Good day, and welcome to the Alfa Laval Q2 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Tom Erixon. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Again, welcome to our Q2 earnings call. Let me start, as always, with a few intro comments to the report. First, demand was clearly strong. We are at SEK 27.7 billion in the H1 of 2022, organically up 14%, and a new all-time high of SEK 14.4 billion in the Q2 , with strong support from a growing portfolio of sustainability solutions. The margin remains stable at 16.5%, despite volatility in commodity prices and supply chains. In all, the operating conditions improved gradually during the quarter. Finally, although the group is increasing its readiness to meet the negative macroeconomic situation, market conditions are expected to remain favorable in the short term. I will return to that issue later on. Now, let's move to the key figures.
As I indicated, order intake strong at 14.4%, and organic growth both year-on-year and sequentially of around 9%, a bit above our expectations, as you saw from the guidance last quarter. Invoicing also grew 9% organically, but still lagging behind the high order intake. We do expect to see a gradual improvement in the supply chains, and consequently in invoicing during the second half of the year. On a divisional note, starting with the Food & Water division, we had another strong quarter after the record Q1 this year. Adjusted for the large brewery order that we booked in Q1 this year of more than SEK 700 million, this was, in a sense, an even stronger quarter, driven by service volumes and transactional business.
The supply chain disruptions for the group are mainly affecting the Food & Water division, with a negative effect on margins as we are not able to fully ship according to plans, with an increasing inventory of finished goods. Finally, on Food & Water, the antitrust process for Desmet is now completed, and we have all of the needed approvals in order to close the transaction. We do expect closing during the Q3 and possibly rather soon. I'll remind you that on a 12 -month rolling basis, Desmet will add approximately SEK 4 billion in volume and some in the region of high single-*
percentage margin, excluding medium-term synergies, as we go forward. Moving on to the Energy division. We had a new record quarter in order intake at SEK 14.5 billion.
The order intake is, in a sense, a turbo effect driven by two factors. First, we continue to see growth in energy efficiency solutions, and together with an emerging pipeline, although still small of projects in hydrogen and carbon capture, we see the energy transition playing out favorably for the order intake in the quarter and going forward. That, in combination with a return on the CapEx investment cycle into traditional gas markets, is now also leading to an increased order intake in especially natural gas in the U.S. and also to a degree in other geographies. As we have indicated several times, we are moving on a strategy to become energy solutions independent on fossil by 2030, but in the meantime, we have expected one or two further investment cycles, of which we have now entered the first.
Regarding the margin, we kept it strong also in the Q2 after a Q1 , which was positively affected by inventory revaluations. It reflects a reasonable balance between commodity prices and our price adjustments to customers. The marine division. Order intake was back on record levels compared to 2018. I remind you that this is including a compensation for the approximate SEK 1 billion we had of scrubber water orders per quarter during the peak of the retrofit period. You should also note that orders grew in a weaker market for ship contracting. This is a reflection of the growing importance of Alfa Laval's portfolio of sustainability solutions, supporting ship owners to reach their decarbonization targets going forward.
Margins remained on the lower level compared to recent years due to old backlog prices and mix changes from scrubbers to the less profitable PureBallast business, given that we are sharing, as you know, the profitability in that business with our joint venture partner. As mentioned last quarter, the margin challenge will require some patience to work out. In service, this was an exceptional quarter with organic growth of 20% from an already good level. It is a reflection of good market conditions, but it's also a result from five years of investing and building a competitive service offering to our customers. Although we are pleased with the results so far, we will continue to build our service capabilities and capacity over the next few years. Some final comments on order intake.
We had, as I mentioned, a new record despite the relatively small impact from large orders, reflecting solid business conditions in almost all regions and end markets. We may see some quarterly variations in our intake over the next quarters, but short term, end markets are expected to remain on a good level. In terms of regions, obviously, in this situation, essentially all regions were positive and indeed very positive. You may notice that even Eastern Europe was stable despite the negative impact from eliminating Russian orders from Russia. Excluding Russia, Eastern Europe grew by over 40%. Let me round off by saying that we have executed well during the five years on our strategy to regain technical leadership, customer focus, and service. Going forward, we are increasingly focusing in building additional businesses in sustainable solutions for all three divisions.
We will provide you with an update on the portfolio progress at the next Capital Markets Day in late November. Our vision is, if circumstances allow, that we will host you in Copenhagen for you to more physically experience what we are doing in products and solutions for the next five, ten years to come. With that, I hand over to Jan for some further details.
