Welcome to day two of the J.P. Morgan All-Stars Conference. My name is Arun Jayaram. I'm the E&P and Oilfield Services analyst. Delighted to have Baker Hughes present again this year, and very delighted to have Lorenzo Simonelli, who's the Chairman, CEO, and President of Baker Hughes, which is an energy technology company. Lorenzo, thanks again for joining us this year.
Arun, thank you very much. It's good to be back.
Yeah. Really excited to have Baker, which I think is gonna play to a very strong generalist audience that we have this year at the All-Stars conference. We have a lot of generalists here, which is good to see. Lorenzo, can you provide a brief background of Baker Hughes today and some of the recent history and how you got here over the last three to five years?
Definitely, and, I think what you said is, very true. A number of people don't fully appreciate Baker Hughes, given that we really only came together a few years ago in 2017, and it was the merger between two significant companies, GE Oil and Gas, as well as Baker Hughes. And so we brought together two portfolios that really make us unique. We are not a traditional Oilfield Services & Equipment company. We truly are an energy technology company that spans from the extraction all the way to the movement of the molecule, and also the transfer of the molecule into energy. And that means we have not just an oil and gas exposure, but also an opportunity within the industrial, within the LNG sector, and we span across multiple end markets.
It's been a journey in educating and really forming the proposition of Baker Hughes as we've gone through, I would say, a volatile couple of years. Some of you know that we started off being consolidated within General Electric. Obviously, over the course of a couple of years, they sold down their stake, and in 2019, they were below 50% and now are completely outside of the stock. We really started a journey of saying we've got a unique opportunity to really execute a strategy across the energy trilemma of sustainability, affordability, and security. We laid out three horizons from a standpoint of where we are today and also 2030, and we approach it with three key pillars of execution. The first, transform the core. Operational execution, margin improvement, service delivery, doing what we do today, better.
That's important for our customers, it's important for our investors, and you'll see the improvements in our margin rates, 250 basis points over the course of the last few years, with only 4% in revenue. That is a continued focus on streamlining, simplifying, being more efficient. Transform the core is the way in which we label it. The second, invest for growth. We already started to see areas where we had an opportunity within digital, as well as industrial applications, as well as the adjacencies of non-metallics, where we could invest and actually have immediate growth. Our chemicals business, and we've taken advantage of those, and that's what's gonna give us our continued growth as we go through Horizon One and Horizon Two. The big focus and upswing in upstream spending, the LNG positive cycle that we're in.
The third area, new horizons. When we think about the energy transition, when we think about the emergence of hydrogen, CCUS, direct air capture, clean power solutions, we've made investments in those areas, and we feel that we've got a great opportunity to benefit from the growing market. We estimate that there's a market opportunity for us to address between $60 billion-$70 billion as we go into Horizon Three. That's additional to what we have today. We're already making good progress with execution on hydrogen projects. We recently took up our new energy orders outlook for 2023 from $400 million, which we've already achieved, up to $600 million and $700 million.
As you look at Baker Hughes, it is an energy technology company with a clear focus on margin enhancement, return to shareholders, and taking the opportunity of what the energy transition and energy mix evolving is all about. We think our portfolio is unique in that.
Lorenzo, how are you differentiated versus some of your other oil services peers? You're an energy technology company, but you do have a large oil field services businesses within that.
We do, and we like our Oilfield Services, and credit to the team, Maria and her team, on executing and continuing to improve it. I'd say within Oilfield Services & Equipment, we are different as well. And maybe just to start on that, we are more on the production and chemical side. We are more international than we are North America-focused. We're not in a lot of the commoditized areas. We're more on the high-tech, and harder to drill areas. And so we're less volatile, and we exited pressure pumping in North America. So we like our positioning from an Oilfield Services & Equipment standpoint, and we've seen progressive improvements in the margin rates and also in the penetration with key customers.
