Gaztransport & Technigaz SA (GTT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much, everybody, to attend this presentation of our 2021 results. I would like to introduce to you the persons who are going to make this presentation today. First of all, Virginie Aubagnac, the Group CFO; Jean-Baptiste Boutillier, who is the Head of Innovation; Jean-Baptiste Choimet, who is the Head of Elogen; and Anouar Kiassi who is the head of our digital activities. Well, the agenda today is going through our various activities. First of all, I will begin with the company overview. We are a company aiming at providing technology for a sustainable world. Our conviction is that the most efficient enabler of the energy transition is technology. We deliver technology, thanks to very strong human assets, a lot of competencies, various competencies. And these very strong assets allow us to have a very important portfolio of intellectual capital. That's a journey that has started a long time ago for GTT. In fact, in the last 10 years, we divided in 2 the CO2 emissions of LNG carriers. So we did not wake up recently to these issues. It's a long-term goal for GTT. A journey that started a long time ago for GTT, it means, for example, that these technologies we've introduced in the past 10 years, what did they achieve? They achieved, for example, 5 million tonnes of LNG saved each year. That means a lot of CapEx. That means a lot of CO2. That means a liquefaction train like train 3 for Corpus Christi. So it's huge. It's totally huge. But it's a journey that has accelerated in 2021. For example, look at the figures we've achieved in LNG as a fuel. We contracted 27 LNG as fuel tanks for container ships. It's more than all what we signed for in the previous years. And I could continue like that. I could say that in -- we passed the 1,000-ship landmark in terms of ships equipped with our optimization platform in the digital sector, and I could continue. Well, key figures for 2021. Just to say in a few words that it has been a record year for orders in terms of LNG carriers, in terms of onshore storage, in terms of LNG as fuel. So it's -- wherever we look at, it has been very impressive. Some highlights. Whatever the sector, I was mentioning our core business, I was mentioning the LNG as a fuel but also in smart machining, we signed for many contracts and we aim at becoming a reference player, but we are becoming a reference player. Climate ambition. First of all, we are on track with the targets we are -- we have set for ourselves, which are consistent with the ambition to limit global warming to 1.5 degree. We are in line on Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3. And beyond that, we are looking at all what we can bring to the industry through the innovations we can bring. So we are confirming our targets over the 2019-2025 period, and once more, we are on track. We saw the European Union taxonomy, and we welcome this taxonomy. We -- that is confirming our vision of the role of gas as an energy, which is complementary to renewables. And we are quite glad that it's recognized at this level. It's what we believe, it's what we see and finally to have that recognized is a very important point. Now I will give the floor to Jean-Baptiste Boutillier, who is going to talk about innovation.