Thank you, Tom, and I will start with covering sales as usual. We expected invoicing in Q2 to be higher than the same quarter last year. We realized sales of SEK 11.8 billion, which represents an increase of 19%. Please note that we had positive FX translation impact in sales on Q2, and excluding this, sales were up 10%. Invoicing in the quarter was negatively impacted by the supply chain situation, and especially the lockdown situation in China. However, invoicing gradually improved as the supply situation stabilized during the quarter. With regards to sales in Q3, my outlook is as follows. Considering the record high order backlog and a somewhat improved supply chain situation, I do expect invoicing in Q3 to be higher than the same quarter last year. Looking at the gross margin.
The gross profit margin in Q2 came in at 37.8%, compared to 38.2% last year. The overall mix price impact was positive in Q2, as the negative impact from executing orders, primarily in the Marine division that was priced prior to the material cost increases, was offset by an overall positive capital sales/after sales mix, as the service invoice was strong in the quarter, as well as price increases coming through in a good way. We had a fairly good load and capacity utilization in most of our factories, with exception of some sites in China that was impacted by the COVID lockdown situation, making the overall load volume impact negative in Q2. The PPV metals impact was neutral in the quarter, as higher raw material cost was offset by positive impact from metal hedges maturing in Q2.
The FX impact on the margin was negative in the quarter. Finally, the acquisition of StormGeo had a positive impact on the gross profit margin overall. Now over to my outlook for Q3. The starting point is 37.3%, reported in Q3 last year. We expect a neutral price mix impact with a similar pattern from Q2, i.e., price increases and favorable capital sales service mix to offset the negative impact from increased material costs on the order backlog in Marine. Based on the assumption of a gradually improving supply chain situation, we expect a good load and capacity utilization in our factories in Q3. We expect this volume, positive volume impact in combination with metal hedges in place to offset the negative impact from higher raw material costs. Finally, we expect a continued negative FX impact on gross profit margin also in Q3.
Looking at the S&A expenses, they were up 12% in Q2 on a comparable basis. This increase is reflecting the overall high business activity in the company, the inflationary pressure, but also that we are selectively adding resources in our current business with high growth, but also in some of our more long-term business development areas. We do expect to gradually offset the higher S&A cost by increasing sales volumes as we execute on the large order backlog in the next quarters to come. Finally, given the economic uncertainty, we are, of course, closely monitoring our cost structure and resource situation to be able to act fast in case we see signs of an economic slowdown.
As you have seen, the EBITDA margin came in at 16.5%, below last year, mainly due to the lower margin in the Marine division. However, the profitability in the Energy and Food and Water divisions were on a good level considering the high- cost inflation and the overall challenges on the supply chain. Looking at some of the key figures. As I said earlier, on a comparable basis, S&A were up 12% and R&D expenses were up 2%, versus last year, reflecting the overall higher business activity in the company. Net other cost and income increased by SEK 68 million versus last year, excluding the restructuring cost that was booked in Q2 last year.
This increase is mainly explained by the higher royalty costs paid to our PureBallast joint venture partner Marine, and also higher costs related to the ongoing changes to our manufacturing footprint. Financial net, excluding FX impact, was SEK -78 million in Q2. The FX gains and losses in the finance net were SEK -90 million, giving a total finance net of SEK -168 million in Q2 this year versus SEK -113 million last year. Please note that we had temporarily higher interest costs in the quarter, which was related to the refinancing of our corporate bond program this year. The tax rate came in at 26.9% in the quarter, slightly above our guidance of a tax rate of 26%.
Finally, net income and EPS was higher than last year, partly due to the higher operating income and partly related to the restructuring cost booked in Q2 last year of SEK 204 million. Over to cash flow statement. Cash flow from operating activities was SEK 192 million in Q2, well below last year due to an increase in working capital. The increase in working capital of about SEK 1.2 billion in the quarter was mainly due to an increase in inventories, partly offset by increase in customer advances. The inventory increase was driven by the strong volume growth, but also to secure deliveries to our customer during the supply chain challenges. The operating working capital as a percent of sales is expected to gradually come down as the supply situation stabilizes.
Investing activities, including CapEx investment of SEK 311 million, slightly higher than last year, as expected, considering the previously announced CapEx program to support our organic growth. The financial net paid was SEK -134 million in Q2, and again, negatively impacted by one-time effects from the refinancing of the corporate bond program, where we issued two tranches of EUR 300 million bonds in February to refinance the EUR 500 million bonds that would have matured in September this year, but was repaid already in June. This means that our total cash flow in Q2 came in at SEK -241 million. Finally, our net debt position at the end of June stands at SEK 9.3 billion with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.09.