But what we have that's additional, that maybe isn't as well understood, is the other segment of Baker Hughes, which is the Industrial Energy Technology, which is really made up of five key areas, and we're actually incorporating this starting October first, so as to better describe and simplify the company. Gas Technology Equipment, that is the rotating equipment that goes into LNG. It goes into onshore, offshore compression, power generation, it goes into pipelines, it goes into downstream refineries, petrochemicals, as well as Gas Tech Services. Many of these pieces of equipment, critical rotating equipment, have associated transactional services, upgrades, or contractual service agreements, and that gives us an opportunity to have anywhere between five to 20-year contractual service agreements. Our backlog across the Gas Tech Services is $14 billion. Overall, within our IET business, we have $29 billion of backlog.
The other areas are Climate Technology Solutions, which is all the new areas associated with hydrogen, CCUS, direct air capture. As you look at Clean I ntegrated Power Solutions, that is still relatively small, but again, it's where we see the growth of the opportunity with the energy transition, Industrial Solutions with the digital area and the way in which we drive productivity for our customers, and Industrial Products. When we think of valves, gears that are associated with helping our customers improve their efficiencies. And again, that's on the industrial customer base as well.
Lorenzo, before doing a deeper dive into Baker Hughes, want to talk about macro. Can you talk about the macro picture for energy as the world looks to balance the energy trilemma, sustainability, security, and affordability?
Sure, we've been talking about this for some time, and, you know, I look back to 2019. Obviously, we didn't know some of the events that were gonna take place, and some of those have accelerated the need to ensure security of energy. We saw that there had been underinvestment in the industry. We saw that there was a focus on sustainability, and that's why we launched very much as an energy technology company. We think that the world is going to need more energy, and there is an ongoing demand that's out there from the developing nations, you know, that is not going to be reducing. As well as there is a need for sustainability, and that sustainability means it's not the fuel source, it is the aspect of reducing emissions.
And if we are going to reach the 2050 climate goals of the Paris Accord, we're going to need to infuse a lot of these new technologies with the use of fossil fuels as well. So as we think of the outlook, you've got actually tailwind across both of our two segments. On the Oilfield Services & Equipment, the underinvestment that took place, as well as the quick barrels and the acreage having already been used, means there's gonna be an incremental investment in upstream spending over the course of the next few years. We're already seeing that, and in particular, it's on the international side, where you have commitments being made by national oil companies on the incremental production they're going to have. Taking the case of Aramco in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a clear commitment to going to 13 million barrels.
ADNOC in the UAE, going to five million barrels. Those are areas that they're gonna continue to invest, and we see international markets growing mid-teens this year and double digit next year. As we go forward, also, Latin America continuing to grow. We have tailwind on the Oilfield Services & Equipment over the course of the next few years. On the Industrial & Energy Technology, you can see the wave of LNG. Again, we're seeing 65 MTPA this year, 65 MTPA next year, and in 2025, 2026, 30-60 MTPA. LNG and natural gas has now been understood as being not just a transition fuel, but a destination fuel.
I think it's fair to say we're one of the leaders in the liquefaction business and providing that critical equipment, and so we see a good cycle there, as well as the continued investment within the energy transition and new technologies that are required to meet goals that companies have already stated. These goals are important because I don't think companies are gonna be able to walk away from them. I know we've made our pledge, and we're continuing to invest in reducing our CO2 emissions. I think other companies will do the same. We see good tailwind across both areas of the company as we go through this cycle.
Great. Another question on the macro, as Europe looks to diversify its gas supply from Moscow, what do you think some of the longer term implications are for natural gas and LNG?
So I think there'll be a reshuffling of, the global mix of where, natural gas comes from, and also where LNG comes from. The important thing is that it's gonna continue to increase from a demand perspective, and it's gonna require the investment from a supply perspective. As you look at Europe, clearly, right now, they are one of the driving forces that's, helping the U.S. LNG continuing to FID new projects. And you look at the pipeline of U.S. LNG projects, very robust over the course of the next few years, as well as greenfield and brownfield expansions. The U.S. is blessed to have a lot of natural gas, and they're gonna be able to provide that to Europe and other nations.
