Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this results briefing for Wärtsilä Financial Statements Bulletin 2022. My name is Hanna-Maria Heikkinen. I'm in charge of investor relations. Today, our CEO, Håkan Agnevall, will start with the group highlights, continue with the business area performance, and after that, our CFO, Arjen Berends, will continue with the key financials. After the presentation, there is a possibility to ask questions. Time to start. Please, Håkan.
Thank you, Hanna-Maria, and welcome, everybody. Let's dive into it straight away. If we sum up the full year of 2022, it's been a challenging year, but on the positive side, with strong annual growth. Order intake increased by 6%. Net sales has increased by 22%. We do see continued good progress on the services side. The service order intake increased by 17% and actually exceeded the equipment order intake in absolute terms. The service net sales also increased by 12%. On the negative side, the comparable operating result declined by 9%.
The result was supported by the higher sales volumes, but it was burdened by cost inflation, less favorable sales mix between equipment and services, and the cost provision that we released in Q4 for EUR 40 million related to the Olkiluoto nuclear project. 2022 has also been a year of quite a few structural changes. I mean, first, we did the orderly exit from the Russian market, and we have completed that. We announced our plan to centralize our four-stroke manufacturing to Vaasa, Finland, and to scale down manufacturing in Trieste in Italy. We have also decided to integrate the Voyage business into Marine Power to strengthen the end-to-end offering and accelerate the Voyage turnaround. Now, if we look at the numbers, and I will focus a little bit on the Q4 side.
If we see the order intake, it went down quarter-on-quarter from EUR 2.1 billion- EUR 1.6 billion. It's a 24% decrease. We should remember Q4 2021 was an all-time high quarter for Wärtsilä history. If you look really at the order intake on the full year, actually 2022 has the second-highest order intake in Wärtsilä history. The highest year was still 2018. From order intake side, I would say a pretty strong year. Services, jumping back to the quarter, is continuing to grow from EUR 747 million to EUR 791 million, 6% growth. Net sales also growing from EUR 1.6 billion- EUR 1.8 billion, 11% growth.
book-to-bill, we have been living now with a number of quarters above 1. It's coming down slightly below 1. The rolling, 12-month rolling is still above 1, but it's coming down a little bit in this quarter. Operating result, clearly coming down 75% from EUR 144 million to EUR 37 million, and by that from 9%- 2.1%. Similar development on the comparable operating result, down 41% from EUR 158 million to EUR 93 million. Looking at the fourth quarter highlights, Net sales, close to EUR 1.8 billion and 4% increase in services sales. The comparable operating result landed at EUR 93 million, which is a 41% decline.
If we look at the marine market, I would say that the market sentiment continued to improve despite the growing macroeconomic concerns. New build investments were moderated due to close to full order books at many yards and also higher new build prices. If we look at the number of vessels in Q4, they decreased to 1,538, down from 1,855 year-on-year comparison. Order activity was supported by record high orders for LNG carriers, especially in terms of order value. Fleet utilization on the passenger travel segment has improved and the offshore assets reactivation also continued.
466 orders were placed globally for alternative fuel-capable vessels. That represents about 30% of all contracted ships and 60% of the vessel capacity in the review period. The cruise sector focus shifted towards managing the capacity growth and occupancy levels in a profitable way and mitigating the impact of a rising operating cost. Looking at the energy side, I would say, or we would say that the energy transition outlook is very strong. The energy crisis has brought out a clear need and an ambition for a structural change in the energy sector. The uncertainty caused by the geopolitical situations continues to affect the investment environment for liquid and gas-fueled power plants and energy storage. I would say that U.S. is moving very strong, Europe is holding back for the moment a bit.
Beyond some of the short-term setbacks, the energy transition outlook is very strong and advancing the renewable energy buildup strengthens the security of supply by reducing dependency on fossil fuels. Growth in the demand for the energy storage solutions continued. A really interesting figure, 42% of our full year thermal order intake was related to balancing power. Balancing is really growing as we speak. Service growth continued and customers are showing increasing interest in long-term agreements. Our market share for the gas and liquid fuel power plants increased a notch from 7%-8%. Looking at order increase, overall, the order intake decreased by 24%. The equipment order intake decreased by 40%, but it's from the all-time high quarter last year.
