Welcome to our third quarter presentation, and good morning to you all. Today I'm also joined with Erik Magelssen, our CFO, and also our Chief Operating and Deputy CEO, Jonny Hansen, that could also sort of participate in the Q&A session afterwards. In this presentation, we'll go through our financial performance. I will open up with some short introduction on the Vow operation. Vow is first and foremost a technology provider, and we deliver technology in through four units, Scanship, C.H. Evensen, Etia, and Ascodero. We have been for many years a market leader with cleantech technologies to purify wastewater and process waste on board cruise ships. We maintain a strong position in cruise and the forward outlook just maintains sort of a market leader position in many years to come.
We provide technology to help industries towards a fossil-free future. That means that we today deliver technologies to help high-temperature industries to electrify their processes, hybrid solutions where they could go from natural gas or to renewable gas. We have, you know, core in our technology is also a pyrolysis technology applicable for many different industry applications, where we are converting biomass and waste into energy, into renewable energy, and into carbon products that replaces fossil carbon. One of our strongest value propositions that we come to market with is that we have delivered advanced technologies for many years. We have deployed technology for many years. We know how to deploy technology on complex industry applications, and now more and more larger industry capacities.
That's why we also acquired C.H. Evensen to get technology that are sort of have a larger capacity to meet sort of larger industry demands going forward. We have a strong backlog of orders and a large installed base that provides recurring business for us as well. Some highlights. Being a technology provider, we have a large patent portfolio of 117 patents today. We have a portfolio of our IP that sort of a portfolio of 35 technology applications we have developed over the years that we are now delivering to several markets. We have a large installed base, and with also the acquisition of C.H. Evensen, that increased substantially, and with now more than 4,450 systems out there, and that's where we are building that installed base moving forward.
Increasing our team, we are 244 people as we speak, with operations in six countries, headquartered in Norway. We are at three locations in Norway. We are in France with two locations. We are now in Poland, following up all, whatever we do in Poland. We are also increasing our staff in Poland. I'm gonna talk more about that in the presentation, and we are in U.S., Canada and Italy. On sort of the strong backlog of orders with more than 144 systems that we are delivering to market in coming years. On sort of HSE, we have zero serious incidents in our business, and a very low sick leave at 2.2% in latest period.
Of course, our net zero ambitions and that we are bringing more women into the organization, more girl power. It's definitely needed. Okay, the first nine months of this year, key takeaways, we are doubling our revenues compared to last year, the same period. It's actually, you know, we continue to deliver sort of our best ever. We delivered our first half year best ever, and we deliver also compared to last year doubling our revenues. We are increasing our EBITDA 78.4%, 13.2% EBITDA margin, and that's up from NOK 28 million last year same period. We're increased sort of our land-based revenues are four-folded, after sales is back to pre-COVID levels and projects continued steady course.
I'm gonna talk about these different business areas in the following slides. Further, you know, growth is supported by a continued high backlog and a solid financial position. We are now developing projects together with clients. We're building a pipeline, and I will, you know, speak more about that activity. Looking at quarter by quarter, the third quarter is coming in at sort of NOK 194 million. NOK 82 million of that is cruise projects, NOK 32 million of those are aftersales and NOK 79 million land-based. You see the year-on-year development from the third quarter 2021, where we delivered NOK 98 million. We deliver sort of a 12.9% EBITDA margin in the third quarter, NOK 25.1 million, and our backlog is continuing to be strong.
Just looking at the trend, last twelve months rolling, you see the underlying growth of the business. How in the period we're standing now, looking twelve months back, you see the cruise projects are now at the level of NOK 333 million on a yearly basis. Aftersales, NOK 101 million. Let me remind you, aftersales pre-COVID was NOK 125 million, almost NOK 130 million, so when there was no COVID and with that. That is, that's actually returning. You see landbased, on a twelve-month rolling, as we see it now, it's NOK 340 million. Looking at the margin in the same period would have been 12.2% and NOK 91 million.