Likewise, though, as you look at internationally, you're continuing to see areas of the world like Qatar, also new projects in Mozambique, in other areas, continuing to go forward as well, and there'll just be a repositioning of where gas from certain places goes and where LNG goes. But our outlook for 2030 is that we're going to have an installed base of greater than 800 MTPA. And as we look at where we are today with current capacity as well as some of the installed base that's coming on, you know, we've got about 460 MTPA installed. There's about 150 under construction. So there is a lot still that's gonna happen over the course of the next few years.
What other factors do you consider when looking at the long-term role of gas and LNG in terms of the energy mix?
We've seen the benefit of natural gas within the United States and within Europe as being the enabler to actually reduce emissions. That is gonna be a theme that is carried into the developing world as well. And so there will be a continued drive of reducing coal and going towards natural gas and LNG, especially while new technologies and the energy mix continues to evolve. One of the hard truths is, if that doesn't happen, reality is we'll consume more coal, and I think we all know that coal, from a fossil fuel and emission standpoint, is the one with the highest emissions. So that shift to gas has already been proven in Europe and in the U.S., and we think it's gonna be a continuous theme as we look to developing nations.
Great. I wanna shift gears and talk about IET.
Yeah.
Within IET, I believe last year you promoted or you had Ganesh Ramaswamy appointed to lead that IET business. T hen this year, you announced a realigning of the product lines within the segment to align with five key growth sectors. Why was Ganesh the right person to lead IET, and thoughts about that segment going forward?
Yeah, it's a move that we made as we continue to evolve and take the company forward. We've had a great backdrop of good performance within a TPS business and a DS business, but we started to see the theme of integration and also our customers looking at joint capabilities. The first step we took was really going to two business segments across Baker Hughes: Oilfield Services & Equipment, that Maria Claudia runs, and then Industrial & Energy Technology, that Ganesh runs. We brought in Ganesh for the skills that he had and also the opportunity to improve us as we go forward. First of all, we have a tremendous backlog that we've got to execute.
He has a very good process discipline, has a very good background in Kaizen, in Lean, in being able to understand the manufacturing, and we need to make sure that as we go through this backlog, we're executing on time and satisfying our customers. He's proven that before within his prior roles at Danaher, also at Johnson Controls. Also, though, as you look at the industrial solutions and the industrial products, he comes from a background of having developed new service businesses, having worked in industrial companies of industrial products, and that focus in being able to grow those areas, and also the Climate Technology Solutions. He was brought in specifically with the aspect of helping us chart the future, improving the margin rates, and having the skill set required to think beyond just the rotating equipment that we have, but also the new areas of growth.
Can you talk about the catalyst for this realignment within IET, and what will this impact, and some of the recent results in the business?
Yeah, very pleased with the recent results. You can look at the performance of the backlog growing, the margin rates solidifying with the cost out as well as the efficiencies. Clearly, we've got a mix element, but I look at that as a good thing in the sense we're increasing our installed base by 30%, and that's gonna provide us the opportunity for incremental service calories as we go forward. Razor-razorblade is a aspect of this business that we think is very beneficial. But the new reporting structure was really from a clarity of direction, and also being able to give that visibility to our employees, our different stakeholders, investors, on how can you see our strategy visible in our numbers?
So you have previously a Gas Technology and Industrial segments, and then two initiatives called Climate Technology Solutions and Digital. We've now clarified into just five areas, which you'll be able to see orders and revenues on. Gas Technology Equipment, Gas Technology Services, Climate Technology Solutions. Why is Climate Technology Solutions important? It now allows you to translate what we say in relation to the new energy space and predominantly the equipment that we can sell into the new energy areas, CCUS, hydrogen, Clean Integrated Power Solutions, direct air capture. You'll see that, and when we say we should have $6 billion-$7 billion of new orders by 2030, you'll be able to triangulate that now relative to the component that's largest associated with that, which is Climate Technology Solutions.