Services are on the other side, the order intake increased by 6%. We have a strong order book and the rolling book-to-bill is still above 1. If you see where we went out from the last day of 2022, you can see that we are building for deliveries in 2023. Net sales increased by 11% and equipment net sales increased by 17% and services net sales increased by 4%. Technology and partnerships. What are we doing there? What have we done in the last quarter? The decarbonization journey continues, and the decarbonization theme continues, I would say, to accelerate. We clearly continue to have a lot of interest from our customers, both on the energy and on the marine side.
We really feel the strength in the trend. A couple of exciting things that we have done the last quarter. We launched our next generation of grid balancing technology. This is a solution that is based on 3 fully integrated key components. It's first the Wärtsilä 31SG balancing engine. It's a concept with prefabricated modules to drive really cost efficiency for plant construction. The third element is the Wärtsilä Lifecycle services. That combined, it's a very interesting customer proposition. The engines can start and ramp up rapidly, do a lot of ramp ups and ramp downs under adverse weather condition. It's a very robust solution to support intermittent renewable generation.
We have concluded a exciting test successfully. It's a hydrogen-blended fuel on an unmodified engine. We are taking an existing engine, we blend in the hydrogen, and we run it in full operation. And this is a testing that we did in Michigan, in the U.S., in collaboration with WEC Energy Group, with EPRI, and Burns & McDonnell. Throughout the testing period, this 18 MW Wärtsilä 50SG engine continued to supply power to the grid. This is really the largest internal combustion engine ever to operate continuously on a hydrogen fuel blend. This is a world's first achievement. Of course, it's a step to other steps, but we are moving the needle. Marine Power, fantastic picture. The Marine Power had very good progress in services.
I think the picture, actually this fantastic picture also reflects the fantastic performance of Marine Power. Service order intake increased by 23%, and service net sales increased by 17%. You can see the order intake is up 2%. Net sale was down a little bit with 5%. If you look at the comparable operating result, it was up from EUR 75 million to EUR 80 million. On the positive side, we do see the good service performance and also favorable mix between equipment and services. On the challenging side, we have the cost deflation affecting materials, especially components, transport, and test fuel calls, test fuel cost.
Component unavailability has also been a bit of a challenge. The high energy prices in general for all is also having an effect, but in net a positive development. If we look at our service agreement business on the Marine Power, it's really developing in a positive way, and net sales from installations under agreement is strongly increasing. As you can see, we are well above now the pre-COVID levels. Really good development on services. Another example that we want to bring is how we are evolving our hybrid propulsion systems, combining batteries, combustion engines. Now we combine the batteries with our methanol engines. We just got an order for that, which is really exciting. It's a hybrid propulsion system to be supplied for 4 new heavy lift vessels.
It's, they're gonna be built at the Wuhu Shipyard in China for SAL Heavy Lift. Our innovative hybrid system will minimize the ship's CO2 emission, thus supporting the marine sector's decarbonization. The system will feature a variable speed, Wärtsilä 32 main engine, capable of operating on methanol fuel. On the hybrid side, we are really in a strong position. We are the market leader with about 25% market share based on installed MW hours. It's a very strong and interesting business going forward. Marine systems. Marine systems, net sales were stable and so were comparable operating result. Service order intake increased by 11%. You can see the order intake came down, mostly driven by the scrubber business. The net sale up 6%.
If you look at the comparable operating result, it's a little bit down, but I would say it's rather flat. We have a steady development on the services side, but we have also had lower scrubber volumes in the quarter. Voyage. Voyage had a positive and improving comparable operating results. Service orders were stable. Order intake was down. You can see it down 21%. Net sales up a notch, 1%. If you see the positive development on comparing our operating results from EUR 1 million to EUR 5 million, the key driver was the higher profitability in services, then being able to fully balance the closure of the profitable Russian turnkey business, which is not contributing to Voyage anymore, and also the cost inflation.
Our cloud solutions in Voyage continue to grow, 19% increase in connected vessels. Here we have, I think a really interesting example what we can achieve. This is from Carisbrook Shipping that had really proven that they can improve the environmental footprint using our Fleet Optimisation Solution. Carisbrook Shipping has in 2022, using FORS, reported a fuel reduction of 5%-7%. This is significant, and saved over 600 tons of CO2 emissions. Carisbrook, they are responsible for monitoring vessel position, passage plans and routes, advising on maximizing cargo intake, and monitoring vessel safety and performance. They use real-time data that enable continuous optimization of the fuel consumption across the fleet.