Just looking at sort of the trends underlying the growth trend of the business. Okay. Looking at each business segments we're reporting. We're reporting landbased in one segment, we're reporting cruise project in other, and then the third is the aftersales. This is just for the third quarter, isolated third quarter, where landbased is 41% of our revenues, cruise is 42%, and aftersales is 17% today. Historically, that has been 1/3 of our business, and, of course, we are working to increase that. And, of course, we're getting sort of a headwind with when the cruise is coming back to the pre-COVID levels. EBITDA margin is 15.1% in the third quarter. Landbased 22% remains strong, very strong in cruise, and aftersales is picking up as revenue comes back.
At the moment, 11.2%, but that's just the effect of lower revenues compared to the fixed cost of that business segment. Okay. Looking at landbased year- to- date, NOK 262 million in that business area. Share of total 44% of our revenues in that business area. Backlog is NOK 488 million today. We in this period are producing and starting to deliver technology to Vow Green Metals in Norway, the Follum projects, so that's sort of a large part of their revenue in this period. We are doing the engineering stage of the US contract that we announced in June. We got sort of a separate part of that contract was the engineering.
That's what we have been very busy in this period to do the engineering for that project, pending the permit for the full contract. In this period, we are actually developing many projects. You know, despite the period we're in, you know, challenging times, I would say, despite the fact that there's a lot of uncertainty on energy availability, energy prices, uncertainty on the cost of capital moving forward, still, we are developing many large projects with several within several industry verticals. What's actually the trend we see is our projects are becoming larger and larger. Going back 1.5-2 years ago, the cruise projects were sort of the large contracts that we had. We had sort of land-based contract in the range between EUR 3 million and EUR 5 million.
Now these contracts are tenfolded. You know, there's much larger contracts in the pipeline that we're now building. We, of course, you know, supported by new incentives and regulations in the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act, we see more activity in the U.S. We are sort of building more people. We are also setting up an office in Oregon to handle sort of increased demand we definitely see in the U.S. For the landbased for the period, NOK 7-8.9 million, third quarter, and an EBITDA margin of 15.1%. This business area is definitely progressing very nicely. On the right side, you see a picture from. This is actually the Vow Green Metals team at our test facility.
There's a lot of interest on sort of developing that biocarbon for the metallurgical industry. I have a separate slide to talk about not only what we are doing together with Vow Green Metals, but also several other large players within the metallurgical industry. Moving towards cruise. This is year- to- date NOK 250 million, 42%. A strong EBITDA margin of 23.4% for the year- to- date. NOK 839 million of firm orders in the backlog. On the right side, you see Icon of the Seas. This is one of our, you know, 40 cruise projects, you know, cruise ships, new builds that is coming to market from this year onwards. Icon will carry up to 10,000 people on board.
It was actually announced in the media last week, and one of the feature they're announced is that they are sort of implementing a lot of energy efficiency systems. One of those energy efficiencies was that waste on board are converted into energy with Scanship and Vow technology. Fantastic. It's like, you know, the cruise, the Royal Caribbean is using that to brand that ship and to brand their focus on environmental sustainability. We have for the third quarter consolidated revenues of NOK 82.4 million. That's stable compared to the last period, where or the last, you know, the second and the first quarter, EBITDA margin at 22% just for the third quarter.
The difference between the margin in the third quarter and year- to- date is, you know, it could be the different projects we have, but in general, very high margins. We're very satisfied, I would say, with that margin level. It just demonstrate that we're able to deliver technology, advanced technology to these projects with good margins. After sales, life cycle services, you see the. We're out of the valley. You see the illustration on the right side, you see pre-COVID numbers, NOK 33 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, and we are back third quarter 2022 at NOK 32 million. The valley was the COVID.
Another interesting illustration here is the new builds coming to market being delivered from shipyards 2022, 2023 on the way, from, you know, even after 2029. You see the number of ships that are entering service with our technology on board. Next year, there are 11 ships being put into service with our technology on board. In that period, you know, we had delivered technology last year and the year before. There's sort of. You can look when you look at those numbers, you know, most of the revenue are two years before that number. But you see the optional contracts are that are sort of sister ships of contracts, the earlier contracts, normally being converted into to firm contracts.
