Vallourec S.A. (VK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to Vallourec Geothermal Deep Dive presentation. [Operator Instructions] And now I'd like to hand the call over to Daniel Thomson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Dan.

Thank you, Laura. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for today's deep dive presentation on the geothermal market. I'm Daniel Thomson, Director of Investor Relations at Vallourec. I'm joined today by Vallourec's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Philippe Guillemot, Vallourec Senior Vice President for New Energies, Project Line Pipe and Process [indiscernible] our Technical Director of Marketing and Business Development for New Energies, [ Nora Brahmi ] and Joe Hill, Vice President of North America New Energy's Business Development. Before we begin our presentation, I would like to note that this conference call will be recorded. A replay will be available following the call. You can find the audio webcast on our Investor Relations website. The presentation slides referred to during the call are also available for download here. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements. Future results may differ materially from statements or projections made on today's call. The forward-looking statements and risk factors that could affect those statements are referenced on Slide 2 of today's presentation. These are also included in our universal registration document filed with the French financial market regulator, the AMF. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session where today's speakers will also be joined by members of Vallourec's senior leadership team, including Bertrand Frischmann, Chief Operate Officer; and Jacky Massaglia, Senior Vice President of North America. I will now turn the call over to Philippe Guillemot.

Thank you, Dan. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us to learn more about Vallourec's advantage position in geothermal energy, where we are seeing rapidly growing end markets today with the potential to become a significant part of our profitable growth condition. You can see today's agenda on Slide 3. Let's turn to Slide 5. For those of you who are not familiar with Vallourec, we are a world leader in premium tubular solutions for the energy markets, both traditional and new with over 13,000 dedicated employees worldwide. Our pioneering spirit and cutting-edge R&D capability are key enablers in opening new technological frontiers. This includes the development in conventional and next-generation geothermal, we will highlight today. While oil and gas remains our largest market today at over 80% of our [indiscernible] revenues, a growing part of our research and development and product development efforts are directed towards new energies applications in line with our strategy to lead in innovation. This strategy, which we initiated in 2022, has been a key success factor in our competitiveness and growth. We have demonstrated its success on 2 occasions already this year in the field of next-generation geothermal where Fervo Energy and XGS placed their trust in Vallourec to support their ambitious project development plans over the coming years. Turning to our New Energies business on Slide 6. Today, we offer tubular solutions across the geothermal, CCUS and hydrogen markets. This business complements our oil and gas activities, opening attractive new growth channels to sell growing primary energy demand while lowering our scope 3 emissions downstream. The pace of growth can vary between end markets and New Energies with geothermal leading today. Thanks to this comprehensive portfolio, we are confident in delivering our 2023 Capital Market Day's target to contribute at least 10% to 15% of group EBITDA by 2030. Now let's focus on the momentum behind geothermal on Slide 7. While conventional geothermal energy is not a new concept, next-generation geothermal technologies are quickly becoming competitive, wearable, clean and scalable solutions to serve the world's rapidly growing demand for electricity. This demand is driven by AI data centers, adoption of electric vehicles and the electrification of industry. According to the IA, electricity's share of global energy investment is set to reach 60% this year, up from less than 40% a decade ago and keep on rising. With great development moving slower than this trend, beyond [indiscernible] solutions like next-generation geothermal are becoming increasingly attractive options for offtakers. Furthermore, as the ongoing country in the Middle East highlight, energy security and sovereignty has moved up the policy agenda of nations with domestic primary energy sources gaining in value. Most importantly, technological advances is in next-generation geothermal techniques and materials, including tubulars, have removed constraints facing conventional geothermal. This unlocks major resource scale and further cost reduction with our fit-for-purpose asset footprint close to our customers in key geothermal markets and our advanced range of tubular solutions and R&D expertise, we are well positioned to benefit from the structural demand trends in power and geothermal markets today and in the coming years. Let's turn to Slide 8 to put some figures around the momentum in these markets. We believe geothermal is at a true inflection point where resource potential, demand, capital and technology are all converging. First, the resource base is extraordinary. The IA state technically feasible enhanced geothermal resources within 8-kilometer drilling debt could meet global annual electricity limit 150x over. Second, geothermal is uniquely positioned to support structural electricity demand growth. In the U.S., enhance geothermal could meet up to 64% of forecast electricity demand growth by hyperscale data centers by the early 2030s. Third, we are already seeing commercial traction with 1.6 gigawatts of geothermal power purchase agreement signed in the U.S. over the past few years, confirming accelerating adoption. Fourth, capital is flowing into the space with approximately $8 billion raised since 2022 to develop next-generation geothermal solutions. And finally, the economics are improving rapidly. Drilling cost per foot have declined by approximately 70% since 2022, significantly enhancing project viability and scalability. Importantly, there is room for further improvements in drilling costs as the industry leverages learning from the shale patch. With that, I will hand the call over to Bertrand Frischmann, Senior Vice President, New Energies, Project Line Pipe and Process and his team to highlight the opportunity in greater detail.