I should also say this was the last time that we reported Voyage in this context. Voyage is now being integrated, as you know, into Marine Power and will be part of the end-to-end offering, combining propulsion, the fleet optimization, and performance services. We have also earlier informed that we will present an updated strategy for Voyage in Q1, that is coming. Energy. Energy had a challenging quarter. I mean, the Olkiluoto cost provisions really burden the result, and also the challenges with cost inflation remained. The order intake came down from record levels, down 37%, whereas the net sales went up with 28%. You can really see the significant downturn in comparable operating results from EUR 64 million to actually negative EUR 8 million in the quarter.
On the positive side, we have a improved cost leverage on the storage, on the battery side, due to the high delivery volumes. The real challenges were the cost provisions of EUR 40 million related to Olkiluoto, the cost inflation in equipment projects, and also a less favorable sales mix between equipment and services. Energy storage net sales continued to grow, and profitability has been improving, and the full year comparable operating result was approximately 4% in 2022. This is the figure that I know many have been asking about, and now we are making this public. This is a full year, -4% in energy storage. Some really good examples on the balancing side. Here we have three different projects, well, three different deliveries.
We have first, our internal combustion engine technology for 2 new balancing power plants in the upper Midwest. The Wärtsilä engines, they were selected primarily for the grid balancing capabilities. As the utility expands its integration of renewable energy in wind and solar, basically. The 2 plants will operate with Wärtsilä 34DF, the dual-fuel engines. First plant will generate 28 MWs based on 3 engines. Second, 47 MW of power on 5 engines. We have another balancing example, this time from Basin Electric in the U.S., 130 MW, also balancing, also integrating renewables, enabling the integration of renewables into the power system.
It is really this fast starting, stopping, in a very short time that can support the intermittent renewables. That is the key trigger. It's also rugged solution that can really cope with weather of all types and conditions. If we look at the energy service agreement side, we also continue the good development on the coverage, so to say. You can see that the trend is continuous, and it's going in the right direction. Another key part of our business development is all the power system studies that we do, the power system modeling, and we have done quite a few during the recent years. The latest one here is a system modeling that we did for Nigeria, South Africa, and Mozambique.
The modeling found that renewable energy combined with flexible power can generate enough energy to provide power for close to 100 million people who currently do not have energy access, if it is matched with the required grid infrastructure. The report also demonstrate that replacing coal with renewable energy, combined with flexibility from engines and energy storage, is the most effective way to reduce energy cost, increase energy access, and improve reliability. I think we are doing these studies in many parts of the world, and this is a common conclusion that we reach, so to say. Arjen, other key finances.
Yes, I have a own clicker. Thank you, Håkan. If we look at the other key financial, few points to highlight on this slide. We had a positive cash flow in Q4, EUR 51 million. Unfortunately, let's say, not enough to take the full year to a profitable, sorry, not to a profitable, but to a positive number. Cash flow has been a bit of challenge during the year. It started already in the beginning of the year with a negative working capital at the start, which was really driven by big customer payments that came in in December 2021. In addition, we also had, during the year, to raise our inventory levels to facilitate increased spare part business. There is an echo on my mic. Okay, now it's better.
To facilitate increased spare part business and also to, let's say, smoothen or have a smooth footprint changes on the four-stroke side. For example, the ramp-up of the sustainable technology hub in Vaasa. Net debt increased. We paid back EUR 93 million of long-term debt during the year, but due to a low cash flow, as well as, let's say, increased leases, EUR 69 million, also related mainly to the sustainable technology hub in Vaasa, the net debt position went from EUR 4 million to EUR 481 million. That, of course, also has an impact on the gearing ratio, even though the gearing ratio is still at a good level. As you know, we want to be below 0.5.
Solvency improved a bit, during the quarter four, but has been throughout the year 2022, around 35%. Of course, let's say the negative profitability having a clear impact on the equity in the equation of solvency calculation. Looking at cash flow, the left side graph, you can clearly see the challenging start. Let's say we had 2 quarters, with negative operating cash flow, and then in the second half of the year, we had 2 quarters with positive operating cash flow. As said, not enough to take the full year to a positive number. Again, let's say the big Q4 gave us somewhat of a back start in the, in the beginning of the year.
If we open up a little bit on the fourth quarter standalone, you could say that the operating cash flow generated in Q4 came about 50/50 from one part being the result, and the second part being the change in working capital. In particular, trade payables is a big bar here, and that is mainly related to purchases for near-term deliveries. Looking at dividend, as you know, our target is to pay at least 50% of EPS as dividend. If you look at historical years, that's clearly the case. Now we have a loss making situation, but the board still proposes EUR 0.26 as dividend for 2022. Giving back to you, Håkan, on the prospects.