You see the buildup of the difference between the firm orders and the optionals in our backlog. We are reporting both. We are reporting the firm and the optional contracts, taking us to, you know, NOK 2.2 billion in total. You see 81.6% year- to- date, 32 million isolated third quarter. The 81.6% year- to- date is lower because of the, you know, you just have to remember that the first quarter was still restrictions in the cruise industry. You know, the pandemic was still there. The second quarter, the third quarter, and it's looking very good moving forward in this business area.
We are bringing more land-based into this business area going forward. We have ambitions to grow this part of our business. It's a very important part of our business because it's all about making sure that our clients are able to operate our systems, producing energy, being in compliance with environmental regulations. It's from the aspect of having or taking a market leader position, this business area needs to be good. That's why it's important to focus on it. Okay. Market and outlook. I have been sort of talking about the main drivers, and I said in the introduction that there are, of course, challenging times, but we still see that regulations, governmental policies are and will drive demand for our technologies. More and more focus on circular economy.
How does the industry react these days? Are the industry able now to operate through the winter or will they have to reduce their production capacity? What will be the price of the energy going forward? These are sort of the big challenges for industry. But definitely what's good here is that we can provide an alternative. We can actually produce energy for this industry by using renewable resources as biomass and waste. I've been talking many times about sort of Philip Morris International in Switzerland, talking about sort of the Circular Carbon Barry Callebaut project in Hamburg. Those projects are, you know, energy, you know, we're delivering technology that produces energy. As, you know, enabling those industries to be self-sufficient. That matters, and it's a way for them to control the cost of energy going forward as well.
That means that's why we have a very strong value proposition these days. I'm repeating that many times. The ambition of E.U. and the ambitions now we see in U.S. is to reduce fossil-based energy, to go towards renewable energy. It's a big transition. We see, for example, now REPowerEU. The next five years, E.U. is gonna incentivize investments to increase the content of renewable gas. That means that, for example, within the biogas area in Europe, their ambition is to increase the capacity, the production of renewable energy with sort of 20 times compared to the level than what they're producing today. That market we are, you know, working to become more and more relevant for.
The drivers are in place, but of course there are difficult times now. Despite that fact, you know, we are developing in this period large projects with clients. We're building pipeline. I would say it's fair to say that we are currently focusing on four areas. One is the green metals. We established Vow Green Metals. We had sort of a large client for a while. They then had ordered process equipment from us for EUR 22 million last year. Not only is Vow Green Metals in this space, we announced earlier this year a project, an LOI for a project that would be five times larger than the Follum projects. We are continuing to develop that project with that large player.
This week, we have another large player in the metallurgy industry at the table discussing new projects, and those projects are huge. We see that. That's sort of the trend we see. The projects are becoming larger and larger because we're moving into an industry where there is a huge demand for renewable carbon. We, you know, when we announced last year, the Vow Green Metals, we announced that we're building the largest biocarbon production to date. We sent out a strong signal, a strong message. Just months after, you know, we had one of the large players at the table discussing a project that was five times larger. I would say that talking about Follum, it also made the Americans interested.
The largest to-date land-based we announced in June for this energy company in U.S. was a result of them seeing that we were moving on this. They also, when we announced that we did acquire C.H. Evensen to scale up our technology to get larger capacities, sent out a strong signal, you know. It's a very interesting period, you know, when we're now seeing that we have these players at the table and are developing larger projects. This is sort of the pipeline we're building and it's giving us the ambition that we see, you know, to grow this business going forward. Green metals for sure. The next is the cruise industry.
Market-leading position, but what we're doing now, and as I said with the Icon, not only are we delivering over the years technologies to purify wastewater, to process all the food waste on board, all the garbage, recycling and landfilling, but also processing sort of the residues from the wastewater, and the biogenic material, incinerating that. What we have done in latest years is that we have developed the technology to convert that into energy on board, meeting the cruise industry's ambition to reduce their consumption of fossil-based energy into something that is climate neutral. That's what they decided within Royal Caribbean to move along those lines, and we are now, you know, developing projects with the cruise industry to do that same for the other ship owners. What that brings is actually for us a growth within cruise.