Looking at the FX impact on EBITDA, the transaction FX impact in the quarter was a SEK -25 million, and the translation impact was a positive 115, giving a total net positive FX impact on EBITDA in the quarter of SEK 90 million. Looking at the projection for the full year, we do expect a negative FX transaction impact of SEK 40 million, primarily as our average EUR/SEK hedge rate for 2022 is lower than in 2021. On the other hand, if the closing rate at the end of June remains, we would expect a continued positive translation impact that would more than offset the negative transaction impact for the full year. Regarding the order backlog.
At the end of June, we had a total order backlog of SEK 29.5 billion, which is 21% higher than at year-end 2021 on a comparable basis due to a positive book-to-bill rate of 1.23 during the first half of the year. The order backlog now represents approximately eight months of LTM sales. For shipment in the remaining part of the year, the backlog amounts to SEK 15.1 billion, an increase of SEK 3.1 billion compared to the same period last year, which then lets us move to the sales bridge for the full year. Starting as usual with the sales year- to- date, which has been SEK 22.5 billion.
As stated in the previous slide, the backlog for shipment in the remaining part of the year is SEK 15.1 billion, which adds up to a total of SEK 36.76 billion. On top of that, you will need to make your estimate on change in in-for-out orders, FX effects, and so forth. For your reference, the level of in-for-out orders during the second half of 2021 was SEK 9.1 billion, sorry, SEK 9.9 billion. Regardless of the FX impact, that's of course hard to, it's uncertain. However, if we use the closing rate at the end of June, the estimated FX translation impact during the second half would be approximately SEK 2.5 billion positive. By that, I hand back to Tom for outlook statements.
Okay. Thank you, Jan. The outlook, as I know you struggle with during the week and other industrial companies, is perhaps a bit complex. Let me first say that in the order book, in the pace of Q2, we don't see the first indicators of a business downturn as of yet. While we remain vigilant regarding the economic development and the possibility of a downturn, we continue to focus on executing the order book and drive our long-term strategy in the right way. After a first half 2022, which has been above our expectations in terms of order intake, the demand in the Q3 is expected to be somewhat weaker sequentially, and that holds true for all three divisions.
To a degree, this is an explanation by normal seasonality and to a degree based on the way we look at our current pipeline and expectations for the quarter. Finally, we have announced this morning our next CFO in a separate press release that you might have seen. Fredrik Ekström is a long-term Alfa Laval manager with a strong background in business control. He switched to a leadership role in the business line quite some years ago and has been instrumental as the leading person to drive the successful development of business unit Brazed, which many of you know from its participation in the heat pump and air conditioning market.
As we have previously announced, Jan remains in place, including for the Q3 report, and Jan and Fredrik will find a constructive handover during the next quarter, so that from November 1, Fredrik will have left his operational duties in the existing business and found a good way of introducing himself into his new challenge as CFO. I hope you welcome him as well, and you will meet him, if not before, at the Capital Markets Day. With that, we are done with the presentation, and we open for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. A voice prompt on the phone line will indicate when your line is open. Please state your name before posing your question. Once again, press star one to ask a question. We will take our first question.
Hi there, this is Nancy from Goldman Sachs. Thank you for taking my question. Just one from me. My question would be kind of given your sort of sequentially lower demand outlook and possible concerns around kind of the current macro- outlook, is there any sort of risk or change in your thinking regarding your CapEx plans?
No, not at the moment. The CapEx plan is probably moving a little bit slower than we expected due to you know the same bottlenecks that we see in supply chains as we have for our own business. We are moving a little bit slower than anticipated with that. I think regarding the CapEx for next year, those decisions are already made and they remain very valid. We may take a somewhat cautious approach in terms of how we pay certain of those investments, although not the ones that are related to immediate capacity constraints. The answer is probably 60%, 70% no, we go as planned, and some judgment on a remaining pipeline with decisions coming up over the next 12 months.
Okay, makes sense. Thank you. Just a second question, if I may. I just wanted perhaps if you could offer a bit more color on the kind of diluted backlog that you're currently working through, especially in sort of marine and energy. Are you able to offer roughly, you know, how much of that is kind of been delivered on or how much more is there to go?
I think the backlog is not a major issue in energy any longer. For the marine, we do still have part of that lagging. It's getting smaller by the quarter. I would say by year-end, that's not the meaningful factor. How other components are going to move, let's leave that. I always recommend you not to look at the individual parameters and adjust completely. It's a complex world with many moving factors there. From a backlog point of view, I think for the marine division by year-end, we're pretty much out of it.
Great. Thanks very much.