Likewise, on the Industrial Solutions, really putting all of our digital capability, the opportunity to show how condition monitoring, asset performance management, how our Cordant Solution is growing. And then on the Industrial Products, we think it's underappreciated, the presence we have in industrial sectors as we look at valves, as we look at gears, and so showing that penetration that we have in other sectors beyond just oil and gas.
Yep. One of the underappreciated aspects of your business within IET is turbomachinery. Can you kind of highlight your turbomachinery capabilities?
Definitely, and it's really a deep dive into the Gas Technology Equipment. So many people like to focus on LNG. I think LNG is great. It is only 30% of that Gas Technology business on average. We have, though, compression as well as gas turbines, that actually are used in other segments. One that I think is underappreciated is onshore/offshore production. And when you say onshore/offshore production, it's both the compression element as well as the power generation that's required. Look at FPSOs. We see a good market outlook for FPSOs, and as we go forward, seven to nine FPSOs on an annual basis. Why? You look at the big growth in Brazil and Petrobras. You look at some of West Africa and the offshore expansions that are taking place there.
FPSOs is a market that we do well in, and again, it's providing the compression and the power source relative to these FPSOs. Likewise, pipelines. People say new pipelines are gonna be necessary. Well, you need compression stations on pipelines. And again, there, we've got a variety of compressors, but gas turbines as well. We have a hydrogen, 100% ready gas turbine today, 16 MW. So these other areas of our rotating equipment business, and as you'd say, turbomachinery, I think are underappreciated in the various segments that they go into, as well as petrochemicals and on the refinery. I'll give you an anecdote which may be helpful. So people talk a lot about hydrogen as being a new thing. We have 2,000 compressors already installed in hydrogen applications. Yes, it is gray hydrogen. The compressor doesn't really get to think about the color.
We're able to take it to other areas, and that's the benefit that we have, taking our critical equipment within turbomachinery into these new growth areas as we see them developing within CCUS and also within hydrogen.
Lorenzo, how have you been able to position Baker as a leader within LNG and onshore and offshore production?
First of all, you've got to have good engineering, good technology, and then you've got to be consistent in your capability to execute for the customer. I think we've proven time in, time out, that like everybody, we have our challenges, but that we overcome them, and our equipment is equipment that works and provides capability to our customers. In many cases, provides them the opportunity to produce above nameplate. We're there day in, day out, providing the service and the continuous focus on the engineering talent and the upgrades that we're able to put into our installed base. So, look, LNG didn't happen overnight. Onshore, offshore production didn't happen overnight. It's been a successive growth over the course of 20 years and being able to prove out and validate. And these are huge cost of failures for our customers.
If you miss an LNG cargo, it is expensive. If you have an FPSO that goes down, it is expensive. We've proven our reliability, our uptime, and that means that once you get specified, there's the opportunity to continue growing with that customer. And we have, I would say, very intimate relationships with our customers in these areas.
Do you see a similar situation playing out for Baker in hydrogen, carbon capture, and clean power, where you have capabilities today?
I do, in differing ways. As you look at hydrogen, hydrogen is complicated. When you look at the application of hydrogen production and also the usage, it is a molecule that is challenging. We've proven the ability to work with challenging molecules. As you look at our success already in hydrogen, we are on a great partnership with our products, and in fact, we're executing together NEOM in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We're executing other hydrogen projects in the United States, and we see our opportunity there to really solidify a position where we have critical equipment in the hydrogen production and hydrogen usage areas, like we do in LNG. CCUS is gonna be more of a competitive marketplace because you're gonna have a variety of different solutions. We have picked our spots, Chilled Ammonia Process, Compact Carbon Capture.