Thank you, Arjen. If we look at the prospects, so we go back to giving the prospects for the next 12 months. We now expect the demand environment for the next 12 months in the Marine Power and marine systems, to be similar to that of last year. For the Energy business, we expect the demand environment to be better than last year. Okay, those were the prospects. Let's move over to the Q&A. I suggest we do like we normally do, that please raise your hand digitally and state your name, et cetera. Let's start with one question per person and then, of course, you can come back. Let's open the floor.
Okay. First question on the line is from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please open up your microphone and ask your question.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Do you hear me?
Hola. Welcome.
Okay. Hey, perfect. My question is regarding, like, the statement on your outlook where you talk about, I think you used the words, turning around in Voyage and in storage, and I wanted to clarify. Is that a comment for 2023? Do you expect those businesses to break even already in 2023, or is that more of a medium term comment? Just related to this, but there's a comment also that you have more EPC within storage now. What does that mean for that comment and for the medium term margin? Thank you.
I would say that our earlier message over a few years, it still holds. I think we are moving in the right direction. You could see now in the storage the - 4, and we say that we have a positive trend. I still think you should look this over a few years. Similar on the Voyage side, I think we've seen strong Q4s, but there is still a turnaround to be made, so to say, and that will take a few years. As I said, we will come back during Q1 with updated strategy. That I can clearly say.
All right. Thank you.
Sorry.
The storage strong Q4 is very much driven by a good volume actually, and also good service business.
Next up is Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please.
Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes. Hello, Max.
Yeah. Hi. I just wanted to ask about how to think about energy margins into next year, because I think you've been quite open in saying that you had some backlog that was impacted by higher component costs. I think you've talked about EUR 2.2 billion of lower margin revenue falling to EUR 1.2 billion this year.
Mm.
I guess when we look at the energy margin and kind of where you were in 2021, is there any reason that we shouldn't get a sort of significant natural uplift just by price cost on orders that you've taken in the second half being a lot more favorable, and potentially going back to those 2020, 2021 levels? I guess can you confirm that sort of price cost on orders going into the backlog in energy are, I guess, more like 2021 in the thermal business, and how should we think about maybe the business in 2022 compared to... sorry, in 2023 compared to what we were doing in 2021?
No.
Yeah.
No, thank you, Max. We don't give guidance, of course, on profit margins, et cetera. I mean, to your point, it's clearly your observation is right that, you know, we are working through an order backlog, and EUR 2.2 for this year, we have still EUR 1.2 approximately to deliver in 2023. As that transfers through the system, I think we should see more normal levels, so to say. I will also say where we have a positive outlook is on the services side.
Let me. Okay. Maybe just, sorry, one housekeeping question. Just in terms of your energy storage margin, to help us understand the overall development of the margin through the year, would you say, without giving me specific numbers, would you say there's significant variability between the storage margin per quarter, or is it more stable? Is it as seasonal as this kind of overall energy business, or does it tend to be more stable across the quarters?
No, I would say that it is a fluctuating business. I mean, it is a project business.
Okay.
You can have movements from one quarter to the other. This is also why we talk about the -4% over the full year, but we also see an improving trend.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you very much.
We will continue to provide these numbers every quarter on a rolling 12-month basis. Yes.
Next up is Antti Kansanen from SEB, please.
Yeah. Hello. It's Antti Kansanen from SEB. My question is on the services, and if you, if we look at the order growth that you had in 2022, and if we exclude kind of FX and pricing impacts, I guess we are looking maybe a mid-single digit volume growth. Am I on the right ballpark here? Then could you kind of summarize the headwinds and let's say opportunities and challenges going into 2023, especially at the Marine Power and energy side on terms of volume growth in services?
I think the major driver here is as you know, we're talking about the service value ladder and where we have different steps. I mean, the first step is the more transactional business. We have different type of agreements. We have retrofits, and we have performance-based. What is happening right now is that we are growing each step, then at the same time, we are transferring customers up through the service. I mean, trying to move customers and we do have some progress in that. Moving customers to agreements and to more advanced agreements. Yes, there is of course a price and an inflationary component.
I do think that the fundamentals are there and we also see a continued, you could say, organic growth avenue.
Would you mind providing any kind of a clarification on pricing and effects on service orders in 2022?
No, we are not giving that number out, let's say. What we do in price increases, I think is competitive sensitive, so we don't provide that. No.
Okay, thank you.
Next up is Vivek Midha from Citi. Please, you can ask your question.