We have a strong position. There's, of course, this number of cruise ships that will be built. If you look at it, you know, we have now the capability to also deploy this type of technology on board ships. That's not cannibalism. It's that we're just bringing more technology on board. Projects are becoming larger. The cruise industry is actually seeing us as sort of a very good partner in deploying that type of technology. What they have been seeing now in the latest years is what we have communicated on the land-based side. The project we have entered into, the Follum site, they see that we are now capable of doing that on board cruise ships as well.
Third one is the biogas or renewable gas, you know, energy production as an alternative to natural gas, as an alternative to help also industry as we do in C.H. Evensen to help them optimize existing systems to use less energy, to electrify processes, but also to have hybrid solutions to not only have to run on natural gas, but also on renewable gases. Some of the projects actually now. It's actually interesting to see because Evensen have been delivering systems to the galvanizing industry. For a while they have been sort of pursuing, you know, electrifying these processes. What actually the galvanizing industry is looking at now is that can we sort of do pyrolysis on waste streams, produce gas from those waste streams to power the galvanizing ovens and furnaces?
You know, so it's that. That's sort of a very good synergy because suddenly we have a client there as well. But it's also the same we do within green metals. We are focused to produce biocarbon, but we're producing gas that is usable for other industries. There are a lot of synergies in developing these projects. Biogas, when Europe is really now, you know, moving forward, it will be huge investments within renewable gas, biogas. We as a company, we need to take a position there. That's why this is our focus area. The third one is circular economy. We have been talking about plastic waste valorization. We have talked about the test facilities we have. We talked about previously that we have been delivering technology to petroleum industry.
you know, if you look at the ongoing Horizon project with Repsol on plastic to olefins, we're talking a lot about that. What we definitely in this period see and that we are today developing is projects for clients within the end-of-life tires to convert end-of-life tires, tire granulates into recycled carbon black. The tire industry is looking for that solution. It's high on their agenda. Pyrolytic oils as a replacement for petroleum products in that industry and the gas that we're producing from that process. You know, remember that those are the sort of the four focus areas that this business is now very much concentrating in this period, and to build sort of a forward pipeline. As a summary, we are growing the business, doubling our revenues compared to last year.
We have a solid backlog that provides visibility. We have a strong financial position, and we've been generating cash moving forward. We are not financing our growth in this period. You know, we are generating cash. You know, this is also supporting moving forward, even though we haven't signed up any contracts lately. You know, remember the large contract we signed up this summer, the biggest so far. The pipeline is definitely growing. If you look at sort of in the short run, we are also saying that, you know, we have doubled our revenues year- to- date compared to last year.
We are expecting to have sort of revenues in the fourth quarter in line with what we are delivering now in the third quarter. We're now, that means that we are also working with projects where we think we can conclude now with contract and move forward now in the fourth quarter. You know, on the picture on the right side, before we open up for Q&A, this is actually an inspection, an FAT we're doing in France with both our French team and our team from Tønsberg for shipments going to clients in Norway and in Spain. This is sort of part of a multi-step pyrolysis reactor. It's the same configuration we have. We have six of those lines now for the first step of the Follum project.
With that, we can open up for some Q&As.
Thank you. Gard from Pareto. I wanted to start asking a question on the Vow Green Metals delivery. How much revenue has been booked there so far, given that Vow Green Metals also had their issues regarding the facility and then the location there? How far along the way are you on that order?
We have actually never done a split on our revenue reported for a period, you know, how much projects, which type of project we have in that. There is a substantial part of that revenue is Vow Green Metals. For us, we are delivering technology. We're producing and delivering technology. Independently of, let's say when you start up the system, most of our costs incurred on a project, you know, delivering to Vow Green Metals or anybody else, you know, will be incurred in the period we are producing and until we, you know, basically are shipping the technology or the systems.
Okay.