There's always gonna be a need for compression, but there'll be a variety of players that take place within the carbon capture itself. So we'll play, but it won't be it will be more like an area which is more like downstream, where you've got other players as well. Clean Integrated Power Solutions, it's akin to hydrogen and to LNG, where the ability to produce a turbo expander, such as what we're doing with NET Power, is critical equipment. And so there, there's an opportunity to, again, obtain the same presence as we have in other areas and grow. And we're very excited about the opportunity with NET Power, which essentially, through the oxy combustion process, provides 300 MW of clean power and has already been, you know, requested by Oxy, for the first few sites.
Great. Let's talk about Gas Tech Equipment and Services. This is the largest part of your portfolio within IET, with most of your orders coming from LNG and OOP. Can you provide a summary of the type of equipment you provide within these arenas?
Yes. The equipment comes down to, as I mentioned before, a different varying sizes of gas turbines. So you can have an aeroderivative, as well as a heavy-duty gas turbine, as well as a light industrial gas turbine. So we produce the whole range. And within LNG, we have the stick- built, the modular, small scale, and we are pioneers in the modular, being able to package all of the kit that's required from a liquefaction perspective and its auxiliaries, and put it into one box, that then you're able to put in the piping, the gas, and liquefy it. So that is a capability that, we have, and I think is unique. We've used it with Venture Global and others. Then compression.
Again, you name it, depending on what you wanna compress, you know, we've got the various compressors, from centrifugal, reciprocating, et cetera, that go into these applications. It comes a lot back to your question before, you know, how do people appreciate what the turbomachinery element is, and how critical rotating equipment is as you look at new sectors that are growing and new technologies? The services side, all of these consume parts. As they get used, they consume parts. So as the OEM, we obviously provide the services that are necessary for the ongoing uptime, reliability, and those are long-term relationships as well as transactional. Then we've got an opportunity within our installed base, which is vast, to continue to provide upgrades. How do you lower emissions? How do you increase efficiency?
One-two points of efficiency increase on this critical equipment can mean significant benefit to our customers. So that's really what we do within our gas tech equipment and Gas Tech Services business.
Okay. Can you go through that, for on the LNG side, the FID order outlook, 65 million tons this year, the next few years?
Yeah. So, we're going through an upcycle in LNG. We saw this a while back, and we said that we would have, you know, between 100-150 MTPA over the course of two years. We said that two years ago. We've seen a good advancement of FIDs. As we look forward, again, there's 65 MTPA this year. We took up our orders outlook for our IET business, and we were at 10.5-11.5. We took it up to 11.5-12.5, and that still excludes a potential major LNG project that could FID before the end of this year, beginning of next year. But LNG is, again, going through tailwind next year, another 65 MTPA. And we come up with these numbers not just by because we like them.
Because of the projects that we track. I've been tracking LNG for a significant amount of time. Every single project that's on the list, we're intimately involved in. When you look at, at Port Arthur, that just took FID this year, it's not that Port Arthur wasn't around multiple years ago. You look at a NextDecade, we've been involved with NextDecade for multiple years. Look at Qatar, we've been with Qatar multiple years. These 65 MTPA is about brownfield expansions as well as greenfield opportunities. In 2025, 2026, again, we still see 30-60 MTPA per year of new FIDs as well as brownfields.
Great. Just other thoughts on just the upbeat order outlook within LNG. Is this customer driven, a lot of demand? What's driving this strong outlook?
It's customer driven, and it's also, I think, the new ways in which we can provide LNG and the speed at which we can provide it. So previously, a lot of things would have been stick built, and with stick build, the cycle time can be anywhere from four-five years after FID, and just the complexity of some of these projects. With the new modular approach, you're now able to go from FID to first cargo within 29 months we've seen, and we think that can be even shorter. So when you think of the need for energy, natural gas to LNG starts to become very positive from a cycle time perspective. Likewise, you've seen the increase in floating LNG.
There's a lot of gas that is stranded in certain places offshore, and we're seeing an increased use of modular on floating LNGs to be able to tap in to the stranded gas. So as we go forward, again, the LNG outlook is positive as a way in which we really take not just as a transition but a destination. And I think what's most noticeable is also Europe changing its view on natural gas. And today, you know, Europe is looking at natural gas as being a greener fuel in helping to reduce the emissions.