Once again, as a reminder to ask a question, press star one. If you find that your question has been answered, you may withdraw your question by pressing star two. We will now take our next question.
Yeah, good morning. This is Johan Eliason from Kepler Cheuvreux. A few short questions here. Sorry if it's still on the marine segment, but I learned something new in this report about carbon capture. This new product you talk about, E-PowerPack, and it seems to be a significant driver of orders in the quarter. Could you size those orders already from this product? How do you see it playing out going forward? Thank you.
Now the E-PowerPack is still a very small part of the business. We are in the startup. Carbon capture in with respect to marine is non-significant. In the energy division, we start to see some embryonic starts on the carbon capture, but if carbon capture goes bigger, then we still have not those effects in the order books. For the marine, what you are seeing to take just one aspect is a clear growth in multi-fuel solutions, which does require more advanced equipment set up on board. That together with continued good demand in PureBallast and then gradual improvements in a number of other areas accounted for the order intake growth in the marine division.
I should note that the service side on the marine is very strong in the quarter. I think from our point of view, it's a reflection of high freight rates in many areas, somewhat aging fleet, and consequently a need for owners to keep those assets in good shape. If you want to have any specific comment on the marine order intake, I think it's the service side that stands out.
Okay. This, I mean, previously when the rates have been so high, the comment has sort of been that they don't have time to take them out to do the maintenance, but now they simply have to. Is that sort of the conclusion we can draw from the quarter, for example?
I think, you know, in all aspects, markets are adjusting now to, you know, the reality we live in. We learn to cope with the limitations that we have. I think there was a factor before of not only wanting to utilize the ships but also waiting times and clogging at ports were a problem. I think scheduling is now working in a better way, and we see some sense of normality and maybe a bit of pent-up demand, as you say, that is coming through at the moment.
On the offshore side, you mentioned being good as well. Is that sort of idle capacity being refashioned again to put to work, or are there any sort of other drivers specifically in that segment?
Well, it is a clear CapEx boom in offshore, so it's not service related as such. It is new capacity coming online. It's a very clear investment cycle in offshore as a whole.
Okay. Is that gas-driven or is it sort of, some impact from offshore wind as well?
I think wind is a very limited aspect of this. This is, to a degree, gas, to a degree, oil. The energy prices as such has been on the upcycle since, you know, some time back is really playing into to the equation here.
Okay. Thank you very much.
We will now take our next question.
Hi, good morning. It's Aurelio from Morgan Stanley. I had a couple of questions, please. The first one is around the margin development in the energy division. Obviously, even if we exclude the one-off effect that you had in Q1, the margins seem to be quite strong sequentially. I wonder if you could break down how much of that is down to pricing and how much is down to mix. Any comments around that would be helpful.
Well, that's difficult because it depends on what baseline you're looking at and all of that. What we can say is that, compared to Q1, we largely eliminated revaluation as a factor. For the rest, it's obviously a combination. What I would say is that we have, as a result of the Russian situation, as a result of the previous oil and gas crash, which left us with weak order books in certain areas, and as an expectation of moving ourselves to less fossil driven energy mix to something else, we do have changes and to some degree, challenges in the energy division which remain.
Both in the energy division, we have certain parts of our business that are not performing according to expectations, and we have the same situation in the marine division in some areas where we are left with changes that need to be addressed. We're looking at those in both those two divisions. Leaving that aside for the energy division specifically, we clearly are in tailwinds with respect to all energy efficiency-related businesses and that is the big volume and profitability drivers for us right now. I think on the pricing side, largely, we are, you know, compensated for the cost inflation that we've seen. That's the order book that we are building now.
It's difficult for us to track on projects and all individual articles exactly where we are on the pricing versus the costing side, but as a whole, we see that coming through in an acceptable way.
Thank you. That's helpful. My second question is around your invoicing in the Q2 , because you mentioned some supply chain constraints and obviously China was locked down. Quite interestingly, China sales were up sequentially. I wonder how much the 9% could have been, had you not had any supply chain issues or China lockdowns. I'm not sure if you can quantify those impacts.
I think we are starting to learn how to operate in China, including in lockdowns. While the beginning of the quarter was complicated for us, we came out from a production supply point of view quite well. In China, we have managed to move employees into factories in a closed loop type of cycle, operating at decent capacity even during lockdown periods. Those effects were not so big, but to the extent they were there, they were certainly impacting Food & Water more than any other part of our business in the Q2 . I think the bigger effect is still related to electronic components. Electronic components has its largest presence in rotating equipment in Food & Water.