Was that a-
Yeah, no, it was just since that order in itself is the largest one you've been delivering on.
Yeah
until this date, and so it's a substantial part.
Yeah
... of the growth, for the overall business.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's interesting to see how much of that is already reflected.
Yeah
in what you've reported.
Normally when we have delivered all our equipment to our cruise new build, we have recognized 80% of that project, for example.
As the last bullet on the slide there states, revenues in 2022 will perhaps be a bit lower than the ambition of full doubling, compared to last year. Could you give some more color on is this missed revenue, or will that same revenue be pushed until next year? What can we expect and what's the reason behind the
The right way to see it is actually pushed. It means that the revenue we expected when we were in the first quarter this year was I would say a bit pushed over to next year. That's why I also said that in the coming years when looking at sort of the consensus of the reports you know those analysts following us we're not afraid of the numbers in the longer run. Of course in this period it's all about how much we could sort of recognize as revenue before we close our books.
Okay
by the end of the year.
Yeah. No, not that much drama then.
No, we haven't lost any projects. We haven't sort of been outcompeted on anything. It's just a matter of timing of contracts, permits, local permits for our own or our buyers of the technology when they can basically start their projects.
Okay. Thank you. My last question is relating to the growing interest from heat-intensive industry that you state seeking, among others, renewable gas, and I find this to be a very interesting opportunity, given the energy crisis we're in. How fast can we see potential orders and revenues specifically coming from those opportunities? I mean, you've been talking about GRTgaz.
Mm
For some quarters, it's a lot of bureaucracy. How lengthy are these processes? When can we expect to see some of this materialize?
Some of it is within the C.H. Evensen portfolio. If you look at C.H. Evensen, their order intake is record high in their business, more than doubled compared to the last year, and that's sort of based on sort of a demand from these high temperature industries. When it comes to projects where we are converting syngas into heat, we have several projects that we're working on. We have announced earlier that we are delivering technology to some projects. There's a sort of scale-up opportunity there, meaning that those clients are takers of more systems.
So if there's... If there are o ne area that it could be a bit harder to get the visibility into is perhaps some of these projects when it comes to utilizing this type of gas to replace natural gas. We have several of these projects in the pipeline. We have interest, you know, keen interest from the market. Looking at those four areas, the metallurgical industry seems to be very sort of confident to move forward. There's more about making sure that the projects are developed because, you know, these are large CapEx investments for these companies. There's some extensive work to get to that level to get sort of a final investment decision.
It's more that those clients needs to secure that project to know whether it's a NOK 100 million project or if it's NOK 120 million. You know? It's an extensive amount of work we're doing in this period to make sure that we can provide that security for them. It's not sort of a question of whether they wanna do it or not. We don't feel that when we're talking to those. You know, if you look at businesses that are like Philip Morris International, ArcelorMittal, they're in a situation, you know, they don't know exactly how that map will be, you know, in the coming months. They know what's the development on the energy side.
How much do we actually need in the short term to close down because there are not enough natural gas in the supply chain? That is perhaps the area where it is harder for us to provide visibility.
Okay. That's fine. Thank you.
Thomas from SpareBank 1 Markets. A question on the margin side, especially on Cruise, because you've delivered Q3 as historically being quite a strong quarter. You had 28% in 2020, 27% I believe last year. Is there any specific reason for the 22% margin this quarter?
I think that I can answer that, Henrik. I think that as Henrik said, I think on the Cruise side that we mainly look on best to look at the year- to- date, because it could be mix of projects going on in a certain quarter, which is different of course from the mix in other. You see, I think on a year- to- date basis that we have around 23% EBITDA margin in Cruise, and it was at the same time last year it was around 26%. I think that is a 2.7 percentage point difference in a year- to- date EBITDA margin. I think in that you see part of that is increased material prices, freight prices, and those kind of things you see.