Sorry, we can't hear you.
Nancy?
Sorry. Hi, everyone. Vivek. Thank you very much. Good morning. I wanted to ask, following up on the order intake in energy. Would you mind giving us a sense of how you expect the energy storage order intake to develop, and what sort of impact the Inflation Reduction Act might have in this year, as opposed to, say, an uplift next year thereafter? Thank you.
If we zoom in on storage, I think we see a continued positive development. I mean, the market is really growing. I would say it's even growing excluding IRA. I would say that in our view is at least that IRA creates a positive sentiment, clearly, or a drive for localizing in the U.S. because of the Buy America Act. I think we have yet to see the very concrete effects of it, so to say. The market is still growing. Not only in the U.S., it's growing, I would say, in many places in the world.
Clearly a tailwind for storage.
It is.
Absolutely.
Clearly a tailwind.
Absolutely.
The very concrete effects remains a little bit to be seen.
Details to be worked out as well, actually, on it.
That's great. Thank you.
Next up is Sven Weier from UBS, please. Morning.
Yeah, good morning. Just to follow up on the margins. I know you don't give a quantitative outlook here, but just when I look at your qualitative statements in the report, right? You say, "We aim to improve profitability." To me, that means margins. Is that also excluding the EUR 40 million provision you had in Q4?
I think the EUR 40 million, they were one-time effects. I think you should put them aside, quite frankly.
You aim to improve margins also if we were adjusting for this in 2022?
Yes.
Next up is Sebastian Kuenne from RBC, please.
Yeah. Hi. I have a question regarding the capacity utilization in Vaasa and Trieste at the moment. What is the risk that the Trieste facilities will have to stay open beyond September 2023? What's the current update there with the Italian government?
Basically, we have reached an agreement with all stakeholders, the unions, the regions, the government, on the process and a way forward, and we are working according to that. Right now, during the first quarter, we are making deliveries and from Trieste. We are also ramping up in Vaasa. Then according to the scheme, which is public, there will be furlough arrangements going forward according to the process. Then we will basically see in September, I think the very important thing here is that there are furlough mechanisms in place. I think there is, we feel a strong support from the Italian, you could say, ecosystem in making this transition.
In parallel, with this, and this is also public, we are very active in what is called a reindustrialization process, and that is basically a process where we try to find other stakeholders to take over the manufacturing, so to say. That is a parallel process.
Is there a risk that you will incur further costs there? Do you think that is now all through the books?
No, I think we made provisions for EUR 132 million last year, and I think the outlook that we are having.
If I can correct, we announced EUR 130 million.
Okay.
We booked EUR 90 million last year.
Very good.
This year there will be the remaining part.
Thank you for correcting me. We announced provisions for EUR 132, and we still think that we will be able to manage within those boundaries.
Okay. To follow up on energy. I mean, we all know that you had this 50% price hike in Q1 last year. In summer, the input costs were nicely coming down, but now we see copper going up 20% since summer. We have lithium going up 50% since summer.
How do you assess the risk of that further price increase are now needed to cover your cost on the energy storage?
On the storage side, what has happened also as a consequence of this, you know, significant price increases we had in Q2, I mean, the model has now changed, you have material price indices in the contracts. That has been made in a major way. You could say that we are a little bit more covered from that going forward.
Understood. Thank you.
Next up is Tomi Railo from DNB. Please, you can ask your question.
Communication.
Yeah.
Hi, this is Tomi from DNB. Question on the demand outlook. You now give it a full year, as you mentioned. Can you comment, first what demand outlook and maybe also your view on the services demand for the full year?
Since we now go to annual according to our policy, we will stick with the annual, Tomi, you will have to live with that now. I understand your question. Now we stick with the full year. If you look full year services, which I also understand your question, I think we have a positive outlook. It's fueled both by high utilization of our equipment with both on the energy and the storage side, and also by our strategy to move up the service value ladder.
Okay. If I may continue, on the Voyage strategy update, you have earlier said that it will be moved to Marine Power. Does the strategy update possibly mean something else that it could not necessarily be put on Marine Power, but possibly something else?
By from the 1st of January, it has already been moved. Voyage has been moved to Marine Power, so it's already there. That is just the starting point of shaping a business that is focused on this end-to-end offering for optimization. This is something we will come back to, how we structure that and how we set this up. This will come back in Q1.
Thank you. The third, if I may. Energy orders last year didn't include any, let's say, mega orders, as the year before. Do you have that kind of, large, very large orders in the pipeline?