Thank you very much, Philippe, and good morning to you. So now, let's focus on innovation. So R&D and innovation are at the heart of GTT strategy. GTT invests in innovation, which is about 10% on the last 10 year on average in innovation, and we have more than 120 people fully dedicated to innovation. In addition, GTT also invests in IP with a clear strategy to continue growing its patent portfolio. Today, our patent portfolio is more than 2,100 patents and we continue to apply for new patent every year. In average, we apply for 60 patents every year in France. And thanks to this, we have been ranked at the first place for the second year in a row for the midsized company applying patent in France. In addition, we are also participating to several innovation program and we have also launched our internal innovation challenge in order to foster innovation spirit within our teams. These efforts on core business enables better energy efficiency on our system and we multiply it by 2 the energy efficiency of the product we are proposing to the market, and we will continue to do so. We aim at releasing at the end of this year a new technology called Next1 for the NO family in order to match the performance of the Mark III family. 2021 key innovation spread on several domains, the first one being the membrane, which is a core business of GTT. And we general approval for our new product, NO96 Super+. Thanks to this product, we can reduce the operating cost of our customers. Then we innovated in another domain for the multi-gas. We increased the efficiency of our current product, Mark III, and we received approval in principle for this technology for being ammonia-ready. We also innovate in vessel design, and we received another approval in principle for the design of a bunker ship ballast-free. So therefore, this design is more environmental friendly and it is, therefore, an improvement for the market. We also innovated in digital solutions. Antoine will explain in more detail, but we released this year some solution enabling optimization of the performance -- the maintenance, sorry. And the last domain in which we have innovated is in gas handling, and we released a new product, which is called Recycool, which aim at reliquefying the excess BOG on LNG fuel vessels. Now if we have a few words on the innovation road map, first, on the core business. GTT aims at further reducing the LNG carriers' CO2 emission by continuing developing our technologies as we did -- as we -- as I mentioned earlier. On LNG as fuel, GTT offers best technology for alternative fuel and we are doing so by adapting our core business technology to this sector. On maritime, we are proposing solutions for smart shipping and for gas-handling solution. And with the combination of our solution for LNG as fuel, smart shipping and gas handling, we are proposing the best performance for shipping. For Elogen, Jean-Baptiste Choimet will give more detail on it later on, but we continue to explore the potential of technological efficiency and improvements of our PEM electrolyzer. We are also acting towards zero-carbon solution by developing solutions for -- and scalable solution for liquid hydrogen transport. We announced a few days ago cooperation agreements with Shell. The purpose of this agreement -- or this cooperation agreement is to develop the basic design of midsized LH2 carriers with the containment system dedicated for these LH2carriers. The purpose here is to establish reliable and efficient, competitive hydrogen supply chain being able to transport the hydrogen in large volume. This is -- and there are some technical challenges, so the first one is the quantity we want to ship. And the second one is the fact that liquid hydrogen is very cold at a temperature of minus 253 degrees. Finally, we would like to focus on our new gas-handling solution, which help managing the excess BOG on the excess boil-off gas on the LNG-fueled vessel. So this technology is the first technology developed for the gas handling by GTT. As I mentioned earlier, it is called Recycool, and it used the cold from the LNG, which is sent to the main engine to reliquefy the excess BOG. So this solution is a simple and compact solution. Therefore, it fits quite well into the existing design and it brings a significant CO2 emission reduction for the LNG-fueled vessels. I will now let Philippe Berterottière present to you the strategy and activity. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jean-Baptiste. Well, you are used to our ammonite and I would like to present now the update of our ammonite. We keep on improving our product lines. And in 2021, we introduced a new version of the NO96 system, a system which is called NO96 Super+, and this system introduced in 2021 has already been sold for several vessels in several shipyards. We are continuing to enlarge our product lines. And for example, in digital solutions, we introduced in 2021 new applications. In fact, month after month, we are introducing new applications in the digital sectors. And we are keeping on transforming our product offering. We do that -- Jean-Baptiste was talking about Recycool that we introduced, our first technology in gas chain, but we are keeping on working on our hydrogen vision road map. And for example, Jean-Baptiste was talking about the LH2 carrier, which can be a major breakthrough not only for ships, but in fact, for making hydrogen possible and green hydrogen produced in large quantity possible. That's what we are aiming at. So in fact, what we are looking at, it's going towards a zero-carbon future. What we are progressing -- we are working on new developments in order to go to this horizon. The company is at the heart of this quest. So let's look at our core business, and first of all, LNG carriers. First, what we can say is that gas is a growing energy at the core of the energy transition. In fact, gas and renewables are the only 2 energies, which are supposed to grow in the years to come. And it's not a surprise because they go hand-in-hand. The more you rely on renewables, the more you need gas. The LNG market is evolving, and we can see that in the past 2 years, LNG has represented a more important part than gas through pipeline -- has overtaken gas through pipeline. So LNG is growing and is taking the lion's share in the gas trade. When we look at the estimates made by various bodies over the next 10 years, we can see that all of them are considering that LNG is going to go. But what is more important is when we look at that in detail, they consider that the growing scenario are compatible with the energy transition. And that's what makes this growth very sound. Asia will remain the key growth area for LNG. And in Asia, it's going to be China. I would like you to pay a minute of attention to the curve of the growth in China. It's regular. It's steep. It's impressive. It continues. It's -- so coal in China is still representing 57% of the energy mix, so I would say that in order to clean up the emissions, there is a vast domain. Coal has to be reduced. Other energies will take the place of coal. And among these other energies, there is going to be LNG. So new capacity are required. And we can see on this graph that by 2040, Wood Mackenzie estimates that we need an additional 240 million tonne per annum. In fact, that requires FIDs in order to provide additional quantities and not as soon as 2030, as we said, but in fact, earlier, if I may. As soon as 2027, we need fresh LNG quantities. So for that, we need decisions. When we look at the liquefaction projects under construction, that's a chart you are used to, we consider that the market is currently needing 91 additional ships. Fleet replacement, spot trading, market flexibility, 91 additional ships. When we look at the projects and the FIDs, you know that 2021 has been the second best year ever with 51 million tonnes per annum decided with the Qatar project, the Baltic project and the Pluto 2 (sic) [ Pluto T2 ] project. But numerous FIDs are in the offings. You have the list of them, which could be decided as soon as 2022. The shipping -- the LNG shipping market, we saw that in 2021 is volatile -- is very volatile. We can see that in the spot market where we saw spot rates going beyond $200,000 a day. We see that in 1-year charter rate where the rates are above $100,000 a day, at $120,000 a day. It means twice the break-even point. That just translates in one thing: there is a lack of ship. There is a lack of ships on the market. In addition to that, there is a renewable market where we consider that there are 246 ships, which are steam turbine which are emitting too much in terms of CO2, and in fact, which will have to be replaced in the years to come. Well, the -- our technologies, which are offering by far the best performances in terms of emissions are well placed for that. If you -- if we want to look at the long-term estimates for orders for GTT, we can say that on the LNG carrier market, now our 10-year vision is increasing. And for us, there should be between 330 and 360 ships to be ordered to GTT in the next 10 years. For the other segments in which we are working on are not changing, except for FSRUs, where we say up to 10 orders rather than 10 orders, because we think that there is going to be such a renewal of the market in the next 10 years that not-so-old ships will be replaced and could be converted into FSRUs. Well, talking about LNG as a fuel, you know that environmental drivers are very strong and are very strong on the maritime industry. IMO is setting targets -- is setting quite complex regulation. I'm not going to walk through it. Just one figure, by 2050, the maritime industry should have divided its emission by 2 compared to 2008. So it's ambitious. Intermediate landmarks are going to be set. We've got to work on that, and we consider that LNG as fuel is the best transition energy for the shipping industry. Look at the current CO2 emissions compared to methanol, to ammonia to MDO, they are significantly less. Look at the price. Let's talk about money. Look at the price. Look at the other emissions, whatever you are looking at, LNG is better. GTT has, in fact, become a reference solution for container ships in 2021. We got 27 orders. It's a takeoff year for LNG as a fuel at large and for GTT in particular. And at the beginning of 2022, we are confirming this market penetration with already 9 orders. But beyond container ships, where we have become a reference solution, we are looking at other market segments. We are looking at oil tankers, we are looking at bulk carriers, we are looking at cruise ships and we are looking at PCTCs, ships transporting cars and trucks. So it's an addressable market of nearly 3,500 ships over the next 10 years that we are looking at. I will leave the floor to Virginie who is going to present to you the financials.