I think that the 27% was a bit special kind of combination, and sister ships and different. I think that the 22%-23% is kind of a very good margin for us in this kind of cost environment that we're seeing. I think that we may as well look at that on a year-to-date 2021 level, and then kind of where we are at this point. But we don't expect that to go further down. We already have cost prices on steel and kind of certain freight elements, but we do see the freight costs are actually going down a bit now, so that is going down from the peak we have seen maybe going back a year or two, Henrik.
Mm.
I suppose it may be the same in aftersales where margins are obviously improving, but at the same revenue levels a couple of years ago, you were delivering say 15-16 years.
Yeah. That's also a good question because, you know, we are to facilitate further growth, we are kind of growing the cost base in the business, and we do allocate a certain of the cost to the different segments, and then we have certain costs in this admin group. It's also that Cruise and aftersales they get certain of the cost that they do on building up the group in a way through this allocation gate. But definitely what you'll see aftersales are growing from this base, that growth in contribution margin will just go straight down to the EBITDA level. We definitely get that business up to 15 + percentage point on the EBITDA margin.
Yeah. A question on you're building a large pyrolysis reactor. Is there any interest for this?
Yeah, there definitely. You know, we are, as I said, only within the metallurgical industry space. We have several at the table that are that could be the off-taker or the taker of that reactor. So, and we might even have a conclusion on that in a very short time.
Yeah, 'cause that was my follow-up question, because on the land-based order backlog is not much, but it's slightly down versus Q2, but you still say that you're comfortable with the analyst estimates for 2023, which I believe are around NOK 1.3 billion in turnover.
Mm-hmm.
Is that driven by one or two single large orders that you expect on land-based that have short lead times from orders?
It will be built up of more projects.
Yeah.
That's sort of reflected. It's also reflected in the high activity now developing new projects, I would say. That gives us sort of that type of visibility where we stand today.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Turner Holm from Clarksons here. Just to continue on the margin discussion. Landbased margins have actually come up a little bit and higher than where they are year- to- date . Is that a level that you expect to be sustained, or is there something about project mix or otherwise that has driven it higher just in this particular quarter?
I think that, you know, to follow up, you might elaborate with me, Erik, but to some extent, one thing if it was sort of a cost structure in the projects with a lower margin, that's not where. You know, we are building up the business, so the fixed cost base of the business area is actually, as you see, for example now in lower margins in the aftersales, is not because we are squeezing margins out there in the market. It's just that revenue is not picking up yet to support the fixed cost base. So, I've said it earlier that we deliver energy systems. We are delivering systems to provide renewable carbon into market driven by an attractive business model.
It means that what we do, it's more a top-down view on it. You know, we see that what kind of CapEx can that business allow? You have a business case, for example, in that particular industry where you know that you can get that price on the biocarbon, that price on the gas, that price on the liquid fuels or the condensates, and you go from that. You see what kind of P&L can that factory provide? What kind of cash is coming out below there. How much is that? How much are you geared? How much debt and, you know, compared to equity, and what kind of return can you accept on that? That gives you sort of a CapEx for that project. It means that we're not sort of moving into...
It doesn't make sense for us to move into a vertical where that sort of allow you know that CapEx that is too low. What we see today is that we are moving towards many different industry applications where actually it's a very attractive market for us because it allows for higher CapEx and a better margin for us. More so you know economical sustainable to move in that direction. That's what we're actually doing here. It's not only the process engineering, it's also the financial engineering supporting why we are moving in these directions.
Yeah. I was wondering if you could say anything more about the cooperation between Elkem and Vow Green Metals that was recently announced.
I would say that that's up to Vow Green Metals. They have a trading update on Monday. Encourage you to listen to that. But from our side, we just see that the way we see it is that it just demonstrates that Vow Green Metals is relevant. It just demonstrates that Elkem is renewing their Vow, in a way, to them, because Elkem was there signing up a letter of intent back in time. That was actually before we did split out that business and we separately listed it, and they are still there, very keen. It's just look at it that way, that Elkem hasn't walked away from the table.
They are at the table now willing to work with Vow Green Metals. That's a good signal. It's the way I see it.
For Vow, I guess the backlog in revenue so far, that's only for 10,000 tons. Is the thinking now 20,000 tons? I mean, there's been some discussion around that, I guess.