In OOP, how would you characterize the current offshore environment relative to prior cycles?
More consistent. The reason why I say that is, you know, there's always been up cycles, down cycles. When you look at the longevity of the pre-salt findings, when you look at some of these offshore developments, look at Guyana for ExxonMobil and Hess. It is a programmatic development of a field that we know is vast, and they have FPSOs that they have basically on a production line. Petrobras, similar, and also the partners that they have as IOCs. It's now become production line of every year I'll bring on new capability for the production that's got to be increased. I'll add FPSOs. And you've got new opportunities. When you look at Namibia, that is going to be a market opportunity that is going to emerge. You look at, again, below Guyana in some of the new areas that are being discovered, new opportunities.
We think FPSOs have got more consistency than they did before because of the visibility we have to the fields where they're going to be utilized, and also the investments that are being committed by the NOCs and the IOCs.
Can you talk about Baker's portfolio in terms of servicing offshore and, you know, how could the company benefit from this resurgence in offshore activity?
Well, so we play on offshore in really multiple ways, but I'd say outside of the FPSOs, which I just discussed, we also have the Oilfield Equipment business, which is part of Oilfield Services & Equipment. We provide manifolds, we provide trees, we provide flexibles. And this is a business that for us has underperformed in the past, especially on the tree side. We announced a restructuring of that business last year. It was losing money. It is now making money, and we see the opportunity to continuously improve the margin outlook for the Oilfield Equipment business. And when you look at it, we have reduced capacity on the tree side. We've rationalized into some major basins and some major customer relationships, and so from being negative margin rate, we've gone into low single digit. We fully anticipate that we'll go into high single digit.
Overall, with the flexibles, there is a great presence that we have with Petrobras and a backlog of being sold out, as well as the wellheads business. We think we can be in the high single to low double digit for Oilfield Equipment. It's part of the journey that the Oilfield Services & Equipment business is on to achieve 20% margin rates by 2025.
Lorenzo, at Baker, you have a unique razor-r azor blade kind of business when we think about gas tech. Can you talk about what services you provide within Gas Tech Services?
Yeah. It goes back to, again, if you think about, once you've got your installed equipment there. If it's critical equipment, customers are very committed to the uptime and the efficiency and the reliability. The majority of our LNG trains have a contractual service agreement on them, which goes from anywhere from five to 20 years. That is a long-term relationship. Not all critical equipment has a Contractual Service Agreement. You do have, in other applications, just a transactional business, which is maintenance, it's, people request for parts. Considering we're the OEM, people do tend to buy from the OEM, the parts on these machines. And then the third opportunity is continuously to look to improve the efficiency. This equipment will be there for 20 years. Some cases, it'll be there for 30 years.
We've got an opportunity with the customer to continue to improve and increase the efficiency through upgrades, and that's an important aspect of it. Those three elements really make up our service proposition, and I'd say what is more and more becoming the case is also the application of digital monitoring, the application of advisory services, knowledge-based services, and really improving the efficiency of our field service technicians as they're out there in the field, performing the outages and the overhauls for this critical equipment.
Great. In 2023, Lorenzo, you and the team are guiding to around $10 billion of IET revenue and 15% EBITDA margins. You've established a 2025-2026 target of an expansion in margins to 20%+ . Can you talk about the key drivers of moving from 15% to 20%+ ?
Yeah, we've got very good line of sight to the roadmap towards that. Firstly, it starts with the cost out that we announced, and also the opportunity to streamline as we went from two product companies into one segment of IET, and we in 2023, on an annualized basis, will get $50 million. Also, it's the pricing discipline and the continued execution of the margins that are in backlog, which again, we've been able to improve. As we look at the new areas of industrial solutions and industrial products, these are businesses that had a very difficult time during the pandemic and suffered from supply chain challenges, and their growth margins remained in place. However, their EBIT rate came down considerably. There is good line of sight to those going back to the historical margin rates of 18%-19% that we had historically.