Anouar.

Anouar. Sorry, sorry.

Thank you, Philippe. Digital technologies are key in building sustainable shipping. It also enables us to combine our expertise to provide the most optimized solutions for our customers. What we call Smart Shipping is the use of state-of-the-art digital technologies to reduce emissions, to reduce the cost and to improve the safety of the vessels. The main drivers are then cost reduction, the demanding environmental regulation and the increased need for transparency between the stakeholders. It is an emerging market with a fragmented landscape today because players are providing a partial -- or covering a partial scope of expertise, but it is a growing market and we expect it to reach USD 730 million by 2025. We believe that we have all the skills to build a strong position in that market, thanks to our technical skills and our commercial network. And we have the ambition to become a reference player by combining our technical expertise and through organic development and targeted acquisitions, as we have done in the past. Thanks to these initial investments, our continuous efforts in R&D, we have already built a turnkey solution for performance and safety management adapted to all types of vessels. And Philippe mentioned early on the number of vessels that we have equipped that is growing more and more every year. And our ultimate goal is to create the most advanced and comprehensive solution in that domain to increase our market share and improve our margin. In 2021, we witnessed major technical achievements. First, we received the AiP, approval in principle, from the Bureau Veritas for our solution called the Sloshing Virtual Sensor that helps the shipowners reduce the cost of maintaining the tanks. Once adopted by the industry, it will sustain our already strong position in our core applications. We have also received a grant from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore to develop the Electronic Bunker Delivery Note solution that helps the shipowners to speed up the process of bunkering and receiving the financing for that. And finally, we launched LNG Optim, which is a unique digital solution based on a digital twin technology to optimize the performance of the vessels in terms of fuel consumption, emissions and also the environmental aspects. For 2022, the way ahead is to go again further and develop and expand even more. We have 2 main objectives: introducing new solutions for emissions measurements because there's a strict deadline for the owners by 2023 to comply by the regulation, and introduce -- we aim also at introducing a new innovative solution for route optimization to help the customers improve the environmental KPIs of their vessels and their economics. So as said previously, and I think we insist enough on that, the environmental regulation is a key driver for Smart Shipping. It also makes it possible to align the stakeholders' interest. Carbon intensity index monitoring is a key topic for the industry in the coming years. It is mandatory starting from 2023 with a key milestone being reducing the carbon intensity by 40% in 2030. Failing to comply with this regulation will have an immense impact on the ships operations in terms of business for the ship owners and in terms of image for the charters. That is why our solutions will help our customers and help already our customers monitor the compliance of their fleet and find operational measures to improve their rating. Always in relation with the decarbonization, Jean-Baptiste will talk to you now about our hydrogen electrolysis technologies.