We-
How has that progressed?
Again, I have to leave that to that company because I cannot speak on behalf of Cecilie and her team and that other company. The way the signals we have is and what we're working, we're not only working with Vow Green Metals on that particular projects. We know, I think that what have been said that there's an opportunity to scale up production at Follum. I will say so much that we are not only working at Follum with Vow Green Metals, we are actually working with many different cases with Vow Green Metals. Not only Vow Green Metals, there are other players there as well. We just see a high momentum within the metallurgical industry space.
I think what we have announced, what we have said is being received by many stakeholders and there's it, for us, it makes a very good sense to focus on that business area.
Yeah. Following up on that comment, with regards to the other land-based projects, you have the large U.S. project that you've referenced that it's waiting on permits. There's also the 50,000 ton project, which would be, you know, five times the size of what you're delivering to Follum. I guess we've talked about those projects now for a quarter or so in the U.S., and then a little bit longer for the 50,000 ton project. What's your sort of internal expectation, let's say, broadly thinking about when those decisions could go forward? Is that, you know, a first half next year event? How should we think about that as we kind of form our expectations for 2023 in land-based?
Most of our projects we're working on, you know, building that pipeline, we have a certain degree of sort of visibility that we know, we believe that we will have revenue in next year from these projects, I would say. Whether yet to be proven, you know, whether we could sign up some of these projects in the next months, you know, to actually have an influence on the first quarter. Going back to what we see, what we're working on, we definitely believe that some of these projects will be realized.
Last one from me is that you just said that, so the backlog is slightly down from the last reporting, but you said the pipeline is definitely growing. Just interested in kind of where that's happening. I mean, I can imagine. I mean, European industry is on its knees, right? Because of gas prices. I think 70% of fertilizer production's down, half of petrochemical production is down. I mean, it's basically do or die in terms of change and getting away from gas for European industry with the prices that they have now.
Yeah.
I mean, is that what's driving it? What are your sort of prospects as you think out for the next 12-18 months in terms of monetizing that trend?
I said earlier that within the renewable gas, on the gas applications, it's perhaps a bit harder to get that type of visibility. Remember that the projects, the project that we're on in U.S. and are developing now separately, on a separate engineering contract is. What happened after we signed up that contract was the reduction or Inflation Reduction Act in U.S. A lot of more incentives in that market. So it's sort of there's nothing telling us that sort of is rather fueling the projects in U.S. That's why we also are putting more people on board in U.S. because we definitely see more projects coming there.
We don't have sort of those concerns in the U.S. I think I remain sort of saying that we haven't sort of in the discussions we now have with that industry that wants to replace fossil-based reducing agents with renewable reducing agents in the metallurgical industry space, those projects, we don't see any reduced momentum, less interest, you know, it's rather more. You know, these two days we have the new player come. That company have of course we have had a long time discussion with them, but, you know, even their Chief Operating Officer is coming because this is high priority for that company. i.e., that this is not a small player. Of course what you're saying that whether.
Of course as you're correct, you know, these are times of great uncertainty. What will be the cost of energy? Will we have enough energy? What do we need to shut down the industry? What will be the cost of capital? Of course you have tax issues in some industries as well. Still, you know, the way this has responded to us is that we just have more projects that we're developing, you know. Larger projects. Yet to be proven, you know, we need to sign up these contracts. I can just say that I'm not. You know, today we are actually super busy developing projects with clients. There is keen interest here.
Since you mentioned the U.S., I'll ask about that. I mean, I think last time we talked about it, that law had just been passed, and now I guess you've had a few months to sort of talk to the market and mature the thoughts around the eventual impact of the Inflation Reduction Act. What's your sense of what it could mean? I mean, we've seen some big contracts announced for publicly listed companies here in Oslo as a result of that. You know, you talked about the growing pipeline and it sounds like U.S. is a big piece of it, and you put a new office in Oregon. What's the reception?
What are you hearing in the market in the U.S. with regards to the pyrolysis or, you know, for the metallurgical industry or biogas or what it may be in terms of their ability to turn that law into capital for their projects?