So those are some of the key levers, and then the Climate Technology Solutions. The majority of what we're selling today is equipment that we already have, and so the margin rates being solid on those coming through. So line of sight, very much there. The reason for the 25-26 is mix is always something that, you don't know between the equipment and services side, but with a 30% increase in the installed base, especially on LNG, we think that, that is gonna be very advantageous as we go into the services side.
Next topic is new energies. It's been a really good year for you in terms of backlog. You've booked $440 million of inbound CCUS, hydrogen, ammonia plant equipment orders have been driving that backlog bill. Can you provide some updated thoughts on potential backlog for the full year?
So we took up our guidance from the 400 to 600 to 700, and I look at it as a positive story over the course of the last few years. You know, we doubled our new energy orders in 2022, and now in 2023, from that $200 million, we're already at $400 million, and we're going to $600 million-$700 million. This space is moving fast. I think it's been aided by the Inflation Reduction Act. It's been aided by several policy shifts also within Europe, and the pipeline of opportunities is increasing. If anything, you know, what I used to see as being out there in 2030 has the potential to be pulled in just based on some of the policies that have been put in place.
We haven't given any views on 2024 yet and 2025, but again, we would anticipate continuing to grow that new energies construct from an orders perspective.
Can you talk about your longer-term targets, call it in 2030, where you see this business potentially getting to in terms of inbound orders?
W e've laid out a conservative view of if you look at the addressable market of $60 billion-$70 billion, that we have an opportunity for $6 billion-$7 billion. Now, that is something that we feel is very doable and we're obviously, I'm pushing the team for much more, but that is something that is very much line of sight and realistic if you look at the way new energy continues to gain momentum. That being said, I think it's important to remember, what makes Baker Hughes unique is that, w e actually play both sides. And let's say, new energy doesn't necessarily go as fast as we anticipate. We've got the other areas that will continue to grow then at a faster rate, and so there's a balancing act there, which makes our portfolio unique.
Okay. A couple key things. I know we're running out of time. I wanted to ask you about some of the key implications from the IRA in the US.
IRA is a game changer, and, you know, they definitely approached it from giving a carrot, not a stick. If you look at the areas where they are providing incentives, number one, on the 45Q, taking the CO2 up to $85. Direct air capture, providing a $185. You look at green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, again, providing incentives. I can tell you, after the IRA came out, there were substantial increases in inbounds around projects and a pipeline of projects, and you're starting to see those come through. We think that ammonia and hydrogen will grow quickly. CCUS is definitely a fast mover. And what's also encouraging is that within the Inflation Reduction Act, there's also a lot more discussion around permitting.
There's a lot more discussion around what other elements need to change to enable the Inflation Reduction Act to be positive. I've spent many hours in round tables with both the Department of Energy as well as industry stakeholders on making sure that we actually see the positive traction from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Great. Lorenzo, final question: More recently, the company is messaging the benefits of staying one company. Can you provide the investor just an update on the latest thoughts on the potential separation of the two businesses?
We think staying together is the best return for our investors and stakeholders. As is appropriate, we always have to look at different options, and that's what we did. We studied it, and when we look at who the primary first movers are gonna be on some of the new areas of growth and new technologies, it's gonna be the NOCs and the IOCs. When you look at the integration of technologies, it's gonna be around subsurface and rotating equipment. When you look at the opportunity to play with a unified portfolio of solutions, that's what Baker Hughes can provide. I think the study gave us a good opportunity to really understand the value of our differentiated portfolio, and now it's really communicating it and proving it in the quarter-by-quarter results.
Great. Lorenzo, we're out of time. Thank you so much for the rich discussion. Appreciate your participation in the conference and support of J.P. Morgan.
Thank you very much, Arun.
Thank you.
Pleasure, as always.