Well, you know, there is a lot of things in the pipeline. I think we have all been following that. That these things can slide in time, et cetera, et cetera. I'm very careful there. Like I would say there is always periodization phenomena. You also know the practice for us to recognize order intake, we need down payment, et cetera, et cetera. You need. You cannot only look on one quarter when you try to assess where we are. I think that on or if we look on the thermal side, I would say it's rather stable.
Yes. It's a good pipeline.
Thank you.
Next up is Panu Laitinmäki from Danske Bank, please.
Thank you. I have two questions related to Marine. Firstly, on the demand outlook, you expect it to be at the same level as last year. Just kind of what are your thoughts behind that assumption given the lower ship orders? Is it so that you see kind of your relevant ship types growing, or what is the thinking behind that? Secondly, how do you see the margins developing in 2023? I mean, should we assume kind of support from kind of mix being a tailwind? Also, can you comment on kind of the backlook of problem projects? Was it only in Energy, or do you still have this in Marine?
Quite a few questions. We take them one by one. If we talk about the order backlog, as you know, Russia, we made a major exercise during 2022 in correcting and reshaping the order backlog for Marine. It has been done. I would say we have a robust order backlog on the Marine side. How do we assess the market? I think as you know, we are active in many segments and we see activities in special vessels, in offshore, in ferries. Cruise is a little bit muted still. It's, we see a little bit of activities also on auxiliaries for merchant.
Yes, the overall figures for the whole markets are coming down. We see activities and interest, also partially driven. You could see this methanol example earlier today with heavy lift. I mean, there are many of these applications and our green offering is feeding in very well to many of these type of customer needs. I cannot point at one segment. It's a little bit everywhere.
It's good to remember that, in the marine industry, you have also quite stable segments like tugboats and fishing and these. There is a quite good stable base of orders, basically every year. If you take a ship segment like cruise, if you look at the Clarksons forecast, clearly, 2023, I think it was 20 vessels, is clearly higher than what we have seen in 2022. I think it was 6 or 7. Things are happening, and I would say the segments that we are typically strong in, we have a pretty okay outlook actually.
Thanks. That's clear. Can I just kind of clarify on the backlog? I think you gave a number of EUR 1.2 billion continuing into 2023, which is these projects taken before the inflation accelerated. Is this, like, fully in energy, this number?
I would say it's a bit of a mix, but the gravity is in energy.
The majority is there, yes. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
Next up is Nancy Ni from Goldman Sachs. Please, you can ask your question.
Hi. Great. Thank you very much for taking my question. I just wanted to touch on your cash flow and was just wondering, you know, do you see a quick reversal of your kind of current cash levels given the working capital impacts, and sort of what more can be done there?
I missed the beginning of your question. Can you repeat?
Yes. Just wondering on your cash,
Yeah
... cash flow, do you see a quick reversal? You know, given it's been hit by sort of working capital, and what else can be done there?
Yeah. No, let's say clearly we do anticipate, let's say, better cash flow in 2023. Let's say a negative cash flow is, of course, not something that we would celebrate on. Okay, I explained, let's say what are the main drivers behind that, and clearly, let's say we expect that to reverse in 2023. Exact timing is difficult to say. There are a lot of moving parts in the working capital, but clearly we anticipate an improvement in this year.
Okay, thank you.
Next up is John Kim from Deutsche Bank, please.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, everyone. Wanted to go back to storage, if we could. Can you give us some color on the match or mismatch between the actual lithium price moves and the indexation? Is there a difference between the quarters, or is that the trend or the relationship fairly steady? Thanks.
Sorry, I hear you a little bit badly. I don't know if it's a bad connection, but can I please ask you to reiterate your question?
Sure. I was wondering if we could go back to storage.
Yeah.
Could you give us some color or context between how the new indexation, the new contracts-
Yeah
... are matching, not matching the actual price moves in the lithium or the underlying battery costs? Is that relationship noticeably different in the quarters? One follow-up question, please.
Yeah. No. I mean, basically you have a material price clause when you sell something where you have a kind of pass-through mechanism based on lithium prices and some other raw material prices. It's a fairly straightforward pass-through, and these type of pricing mechanism, they became more and more used after, you know, the hike of pricing in Q2 last year.
You could more or less say it's back to back, right?
Yeah, you could say it's back to back.
Okay.
Okay, great. Is the lead time or fulfillment time on the storage units similar to last year, or is it getting materially better? Thank you.
Do you mean the delivery lead time?
Yes.