Thank you, Anouar. Let us now focus on Elogen, GTT's arm for electrolysis technology. So in 2021, we have been busy transforming Elogen. First, we reorganized and we grew the team of the company, enabling us to continue the delivery of our projects, and we secured revenues of EUR 5.6 million. We also accelerated our R&D and commercial activities, securing an order intake of EUR 6.2 million, often with innovative components in our orders. This was made possible, thanks to the financial support of GTT, which invested nearly EUR 15 million for our development. So now that we have this strong basis, 2022 will be a year of acceleration. We will continue the industrial ramp-up of the company with our new stack assembly workshop near Paris and the continued development of our Gigafactory project under the IPCEI framework. We will also expand our commercial activities, thanks to our robust and enlarged product portfolio. The future of green hydrogen looks bright. Indeed, we see an increasing number of projects at different stages of development for a total of approximately 400 gigawatt of electrolysis capacity. This is mainly driven by Europe, Asia Pacific and South America. The size of the electrolyzers will definitely grow especially by the need -- from the needs of heavy industry. And Elogen is preparing for these projects. However, today, our portfolio is well adapted to the size of the projects, which are either under construction or soon to be sanctioned. We are convinced that the Proton Exchange Membrane technology is the best one for our electrolyzers, and these for 4 main reasons. First of all, it makes our electrolyzers the best friends of intermittent renewable power, thanks to their high responsiveness. Second, they offer a reliable solution, free from any hazardous substances. Their footprint can be very limited, which is quite ideal in congested environment, such as brownfield industrial sites or for offshore electrolysis. And last but not the least, the innovation potential of our technology is very high, which will enable us to further reduce our costs and improve the efficiency of our systems. It is for this reason that 76% of the projects, which have chosen their technology, have already opted for PEM. I mentioned our focus on developing new technological solutions to improve the efficiency of our electrolyzers. Well, there is a simple reason for this: we have developed an in-house model to estimate the cost of hydrogen from electrolysis, and you can see the results of this model on this slide. The result shows that the main contributor to the cost of hydrogen is power with OpEx representing at least 2/3 of the overall cost. So to reduce the bill for our clients, we can help by reducing the energy consumption of our electrolyzers. To ensure Elogen becomes a world leader of electrolysis, our growth will rely on 3 pillars. R&D, in order to further reduce the cost of our systems and improve their efficiency. For this, we count on our highly skilled engineers but also our recent partnership with Paris-Saclay University, which is at the cutting edge of world research on electrochemistry. The second pillar is industrialization. First step is now completed with the start-up of our new stacks workshop in Les Ulis, giving us a production capacity of 160-megawatt per annum. The second step is, of course, our Gigafactory project as part of the IPCEI, which we expect to start up in 2025. And the last but crucial pillar is reliability. We ensure that we design reliable electrolyzers, and our engineers always target technical excellence, a value that we share with our mother company, GTT. Now that you have been presented with all key activities of GTT Group, I will hand over to Virginie, who will introduce the financials.