Consequently, the finished goods inventory and the possibility of increasing shipments in second half is mainly related to Food & Water. Whereas for the energy division, which is more metal related, I think we've been in better balance all along between order intake and shipments. You know, we indicated last quarter we had an increase of delays, and I think we indicated SEK 600 million were sort of tracking behind schedule. I wouldn't say that number has changed very much. It's probably at around the same level now. That's why we're saying that we think we've hit the bottom in this. We see a better operating conditions through the quarter, and we expect that to remain during the second half.
Thank you very much. We will now take our next question.
Yeah. Hi, gentlemen. It's Sebastian Kuenne from RBC. I have a question regarding the price volume blend, and I want to understand that a bit better. Year-on-year, you have 20% revenue growth. When I look at the gross margin bridge, it indicates that volume didn't really support. Is this 20% growth mainly pricing? That would be my first question. Secondly, in marine, just to drill down a little bit more, April and May saw port closures in China. Could you kind of quantify again the impact that you had on your revenues? Is that part of the SEK 600 million you just mentioned?
Lastly, on input costs, steel prices, when do you expect steel prices to become a tailwind, given that in North America, steel price was halved, and now we see nickel prices dropping quite sharply and also actually being down year- on- year. Stainless steel should become cheaper. When do you think this becomes a tailwind? Thank you.
Yeah. Let me start with the pricing. I think that's a very relevant question. You should be alert on that issue, I think in general, and certainly related to Alfa Laval. It is. You know, we're not giving a precise number, you know, on a complex portfolio of transactional projects, you know, mixes of invoicing and numerous product lines. You know, we have variations. Our expectation is that when you look at the organic growth number, whether it's especially on the year-on-year numbers, we feel that we are probably on high single-digit price effects.
If you look at price versus volume, we are probably somewhere north of 50% of the growth in volume and somewhere south of the 50% in terms of price. That's about how we feel about it. If you look at the sequential growth numbers, of course, the pricing effect is less between Q1, Q2, but there's still an element of pricing also in that, although at a smaller level. I think that's as good as a guidance that we can give. We certainly don't have price increases of 20%, although I wish that would have been true. On China, it's difficult to break down.
It's not, as I said in the previous question, the main issue for supply chain is not the Chinese lockdown. It is component availability and to some degree, logistics related. That's why I feel that as we return to a slightly more stable sourcing situation, we have moved incoming goods through work in process to finished goods. We expect to have somewhat of a positive effect on the invoicing on the second half. The last question was?
Positive effects from lower raw material costs.
Raw materials.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, we got it. I mean, here is how I would look at it if I were you. When commodity prices shot up in the year, you were all hugely concerned about our ability to compensate. Now, through working with price, through metal hedges, through inventory revaluations, we managed to move through the upcycle in a relatively stable way. The bad thing with stability in headwinds is that unfortunately, it will also remain the same when you have tailwinds. That is, you know, we will see over time if commodity prices are significantly and quickly reducing. We will have negative hedges effects. We will have some negative reval effects, and we will clearly have positive PPV effects.
You know, I wouldn't bring in, you know, the commodity price issue too hard in the equation. We manage those cycles in a good and a constructive and a stable way, but we don't. By eliminating the upside, you know, on short-term swings, you know, it goes both ways. I think that's the best guidance I can give you.
Understood. Thank you very much. We will now take our next question.
Hi, Tom and Jan. Klas at Citi. I just want to come back to the energy margin. It doesn't seem like there is any reval effects. It's a solid underlying margin, which is great to see. Are the new growth areas linked to energy efficiency, mix enhancing to invoice more out of the backlog? Or do you simply gain from volume leverage from low levels in oil and gas? And do you think this margin is sustainable into the second half, i.e., above 15%? I know it's more in-for-out, easier to increase prices in energy against cost. I was wondering if this is a new level. I'll start there.
Since we don't guide on margins, I will not confirm nor deny your speculation. It's clear that in the quarter, we had mix effects also from a well growing service business. All in all, the mix was good. There are always moving parts in the P&L, also in energy. There may be effects, both positive and negative in terms of raw material. I mean, the raw material dependency is high in energy, in the energy division, so it moves quickly in that division, as you saw in Q1.
What I would say, though, without raising expectations too much, is that the improvement in the oil and gas cycle has not materialized yet for us in terms, invoicing and consequently not on result. We are still working through the aftermaths of the fossil fuel downturn that hit the order books quite hard, including the elimination of the Russian orders and the stop of taking new Russian orders from the foreside. We are not through with that. You know, we are troubleshooting as we speak. Although overall, on the energy division side, it looked good.