No, I would say it's about the same. I think we've been asked questions about our delivery precision and also our capability to deliver, and I would say that this has been one of our focuses, and I think some of our customers would even say it's one of our strengths that we deliver on our commitments on time, so to say. Of course we have valuable supply partners that we're working with. For us, we are keeping the lead time.
Okay. Thank you.
Next up is Sean McLoughlin from HSBC, please. Sean, you're next.
Can you hear me?
Now we can hear you, Sean. Welcome.
Oh, super. Thank you. Firstly, just, you mentioned earlier about different demand dynamics between the US and Europe. If you could just, I think, add a little bit of color here, particularly in Europe. I mean, are you seeing effectively capital moving, particularly around decarbonization out of Europe towards the US? My second question, you also made a comment on the shipyards being full.
Mm-hmm.
I therefore wonder, is your guidance around similar year-over-year demand around constrained capacity rather than actual underlying demand, particularly for services? Thank you.
If we talk on, we start on the energy side, and we talk the demand environment for, I would say for balancing both thermal and storage in the U.S. and a little bit contrast with Europe. I mean, we can really see balancing demand moving very fast now in the U.S. You saw the examples that I mentioned earlier of order intake. They were all in the U.S., and we see a very strong market development there, both on the thermal but also on the storage side. IRA will further support this transition. What is happening now, there is, obviously there is and will be significant growth of renewables, and then you need the balancing power to enable it. It's very strong and happening as we speak.
In Europe, I think we all know the energy crisis, and I think the most current focus is to secure gas deliveries and to set the, you know, LNG infrastructure, et cetera. Unfortunately, also many are retracting to coal. We see this as, you know, a relatively short-term phenomena. In parallel, what we do see happening is this strengthening of the focus of moving renewables forward. I think the major constraint for really accelerating renewables in Europe is permitting. Everybody wants green power, but not in my backyard. The whole permitting, as you know, EU is working on a context on the framework on this, but this is a political issue. This is what we see holding back renewables right now and therefore balancing.
It will come. In our view, it will take a little bit longer time. Of course also with the high gas prices, it creates some commotions and people might wait a little bit. I also sometimes get the question, the current interest rate, how do they affect you? I would say that our customers when they make their investment cases, they have much longer time horizons than, you know, just considering the current interest hike. We think that Europe will get there, but it will take some time.
Next up is Erkki Vesola from Inderes. Please, you can ask your question.
Hi, Håkan, Arjen, can you hear me?
Yes. Welcome.
Regarding this low margin or even loss-making projects, this EUR 1.2 billion, Arin, you previously indicated that this pipeline would be fully exhausted or delivered by Q4. Can you still confirm this? Is there any pattern between quarters? I mean, is it front-loaded, back-loaded in Q1, Q3, et cetera?
You're talking about the 1.2, Erkki, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
I would say the majority is probably in the first three quarters. Might be a few bits, let's say, into Q4. By the end of this year, we should be done with it.
Just to be clarified, we haven't seen that they are loss-making. We have said that there are projects that have been heavily impacted by inflation.
Yes.
Just to make sure.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Next up is a written question from Vlad Sergievskii from BofA. Could you explain the drivers for a very big EUR 250 million increase in trade payables in Q4 2022? Does it have anything to do with higher utilization of supply chain financing facilities? Trade payables to sales now stand at 20% while historically were around 10%. Do you expect any normalization here given that cost of supply chain financing are rising with higher interest rates?
Good question. Yes. The supply chain finance is definitely, let's say, part of it. Let's say we have at the end of what is it now? At the end of 2022, I think we have about 49% of our trade payables is supply chain finance, which was earlier, I think one year before that it was 42, if I remember right. Yes, supply chain finance is clearly part of it. It's related, of course, to what you buy and what you need to deliver in the near-term future. Supply chain finance is just giving you extra payment time.
Yes, and there's another question from Vlad. On slide 26, you provide a helpful cash flow bridge. Could you comment on EUR 176 million cash outflow related to other working capital? Does this item include contract assets, unbilled receivables? Thank you.
The whole percentage-of-completion is part of it, which is of course, a lot of moving elements. Yes. Answer is yes.
Then there's a question from Sven Weier from UBS, please.
Yes. Thanks for taking my follow-up questions. The first one is on cruise. I think you mentioned 90% of the fleet is back in service. I was just wondering what your expectations are on China reopening. I mean, as I guess the China cruise travelers have been absent in the market for a few years now and probably coming back. Do you expect this to give you a further uplift to cruise?