Thank you, Jean-Baptiste. Now let's move on to the financials. 2021 is marked by a strong momentum in orders. Throughout the year, GTT booked a total of 103 orders, among which 68 LNG carriers, 2 ethane carriers, 6 onshore storage tanks. That also includes 27 orders from LNG as a fuel vessels, which is more than all the orders ever received by GTT in this segment over time. GTT's core business order book reaches 161 units at the end of December 2021, and LNG as a fuel order book stands at 32 units. At the end of 2021, GTT's core business order book reaches an all-time high level with a total value of EUR 795 million. This order book will contribute EUR 263 million to 2022 revenues and EUR 319 million to 2023 revenues, which is already close to 2020 peak level. Keep in mind that 2022 orders could increase further this figure. In 2024, the contribution of the order book to revenues remain strong at EUR 182 million. GTT registered a very sound financial performance in 2021 and achieves its annual targets. Revenue stands at EUR 315 million, at the high end of our guidance range. And EBITDA stands at EUR 172 million slightly above our guidance range. As anticipated, 2021 figures result show a decline compared to 2020 peak level, but stands at the same level as 2019. Now back to revenues. Newbuild royalty amounted to EUR 292 million mainly for LNG carriers, but also from other membrane application on VLEC, FSU, FSRU, GBS, onshore storage and LNG as a fuel. As mentioned by Jean-Baptiste from earlier, Elogen total revenue amounts to EUR 5.6 million in 2021, which includes EUR 0.6 million subsidies. Services revenue are up 20%, mainly thanks to our Smart Shipping activities. EBITDA margin stands at a high level at 54.7%. At constant scope, excluding the impact of 2020 acquisitions, the EBITDA margin stands at 59%. Net income amounts to EUR 134 million, translating into a net margin of 43%, 46% at constant scope. Change in working capital requirement stands positive in 2021, thanks to the numerous deliveries and the high flow of new orders over the year. And at the end of the year, GTT's net cash position reached EUR 204 million. Thanks to a lean and fit approach within GTT SA, the company has compensated the impact of Elogen integration and cost base is stable in 2021. Total external costs have sharply decreased by 13% in 2021, in particular, thanks to a strong reduction in subcontracted test and studies. Staff costs stand at EUR 66.6 million, showing a slight increase of 3% due in particular to Elogen integration. And taking into account the 2021 financial performance, GTT proposes a dividend of EUR 3.1 per share, corresponding to a payout ratio of 86% or 80% based on net results excluding 2020 acquisitions. I'll now let Philippe comment on the outlook of the company.

Thank you, Virginie. So the outlook. For revenue, we consider that our consolidated revenue in 2022 should be in a range between EUR 290 million and EUR 320 million. For our EBITDA, we estimate that our EBITDA in 2022 should be between EUR 140 million and EUR 170 million. The dividend, we propose that the amount of the dividend for 2022 should be at least equivalent to the one proposed for fiscal year 2021. The midterm outlook from 2023 onwards, we expect that revenues and results should be significantly higher than in 2022, driven by the robust order momentum we are enjoying. Thank you, thank you. Before passing to the questions, I would like to say that I hope this presentation has convinced you that we are really a company aiming at delivering technology for a sustainable world. It's what all the employees of GTT are convinced. That's what they are working on days after days. We have this ambition. We have this vision. We have this strategy. We have this road map. That's what we are working actually. And with the ambition of going towards zero-carbon future, it's a long way, it's a long journey, but we are there. We are working on that constantly. So now if you have questions?

[Operator Instructions]

Jean-Luc Romain, CIC Market Solutions. I have 2 questions, one on technology, your new liquefaction technology. How does it compare to Turbo-Brayton? Is it the same use or is that for different uses? Second question is kind of a conversion question for hydrogen. How do I convert your new plant capacity of 160 gigawatts in turnover when it is at full use?

So regarding your question on the gas handling technology, it is not the same technology as Turbo-Brayton and it is dedicated -- and the technology we developed is dedicated for LNG-fueled vessel fitted with high-pressure main engine. So it is not the same concept, and we are using the cold generated from the vaporization of the LNG, the liquid LNG, which is pumped into the tank and which is vaporized before ascending to the main engine. And so it is a heat exchanger -- based on heat exchanger and not at all on the Turbo-Brayton principle.

So on the second question, I'm afraid there is no immediate answer to your question for the reason that we usually integrate the stacks in larger systems, full electrolyzers. And then the turnover will highly depend on the battery limit of the electrolyzer as well as the size of the electrolyzer. So I cannot straight fully answer to that.