A follow-up to that then would be, as you're invoicing, and I appreciate it hasn't moved through the backlog yet, but as you're invoicing more oil and gas orders, is the mix neutral or will it be mix negative, given that we are coming from, you know, 2014 levels when the margin in that business was very high and I guess might not be as high now?
No, it will. We're not going to be back in the booming days. I think without guiding to, you know, and it's sometimes I'm not sure what is adequate. It doesn't move the needle too much in either direction, I think.
Okay.
Yeah, Jan, I don't know if you want to be more specific than I am on that.
No, I think that's a fair statement.
Okay, cool.
My second one is on marine then and the margin. It's obviously very good to see that you recover quarter-over-quarter. Can I ask you, Tom, on new orders or invoicing further out and the margin here. Obviously, you're talking about that the content per vessel is going up. I guess your customers must be very receptive to price increases. Are we on new orders, is that sort of 15%-16% back to where it should be initially? You said that the backlog impact should be gone by year-end. Just me trying to think when we can bridge the two, old versus new backlog.
As you know, the challenge is that there will be 20 new issues, two quarters from now. I wouldn't predict, you know, the exact development of the result side. It's clear that you have to remember that the mix aspect is a long-term issue. It's not a short-term issue. Just adjusting the backlog will not automatically bring us back into the historic level. With that said, I think, you know, certainly the pricing is much better adjusted to the current operating environment than we were with the backlog in Q1 and Q2. That in and of itself would certainly have a positive effect together with possibly a somewhat better share of service in the mix.
Yeah, very good. Very, very quick final one is on biodiesel. It doesn't get that big even with Desmet as a percentage of the group when we back out the exposure. But we're getting some questions to what extent this can take a hit from food inflation that we see out there. I mean, it doesn't look like a big impact, but if you could comment what you've been seeing in the order pipeline discussions, if anything, on biodiesel have changed at all. Thank you.
No, I think the biodiesel is still moving. It's correct, as you say. You know, one reason why the biodiesel and biofuels discussion, at least as long as it's based on vegetable oil and residual fats, is that there will eventually be a bottleneck and an inflationary pressure, you know, in between the fuel side and the food side. We think there are capacity limits down the road when it comes to the expansion of vegetable and animal fats as a source of supply into this chain. We have not really experienced that that is a big issue here and now with the higher energy prices in general.
I think the investment case still remains solid in the biofuel pipeline.
Thank you, Tom.
We will now take our next question. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Okay. Thank you. Good morning, Tom, Jan, and Johan. A couple of follow-up questions, and sorry if I missed that I've had some technical issues this morning. On ballast water treatment systems, have you started to see a decline in order intake now, or does the order levels remain high? What's the absolute level compared to where sale is for ballast water treatment systems?
The market remains stable. We expect to see a decrease in the market, but so far, we are pretty much flat compared to rolling 12 months. That's around SEK 3 billion.
Yeah. On price increases, I understand on average your price increases are high single- digit right now. Is that also true for the backlog that you have, or shall we expect your price increases when it comes to sales to increase further in the second half of this year?
Well, on average on the backlog, it will have to be somewhat lower, but now we've been working with, you know, throughout last year gradually. I think if you take an average, we had approximately three price increases during last year. Most of what was done on the price increases in the beginning of last year is probably shipped at this point in time, except some larger projects that with longer lead time. Expect the average on the order book to be somewhat below, but we think the orders that are taken in Q1 and Q2 are very much adapted to the current cost scenario.
Understood. The high single- digit price increases on the new orders that you are taking. Understood. If steel prices or some steel prices have already started to come down, do you see a risk that you would have to lower your selling prices again if we head into recession and steel prices continue down? Or have they historically been very sticky? When you've raised your prices, you're able to keep them.
Well, it's, we have various parts of our portfolio, and I think, at the end of the day, you know, we need to be competitive in the market and, there is no reason why, you know, profitability should be substantially enhanced just by a temporary, spike in raw material prices. With that said, I just want to remind everybody that, while commodity prices and steel prices has been one part of the cost inflation, you know, we've seen it in, salary and wages, we've seen it in transportation, we've seen it in logistics, we've seen it in commodities you know, in all the commodities needed for, consumables in production. The cost inflation is still moving very strongly in most items other than, the commodity side.
I have a hard time to see that there will be a very quick and fast adjustment based on lower nickel prices alone.
Yeah. Okay. That's clear. Lastly, on supply chain issues and logistics, et cetera, I think we've seen an impact in the Food & Water division now also in the Q2 . What are the problems now going into the Q3 ? Are you still seeing the same kind of issues, or are they easing and you think it will be easier for you to ship products in the Q3 and Q4 ?