I would say where we see really the, you know, stabilizing of growth coming back is in the U.S. I think Europe has been a little bit slower, but it's coming, and Asia will probably come the last. It's very hard to predict how China and Asia will evolve because it's like trying to predict COVID. I, you know. The interaction there between COVID and cruise in Asia, it's a very complex environment. It's very hard to make any predictions.
And, and just-
I think.
Sorry
... that when we look at the future and outlook, it's mostly based on North America and Europe.
Just to add, let's say, of course our service business, if that's what you refer to, is correlating with running hours and whether the vessel is, let's say, fully utilized by passengers, by cruise passengers or not, let's say, the ship sails. The running hours, that's what counts for us. I'm pretty sure that many cruise operators would love to see more occupancy rates on their vessels, so I think the Chinese are more than welcome.
Absolutely.
Okay. The other question I had was just on the storage margins. Thanks again for providing the margin for last year. I mean, what's your intention from here? Do you intend to report this on an annual basis now, quarterly basis, or was this an exception now for 2022?
No, our intention is to record, on a quarterly basis, rolling twelve.
Okay, good. The last question is just for storage order intake.
Sven, we have listened to you and your colleagues.
Yep, appreciate it.
Yeah.
Thank you. The last question I had, if I may, was just on the storage order intake, which, you know, in Q4 was down quite a bit sequentially. Is that just the lumpiness?
Yes.
As you said, the pipeline is generally good, and so there's nothing to read into that?
No, this is a, you know, as you put it, lumpy business. You can have swings quote on quote. You need to take the rolling 12 as a, you know.
Trend
Look at the longer trends.
The renewed uptake in the prices that we already talked about that didn't have people, you know, taking a step back and like they did a year ago and reevaluate. That's not what's happening?
Far we haven't seen that tendency, no.
Okay. Thank you. That's it.
Next up is Max Yates from Morgan Stanley. Please, you can ask your question.
No, hi. I just wanted to ask a little bit around kind of what we're seeing in the service business in energy. I guess what I was wondering, I mean, now that the storage business is kind of a fairly considerable part of revenues, it's sort of EUR 774 million for the full year, are you able to give us a feel for how much service that's generating? I guess could you also talk a little bit about, you've talked about thermal balancing orders becoming a much bigger part of the equipment orders. I also wonder kind of how the service business on that thermal business, as you deliver those is comparing to, say, your traditional business. Kind of two questions.
One is the thermal service business, sort of are you seeing lower revenues when it's for balancing? Then the second one is just around service, some help around how the service business for storage has evolved within that EUR 775? Thank you.
Yes. Service for thermal balancing, you know, it's a little bit early to say because, you know, we are, you know, the really off-take on the balancing side. It is only a couple of years back. What we've seen, if we look at little bit older transitional base load, et cetera, et cetera, the machines are running much more than maybe the customers originally had envisioned. So we don't see on those old installations, you know, a downturn on the service business, so to say. Theoretically, you could, which is perfectly viable, if the customers will run, you know, the engines 3,000 an hour or so less, then of course there will be less maintenance.
And this is part of our strategy is to move up the service value ladder, you know, going for more performance-based arrangement and sharing up and down sides. As you know, we launched our Decarbonisation Services business last year and we are evolving that. It's still relatively small, but we have a fairly optimistic view on the service business in thermal base load balancing going forward. If we talk storage, it's clearly so that it's a smaller portion, much smaller portion because there are no moving parts and there is a power system optimization digital service, but still I would say it's a rather small share of storage. It's still today it's a significantly an equipment business.
That's helpful. Thank you very much.
Next up is Erkki Vesola from Inderes. Please, you can ask your question.
Yes, many thanks for the follow-up. Regarding the storage profitability in 2021, have you calculated this? What I'm of course after is the delta between 2021 and 2022 in terms of storage profitability.
It's a good question, we don't go into those details.
Well-
I think we start with a - 4 now. It's, well, it's been one step forward.
We are forward-looking.
Yeah
not backward-looking. backward is to learn from. Yes.
Yeah. I mean, this is of course a business-
That's what I-.
Sorry. This is a business that is growing very, very fast. Yeah, let's focus on the future and the future profitability.
We sure do. Thanks.
Thank you, Erkki, and thank you for all of you for great questions. Thank you, Håkan, and thank you, Arjen, for presentation. Wärtsilä Q1 report will be published on April 25th. In the meanwhile, I hope that you can also enjoy the warm winter this year. Thank you.