Guillaume Delaby, Societe Generale. Macro question, please. I think that one of the main macro driver of GTT share price in 2022 is going to be the number of new LNG FIDs, which will be sanctioned. And if I go to your Slide #29, and if I sum up all the capacities, which might [ flash may be ] FID did in 2202, 2023, so Plaquemines, Corpus Christi, Driftwood. I came up to a total of 52 mtpa. So my question is why are you so conservative when, for example, when I listen to Baker Hughes back in last January, and Baker Hughes is probably the best early indicator we have because basically they are building the turbines. And those people from Baker Hughes are rather expecting between 100 to 150 mtpa over 2022, 2023 while you are only expecting 52. So who is missing what and what is missing who?

Okay. Well, thank you very much, Guillaume, for this question. In fact, we -- I don't know whether the driver of the share price are going to be the FIDs. It may much more simply be the number of LNG carriers ordered. But you're right saying more FIDs sanctioned and the more LNG carriers will be ordered in the years to come. We -- you know that we are never over optimistic. It's not particularly the style. We see that some projects are quite ready to be sanctioned. Some of those may take a bit more time. But if you look at the FIDs in the coming years, such as Calcasieu Phase 2, Freeport Train 4 or Calcasieu Phase 2, it's 10 ships. Freeport Train 4 -- it's not 10 ships, it's more than 20 ships. Freeport Train 4, it's more than 10 ships. Tortue Phase 2, I could continue. These projects could be sanctioned earlier than that. So we are not in the boardrooms where decisions are going to be taken. We take a reasonable approach. There may be an acceleration. We have to see that -- we have to say that the current circumstances on the gas market are very much favoring positive decisions. So we just hope to be surprised. And well, we are much more specialized in technology for a sustainable world than in bets on FIDs taken in different places in the world. So that's the approach. I would say also that the liquefaction plants are among the highest capital-intensive plants in the world, and year 2022 is a year when rates are going to increase. It may have an influence. So let's be reasonable. Next one?

Yes. Kevin Roger from Kepler Cheuvreux. A few questions on my side. The first ones will be related to hydrogen and notably the partnership that you have with Shell for the transport of hydrogen in liquid stage. Can you provide us a bit of information in terms of timing, when do you expect to have this cargo vessel in operation? And who will be the technology owner? Because this is a partnership with Shell, so is it you or is it Shell plus GTT? Who will be at the end of the technology owner? On the IPCEI, a few days ago, the President Macron macro made some, let's say, vocal announcement, may be a bit earlier than what he issued at. But he say that basically Mcphy and Faurecia get some cash. Did you heard anything on your side for you? On the cash, EUR 200 million of cash in the balance sheet right now. It's likely to increase based on the earnings forecast. So what would be the group strategy on the cash pile because EUR 200 million is probably a huge number? And maybe a proactive one, but discussing with such shipowners, it seems that basically orders that are placed now are for delivery in 2026, 2027 now. So would you confirm that basically the yards are now fully booked for '22, 3, 4 and 5?

Thank you very much, Kevin. And Jean-Baptiste, yes?

So regarding our cooperation with Shell, it is clear that the ownership of the technology will be GTT. All the technical part is made by GTT. And in terms of timing, which is the second part of your question, we expect to have the technology ready by '26 and we expect to have the first vessel for, but then it will depend on Shell investment, on other people investment by '28.

Okay. On your second question for the IPCEI well, we don't have any comments to make on the President remarks. What I can say is that we are in the race. We've been retained by the government and the European Union for this subsidy program. And we are in the race with the others at the same stage, and in fact, as the others, including Mcphy. Well, the cash pile, the -- we are looking at what we can do as something smart in the various sectors we are in. You see that in 2021 we add a new field with the gas chain. So we are looking at what is really making sense. We are addressing different sectors. All these sectors are very consistent. So there may be opportunities. We have the power. We have the muscles to do something. But what you can sure of that we are going to do is going to be sound. It's going to make sense with what we do. We don't feel the pressure of doing something. We know that we have the powder to do something, but it has to make sense. In a certain way, I would say that the guidance we've given in terms of dividend is passing on the message that we understand that we cannot increase that even though our payout ratio is generous with at least 80%, but we have a more generous approach for year 2021 and year 2022 in terms of payout. So we listen the message, but we want to keep the powder for something which would complement our offering. 2026, 2027, well, there are still some slots in 2026. But in fact, the yards are addressing this issue and they are saying with us, in fact, how they could increase their offering, the number of ships they can build in the years to come. It's not going to be drastic. But if they can add 5, 10, 15 ships, it would be very helpful for the LNG shipping industry. So it's true that these next years are quite booked by the orders, but also by the options. So it's not because there are no slots available in -- before 2026, that we are not going to receive orders for earlier deliveries. So we may be surprised by the date of deliveries of orders coming and the related consequences on our revenue recognition.