As we have indicated in some places here, generally we feel the operating conditions are improving. The supply chains are getting used to dealing with the challenges that are there. Underlying, there will still be you know problems to resolve, but I think gradually we are dealing with them better and better in our global supply chains, and we think that shipment will increase as we move into the second half.
That's great. Thank you very much and have a good summer.
Yeah. You too.
We will now take our next question.
Good morning, Tom. Can you hear me?
Yep.
Sorry. I've got some technical issues as well. Sorry, two quick questions if I can please. One on the gas situation in Europe and secondly on tanker contracting. I appreciate the situation in Europe is rather dynamic. I think the long-term potential is fairly clear both on energy and marine. Can you talk a little bit about the near- term tailwinds and headwinds associated with the gas situation in Europe, specifically on the tailwind? Have you seen any level sort of pre-ordering, if you like, across the business in anticipation of sustained and more material gas disruption in Europe? Around headwinds, are there any signs among your particularly chemicals customers that we might start to see some delays and possible cancellations? I'll start there, please.
We don't see any cancellations other than Russia, which is cancellations from our side with a small amount also in Q2. The cancellations remains on a very insignificant level. At the moment, that's not a big worry. Pre-ordering, we don't see either. I would say what we see mainly on the gas side is the expected upswing coming from partly U.S. and partly Middle East other than, you know, North Atlantic offshore activities. To us, it's a very normal cycle at the moment, the way it typically look when the energy markets do a comeback. The effects in Europe with respect to this is in our books not so big.
The one area that we've talked about before and you guys like to, you know, monitor is the heat pump market. Of course, the transition from gas boilers in Europe in the HVAC systems to heat pumps is ongoing. It's already a very dynamic and expanding business. It remains so. We haven't seen it, you know, accelerate any further. I think everybody is at capacity when it comes to what can be done in the heat pump market, including installation. I don't expect that that's going to change very much other than, in general, a favorable outlook, which was already in place before the energy crisis.
Clear, Tom. Thank you. Can I ask just secondly and briefly on your marine pumping systems business? I'm looking at tanker contracting down 60%-70% or so to kind of decade lows. Wonder what you make of that. Is that sort of cyclical? Is there some more structural elements to that? If more structural, what's your assessment of the need potentially to address the operations in your marine pumping systems, please?
Yeah. It's a good question, and your observation is absolutely correct. The product tanker market is low. One important reason for the low contracting has been specifically the commodity prices in nickel. Product tankers are, compared to almost all other ship classes, hugely dependent on stainless steel. The cost levels and cost inflations for ordering a product tanker has just been, you know, from a timing point of view, most ship owners have decided it's better to wait. In our view, this is not a supply-demand situation. It is a cost situation and a timing, but it may well create, if things don't change in the short term, you know, some utilization parts in our cargo pumping.
I would still though say that to a degree, although we have different production lines, our pumping business in Framo is at the same time going through a major growth cycle when it comes to the offshore, where we do a lot of offshore applications on the Framo pump technology. All in all, of course, we may face in that specific business some utilization issues. I don't see that it will be. You know, should we come to that, we have, you know, structural adjustment going on most of the time, so I don't see it as a major item in terms of restructuring needs. It is a business that we certainly are committed to and believe in longer term.
You know, I don't expect that to generate any major restructuring activities, even if the situation would remain on a low level for a while.
That's clear. Thank you, Tom. Thank you to Jan also. Good luck, Jan. Thanks for the help over the last few years. Thank you both.
Thank you.
We still have six questions left. We will now take the next question.
Hi, good morning, everyone. It's Uma Samlin from Bank of America. Thank you for taking my question. I'm really interested in hearing a bit more on the recent acquisition of Desmet, which, if I'm not mistaken, would be around 20% of Food & Water after it's consolidated into the group. As far as I understand it, Desmet seems to have more of a project engineering business, which is quite different to the current Food & Water divisions, which is mostly like equipment business. I was wondering if you can talk a bit more about the strategic rationale around the acquisition, and what are your plans to integrate Desmet. To reduce the sort of the higher volatility of profitability and generate more synergies.
Yes, you are correct. We do already have a unit in the Food & Water division called Food Systems, where we do a lot of vegetable oil applications. Given the vegetable oil, we're also running our biofuel activities out of the Food & Water division from a technical capability point of view. The synergies are relating to the vegetable oil value chain, where these two entities, Food Systems and Desmet, are complementing each other in the value chain from crushing all the way to a biofuel side. We believe strongly that the biofuel technology and that aspect will be very important in the years to come, and the fit is very good on that.
