The same goes to all other countries in the Middle East. It is a problem over there, and, it will be solved and...
Yeah, making a few connections here and there. We look at the parent company of Borealis, 25% owned by the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Abu Dhabi. I mean, if you have that target in your associate company or in your investment, I think that implies something in the Emirates as a whole.
Johan, please go ahead.
I think that it's not a question about if, it's when. I mean, we are talking about huge amount of plastics that needs to be recycled. If there is a question about efficiency of that process, and there is no landfills, there is no incineration that can be, or at, additional cost can be used, then, I mean, it's quite obvious that we need to combine these two streams and push it forward. This ...
Talking about market price for this kind of a product, for example, I would put analogies to, for example, renewable gases, where there is no market price, and there is a skyrocketing price that is developing at the moment, and the need for, let's say, mixture of virgin and recyclable is needed, and isn't that the same that could potentially happen here? I would assume so.
Exactly. Thank you for the comments. Please, go ahead.
Abli Burman from Inderes Oyj. Thank you for the presentations. Just the one question, today we have a talk about the huge potential in Middle East, but what do you see as the main risks related to Lamor's Middle East growth?
I think, Pentti, you mentioned it in your presentation.
Biggest risk what I do see over there in the Middle East that we are failing executing our existing projects. That's the risk what I see, but at the moment, I feel that all of our projects are going pretty well and we have been able to mitigate that risk, at least as of right now.
You don't see any policy changes coming forward?
Not really related to our deliveries.
Okay. Thank you.
Again, I mean, if you look at the Saudi market, I mean, by 2025 you most likely need to have the regional headquarters in the kingdom in order to qualify for the public tender. There are certain potential policy changes that could take place, most likely will take place, but it is nothing that would stop us from doing business. It just means that we need to adapt. We need to play by the market rules that are there.
It is more or less a part of our local presence strategy that we do have a local presence over there. We do have a local entity, and we play with the local rules.
Johan had a comment as well. Go ahead.
I think that you could perhaps turn that question around, that there are potentials with if legislation tightens, that more recycling is needed, more reuse of materials, clean up, ports, areas.
Yeah, that's an excellent point. I mean, if you look at Aramco, I mean, producing 10 million barrels a day, treatment of drilling waste, nonexistent.
Thank you.
Good. I would like to ask a question from Timo. You talked about the tailwinds and headwinds we have ahead of us. Now that we have spent the two and a half hours here, how do you see it as the CFO? What are the biggest risks we have on the table overall?
No, yeah.
It's easy to be of the same opinion with Pentti. Of course, that's the kind of a backbone that we have to be successful in what we do today. From the financial point of view, of course, then to be able to get the or take the next steps in the strategy. If we somehow fail and the doors are closed, then of course, we will be in trouble in many sense. That is clearly one thing. We discussed about the funding. Of course, the total closure of the financial markets, if we are on the road that we would need those services would be something.
I mean, we cannot build on any strategy on a doomsday vision either.
Good. I guess we have used our time for questions. Any further questions from the audience here on site? If not, I would say that we close with the key notes and key takeaways still, and then we are closing this session. Thank you for all for your contribution. Let's close the afternoon with a couple of key messages. I would actually like to start with a picture we have been referring to a couple of times already today. What is our Vision 25 looking like in a three years' time ? We can't say it enough that people, competent people, committed people with a good values, Lamor values on their mind, that is the thing we are building on our business.
That is for sure. We want to be the preferred partner towards the cleaner tomorrow for our customers. We have been talking through all of these five strategic key initiatives we are having, being the number one partner in certain markets, entering into new markets, working with the plastics recycling problem, having the new, mega projects or major projects in place in the future as well. How would you summarize? Which are the key takeaways we should take with us?
All right. Thank you for helping with the messages, yeah. I mean, I think the main point is that our growth is driven very heavily by the global megatrends. I mean, we look at the sustainability from a bigger picture point of view. We look at climate change, we look at decreasing biodiversity, we look at the minimization of resource usage. I mean, that is by far the biggest tailwind that we have. The issue for us is not whether there's a market for us to grow. It is whether we are able to grasp that market.
If you look at the performance that we've been able to do over the past two years, I mean, we've taken part in quite a few international tenders, and so far, so good, we have 100% hit rate. I mean, I've always said that one day that's going to end. Is it going to end so that we're not going to win any more business, that we're going to lose five in a row or six in a row? Now, I don't believe in that. One of the key messages is that strongest tailwind, global mega trends, the market size is not the limiting factor. It is our capability to win the market. The second key message is that, I mean, we've identified clear tangible targets. As I started with, I mean, previously, we were growth-oriented.
We've always been growth-oriented, but that was. I mean, we were shooting all over the place. I mean, if we saw a project here or there, I mean, we would go there. Now we've clearly defined that where do we want to play? Where do we invest in terms of time and resources? We've defined the key markets. Internally, we've also identified the key project that we're going to develop. I think that's the biggest difference, that now we are more committed, more focused in making it a reality. We have a very committed team. We've made significant investments over the past few months, year and a half, in building a world-class organization. I mean, like we see with you here today, I mean, excellent hosting. Thank you. Juhana, significant experience in world-class project delivery.
Pentti joined the team, having lived 20 to 25 years in the Middle East and Africa region. I think, just to name a few, of course, we have plenty of other great team players. I mean, I think we have a significantly stronger team in place than we did a year ago. I think that really will drive the change. Then again, I mean, global partner network, I mean, we've known to play in the network. I mean, we understand how to play in the network business. We want to be the preferred partner. We want to be a great partner for our partners to develop the business together. I think those are the key takeaways that I would take home from this event, and very exciting times ahead, I would say.
Exactly. I join with that statement as well. I guess we are ready for today. Thank you for all of you for joining us. It has been a pleasure to spend the afternoon with you. For those who have not done it yet, please go to investors.lamor.com and order our releases to stay tuned also going forward. Hopefully, there will be news sooner or later. Thank you a lot for all of you. Let's be in touch.
Thank you.