So if I may, just as a follow-up, in a way we should assume that you will deliver something like 60-plus vessels in the next 4 years, each time?

I would not say that your assumption is unreasonable, Kevin. But in that sector, you may always be surprised. There is a lot of volatility. These circumstances are very positive now, that's a fact. I guess the industry is -- the shipyards altogether are gearing their production capacities for aiming at least at 60, maybe above 60. Now many things may change. We were talking about the interest rates. We could talk about geopolitics and so on and so forth. So let's fasten our seat belt for a surprising world.

Jean-Francois Granjon speaking from ODDO BHF. Two questions, please. Could you come back on the Elogen strategy. You have invested EUR 15 million today. You expect new capacity with more stock in the future Gigafactory. Could you give us some more color about the CapEx expected and the timing for this CapEx for the coming years? And the second question concern the working capital. After a strong positive working capital last year, what do you expect for the working capital in 2022?

Okay. Jean-Baptiste, Elogen with our strategy?

Okay. Thank you. So in terms of strategy, so as I explained, we are starting up a new workshop in Les Ulis, which we realized at the end of last year, thanks in part, but Philippe will comment, to some public funding to and this enables us to increase our stack production capacity, which gives us the largest production capacity in France in terms of electrolysis manufacturing. And the Gigafactory project we are currently developing, like Philippe said earlier, we are awaiting feedback from the European Commission on the IPCEI scheme. But the 15 projects, which have been prenotified by the French government are all under scrutiny by the European Commission as we speak.

Working capital?

On working capital, as you saw, we can have swings depending on the average construction milestones of our portfolio. So it will depend on it. We have a very strong order book. And when the order book is at quite, on average, quite a late stage of construction, then we have a positive working cap and that can entail swings. So it's just a momentary. There's no structural issues, but we might have it also in the future, in some years.

No question? Other questions?

[ Bruno ] [indiscernible] I've got several questions. One is with regard to the probable expansion of yard capacity in China. You signed very recently another order with a Chinese yard, I can't remember the name. Since China has become the first LNG importer in the world very recently, they are likely to expand their yard capacity. Can you -- what can you tell us about that? Is that going to solve the potential bottleneck in the sector? Then I've got a question with regard to your guidance for this year. If looking at your revenue guidance and if we deduct the phasing of revenues from the vessels only, it means that your implicit guidance for this year for the services part is around EUR 40 million, if not more. It means it will mean more than a doubling of your services revenue this year. Is it a correct estimate? And could you explain what is going to -- what parts of your services offering are likely to grow -- to expand very much this year? Is it Elogen? Is it other services, which you presented earlier?

On the yard capacity in China, yes, we signed recently an agreement with Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai for LNG as a fuel tanks. And they've been the second shipyard in China to build LNG carrier with a contract in 2021 for an 80,000-cubic meter LNG carrier. So they are in the race. And other shipyards in China are looking at whether they could enter into the LNG carrier production. But we know China. We are working there for more than 20 years. And the ramp-up is not that fast. It's fast nowhere in the world, in fact. LNG carriers are complicated -- are very complicated ships. And that's, among the merchant ships, the most complicated ships in the world. And you cannot jump from bulk carrier production to LNG carrier production overnight. So it's going to take time and especially at the moment when they have a lot of orders for other vessels, which means that their docks are occupied. Their engineering staff is occupied. So they don't have that much resources to devote to LNG carrier production. So it's going to come, but it's going to take time, and it's not going to be the ideal solution for solving the bottleneck issue you were referring to. In fact, yards in carrier can increase. Each of them -- each of the 3 yards in carrier can increase their production by 5 LNG carriers earlier while having 5 additional LNG carriers produced in China in a year is somehow a challenge. Guidance, yes.