It gives us a very good and strong market and technical position in an area which we think is important in the energy transition. That's the strategic rationale for it. It's absolutely true that in the project business, although there will be synergies in the shape of component sourcing possibilities for Alfa Laval products, as a project engineering business, we don't expect a 50% target, and that's why we are indicating that the sort of double-digit percentage margin ambition is probably somewhere where you should put it, and currently expect it to be just below perhaps, and with some integrated synergies will be somewhere above. I remind you and everybody else that as all project business in terms of return on capital, it is a very profitable business.
We have obviously down payments ahead, so we are cash positive in project execution. From that point of view, it is supportive of our ROCE targets and somewhat dilutive to our EBITDA margin targets.
Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. My next question, on the organic growth in energy, would you be able to give us a split of how much of that is driven by oil and gas CapEx and versus the HVAC industry? You know, you're also talking about that the energy division is still affected by the last oil and gas CapEx downturn. If the CapEx continue to grow, would they expect much higher margins than what you did historically, during an upcycle in oil and gas CapEx?
I think the pricing side in the oil and gas is not going to be back to the real fantastic numbers back in the boom of 2014. I think the adequate comment is to say that the mix component with oil and gas is probably not dramatically impacting the margin based on mix for the energy division as a whole. So far, assets that are heavily dependent on the order backlog in oil and gas are still weighing on the margin in energy divisions. We are working in various ways to address that going forward, including long-term decreasing our dependence on oil and gas cycles.
There are some upside down in terms of starting to build and invoicing the gas side of this CapEx cycle in the quarters to come.
Given you have done really well this quarter, I mean, on the margin side, does it mean that the HVAC industry and heat pumps, et cetera, has like a structurally higher margin than the sort of the more traditional oil and gas business that you're exposed to?
I mean, we are not breaking margins on a very granular level. So, I'll hold back with what you need to consider on that is that also for the you know the fossil side is also has a substantial service mix. The mix changes between CapEx projects and service is also affecting the situation. I wouldn't break end users into very different categories when it comes to margins. Of course, what you could say is that when we continue to load volumes into existing product lines in whatever the end application is that is obviously having some positive effects on the margin. The load in the several areas are now very good.
Some of that load goes into the gas side. The same heat exchanger production lines are used for both gas applications in terms of cooling and heating, as well as for data centers. It's a little bit difficult to draw it just on an end user way, but as production line heat exchange technology is in an upcycle and never mind where it comes from in a sense.
Thank you very much. That's really helpful.
We will now take our next question.
Hi, good morning. Wilson from JP Morgan. I just have one question remaining actually. It's probably quite a straightforward one. I just wanted to check on the comments around cash, which obviously you've been building as the volumes have come up, and I guess there's other factors in there as well in terms of holding on to inventory to deliver. I think the comment was that as the operational sort of situation begins to ease, we would expect that to sort of start to improve. Are we at the point now where we can expect the working capital position to be stable before we start to see it improving? Or do you expect it to build still into the second half?
I'll take that one. Yeah, I think you should expect that the working capital, where we are, so to say, I wouldn't expect that to continue to be built during the second half. As I said, as a percent of sales, I would expect the working capital will now start to go down and gradually normalize, as we see the stabilization or improvement on the supply chain. All right.
Thank you.
I think with that we take the last question. We are starting to run a bit over time and probably also for you.
Perfect. We will take the last question.
Yeah. Morning, it's Sven from UBS. I hope you can hear me. I keep it to just one question then, and that's on your sequential order intake guidance of somewhat lower. You said that's based on seasonality and pipeline. I was just wondering, of course, if you look at the last years, it was always somewhat lower, just simply from seasonality. I was wondering if really mostly seasonality behind it and less, so what you see on the pipeline.
Don't read too much into it. You know, in reality, even the seasonality, it can be a little bit volatile. It's not every year over the last 10 years that you have absolutely clear pattern, and we see some variations in that. You know, a lot of orders came through in Q2. I think the only thing we try to voice clearly is that we don't see a shift in the market and the underlying market demands. But with high, you know, throughput rate of orders and bookings in Q2, we are a little bit hesitant to believe that we will repeat that level every quarter going forward.
We are a bit cautious as to whether orders will come, but we see it more as quarterly variations than the trend curve.
Okay. Thanks, Tom.
All right. Super. Thank you. I mean, you all know where to reach Johan if there is any. We are five minutes overdue, so we leave that for separate conversations. Thanks a lot. If not before, we will get together in connection with Q3 earnings call in late October. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.