It's large projects that we're working on in U.S. A lot, you know, looking at our numbers today, you know, we have year- to- date NOK 600 million of revenues, and only one project we're working on in U.S. that we sort of entered into a contract with in June is half of that. This is why this sort of strategically that we're moving into markets where we see that we can make a difference. We see how we can produce energy, an alternative energy. We can produce sort of, we can recycle carbon to replace fossil carbon. You know, we're tapping into markets where there are huge demand, you know, large.
That's why we are, you know, these days looking at how we're gonna grow this business along several industry verticals. What's good, you know, and I think we're in a good position to evaluate that because we have a long time, and that goes back to our developers. We have a long time history in developing technology and deploying technology to advanced applications. We know that we have an infrastructure that supports it. We have sort of a very good order backlog in the short run to support it. I think that we're actually in a very good position to make, you know, the right strategic decisions going forward to grow this business.
We see that, you know, it's, you know, the thing about a fossil-free future, the thing about energy transition, this is a big matter, you know. We don't know how to solve that, but what we're working on in our business to become relevant, you know. Building a large reactor as we do now is all about becoming relevant. Entering into contracts with Vow Green Metals in Follum , with the project in U.S., we're becoming more and more relevant. We have, you know, a year or less than two years ago, we wouldn't have those industries at the table as we have today. We are definitely moving in the right direction. Of course it's.
You know, if the response would have been that there was less projects developed, less players at the table because of changing times, because of energy crisis, but that's not what we're seeing. They are actually here at the table. It means that provides sort of a you know a certain extent of confidence that we have been making the right decisions in this business going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Oh, yeah, you have more.
Few questions from the web audience.
Yeah.
Yeah, there are some few questions from the web audience. First one is from Steinar Kvalnes. Are there any news related to the biogas project with ArcelorMittal?
That taps into what we're talking about, sort of how these players are reacting to a situation where there's a lot of volatility in the gas prices. We have been working with the feasibility study in Rodange, and what comes out of that feasibility study is that there are potentially other places in their infrastructure that it is worthwhile revisiting, you know? It's been, I would say ArcelorMittal has. It's a huge company that I think I earlier said that they have 78 facilities in Europe only. What the challenge is that a part of the feasibility in Rodange is the variation to their, you know, the need of gas. It might make sense to.
It would be much more valuable for them to look at whether they can deploy that at other sites. That I would say that it's that has taken a long time to reach that type of conclusion. We don't know. We don't actually know. The only know they are at the table. We're discussing sort of other applications at the moment. Other sites at the moment. It's sort of, there's no formalized saying that Rodange is out of the question.
Okay. There is a very specific question from Børge Grønbech-Frimanslund. How much of the backlog is new construction cruise ships?
What was it? 886, the total cruise. I think a major part of that.
I believe that was actually in the presentation. I believe that number is in the presentation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. At least the total volume of a cruise project contract, but that we don't have. We haven't provided it unless we have provided it in the report, but not in the presentation.
I think the backlog level for projects, cruise is in the presentation, and there's the large majority of that is for new builds.
Mm.
There's a certain part for retrofits.
Yeah
as well.
Yeah.
That might be the question.
Delivering technology to a couple of.
Yeah
of Carnival projects.
Yeah.
That's a retrofit.
significant majority is new builds.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. There's a final question from Elliott Jones. Following on regarding margins, do you expect overall margins for Q3 being the trough and margins in Q4 improving, or do you see Q4 margin levels being similar to Q3?
If you look at the cruise part of our business is a long-term business. Well, a lot of visibility for us. It's easy for us to, you know, predict sort of our margin level in the cruise. It's a good sort of visibility there.
Yeah. I think so. You know, that I think that the margin level we are at the moment is kind of a good starting point to look at. We don't expect any reduction from that level. They're definitely working to improve all margins, also short-term and long-term.
You agree, Jordi?
I agree.
Yes.
Okay. That was all. Thank you so much for the attention and your interest in Vow.