On the guidance part, it's -- I mean, maybe your calculation on service is a bit high. And yes, we -- in services, the Smart Shipping has strong drivers. So we have other strong drivers than the core business. But we don't guide -- we don't go into the details in our guidances. But I would say that your EUR 40 million might be a bit high.

Okay. Thank you. We have 2 more questions coming from the web. The 2 questions are asked from [indiscernible] from [ Vulcan ]. The first question is you are developing a hydrogen shipping for Shell plus Elogen worth a fraction of ITM Power. Do you plan to spin off the hydrogen unit to create value? ITM is on 400x sales. That would be $2 billion value creation. So this is the first question. The second question is the actual Ukraine situation shows a need for Europe to source more LNG to reduce the dependence of Russia -- on Russia, sorry. How many extra LNG tankers will it represent? What's the situation with Engie?

Okay. Well, the -- on the valuation of our hydrogen activities, well, you can see that we have a global road map on our hydrogen activity with liquid hydrogen carrier with Elogen. Well, we are -- we talked about the ways of financing Elogen activity. I would say that we don't prevent anybody to value our Elogen activity with the same ratio as those used for other electrolyzers company, so please do. On Russia, we have ships -- we are building ships for Russia. If in fact, they are -- we expect that these ships are going to be used. If these projects are not going through, which I don't imagine, frankly speaking, as far as I'm concerned, there will be other sources of energy, which will have to be found. And then in order to look at that, I would say that we should take the same number of ships as the number we have for Russia, which it's about, let's say, 30 ships. So for us, it will not make a difference. And finally, on Engie, I would suggest that you ask Engie what they would like to do. Other questions?

Any question on the line?

[Operator Instructions]

Yes?

If there are no more questions, I'm pleased to ask 2 more that regards the market potential for transport of liquid H2. Can you tell us, besides you and Shell, can you tell us according to your knowledge who else to date is working hard on that topic? Who else might be a future contender offshore player in that market of providing technological solutions for the transport of liquid hydrogen? That's my first question. My second question regards Elogen. Can you tell us -- can you explain to us what attracted you in that market for PEM electrolyzers because according to our understanding, there are a lot of existing and new players jumping into these markets, some of them are very large companies such as Siemens. So what is -- what do you find? Besides the expected growth, of course, what else do you find attractive? And why do you think you can be a successful player in that market, say, in 5 years from now?

Well, on H2, I guess, well, other people -- there are other people looking at clients for LH2. Well, I would say that in the energy, everybody is looking at how we should go towards a zero-carbon future and hydrogen is considered as a possible solution. You produce a lot of electricity in places where you have a lot of sun. You convert that into hydrogen, thanks to electrolysis and then you liquefy this hydrogen into liquid hydrogen, then you transport this hydrogen. So you can see that on this hydrogen supply chain, we are on 2 segments. And there, what we are trying to make is rendering this supply chain possible, working on these 2 segments. So we are probably one of the very few companies in the world, which can or which could develop a technology for transporting liquid hydrogen. But some others may look at, so good news, there is competition. It's exciting. Second, on electrolyzers, well, the PEM technology, as Jean-Baptiste was showing, is representing 3/4 of the electrolyzers order in the world. So it's the leading technology. Their figures are small for all the competitors and it's not because in a big German group there is an electrolysis activity that is big figures. So it's everywhere small figures, which are comparable to ours. We -- well, we are small. I don't know whether we are beautiful. I will not speak about that. But we believe in technology. We believe in people. We believe in gathering teams. We know that. It's what we do, and that's what we are demonstrating day after day, and it's what we want to bring to Elogen. It's not -- we are not going to deploy an army of people. We are going to deploy the right people and we are going to make sure they can work together, and it's what we've begun to do with Jean-Baptiste at the head of our Elogen activities.

Okay. So we have another question coming from the web from Jens Hillers from H&P Capital Advisors. The question is on LNG as a fuel, can you please give an indication on the order value in euro per very large and medium-sized container vessel. Thank you.

Rule of thumb, take the average order value for LNG carrier and divide it by 10, so you can have an idea of the turnover for LNG as a fuel per ship. So if there are no other questions, I would like to thank you very much for this session and for your very interesting and enlightening questions. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Bye-bye.