Thank you, Philippe, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On Slide 10, you can see an overview of the main geothermal development concept. On the left side, you have conventional geothermal, which makes up the vast majority of today's projects. This major technology relies on 3 subsurface elements. First, a source of heat from the earth core such as [ ROC ]. Second, a permeable formation or reservoir, allowing the containment and flow of fluid. And third, the presence of water or steam to transfer heat from the reservoir to the surface. Once brought to the surface, through the drilling and casing of production wells, with water or steel at temperatures of 60 to 300 degrees celsius can be used to drive a turbine for electricity generation are passed through a heat exchanger for district heating. Today, around 85% to 90% of geothermal capacity installed is used for district heating, while 10% to 15% of 17 gigawatts is used in electricity production worldwide. More recently, geothermal techniques have been harnessed for direct lithium extraction in tandem with electricity production of district heating. This improves geothermal project economics but it remains for now at an early stage of development. Now moving to the right side of the slide. You have 2 emerging or next-generation technologies. These are Enhanced Geothermal Systems or EGS and Advanced Geothermal System or AGS, also known as closed-loop geothermal. By eliminating the need for one or more of the 3 key subsurface elements mentioned earlier, these technologies offer a much larger potential for deployment globally. In Enhanced Geothermal Systems, operators use horizontal drilling and fracking technology adapted from the oil and gas industry to create a man-made underground reservoir. This allows surface water to be injected into formation of [ hot rock ] and brought back to the surface for production wells. In AGS, the requirements of a natural permeable reservoir with water is, therefore, nullified. In advanced geothermal, seen on the far right of the slide, fluid is injected, heated on the ground and returned to the surface in a completely closed structures. There is no direct contact of the circulating fluid with the surrounding rank. In AGS, the need for large quantities of surface water is eliminated as the fluid is cycled continuously. Risk of induced [indiscernible] is also minimized with AGS. These next-generation technologies typically target deeper formations with hotter rocks compared to conventional geothermal requiring more complex well designs. This drives higher technical requirements for premium bespoke tubular products and connections. Turning to Slide 11. By removing the constraints of conventional geothermal, which has limited so far the deployment and financing of projects, next-generation technologies are making geothermal location independent. This is demonstrated on the slide, which shows an assessment by project in our space of the geothermal potential energy, which can be unlocked through enhanced systems at depth of 2,000 meters on the left and at 7,000 meters on the right, virtually everywhere. [indiscernible], the United States is assessed to have the world's largest technically feasible enhanced geothermal capacity with about 1/5 of the global total. Even at the depths of 5 kilometers, U.S. technical potential is over 7 terawatts, 7x more than the country's total installed electricity capacity today. Turning to Slide 12. You can see why this resource is so compelling relative to fossil fuels and other renewables. Aside from being essentially unlimited, geothermal energy is always available. On average, a geothermal power plant will produce energy for around 8,600 hours a year, while in solar plants, the average is around 2,000 hours per year. This high capacity factor is essential for hyperscalers in particular, who demand clean baseload behind the meter electricity for the efficient operation of data centers. Unlike green and solar, geothermal power plants only require modest amount of space. Regardless of whether it is a domestic system or a large-scale plants, most of the infrastructure is buried underground. Geothermal technologies are based on proven oil and gas technologies with high considerablity of skills. The plants are long-lasting, safe and reliable with very long average life span of 30 to 50 years. Geothermal enjoys bipartisan political support in the U.S. and is seen favorably around the globe. Finally, cost of geothermal are declining rapidly, with next-generation already cheaper than nuclear and potentially becoming cheaper than gas treated with carbon capture on storage in as little as 5 years. Moving to Slide 13 for a closer look at geothermal economics. Using enhanced geothermal data published by Fervo Energy in April this year and data from [indiscernible], we can see that conventional and enhanced geothermal already outcompetes both traditional and SMR nuclear energy in upfront capital costs. While the first 100 megawatts of Fervo station project has a relatively high capital cost of $7,000 per kilowatt, the second phase of 400 megawatts under construction today is expected to cost $5,500 per kilowatt, a 20% reduction. Fervo aims to drive costs down to $3,000 per kilowatt in the next 5 to 10 years. That will place enhanced geothermal just above the average cost of building a gas plant with combined cycle turbines and up to 50% below the cost of natural gas-fired power plants fitted with carbon capture and storage. Beyond price, next-generation geothermal power can be brought online faster has a higher capacity factor than cheaper renewable sources like wind and solar and does not require connecting to the grid. These factors are equally, if not more, important than price from many offtakers in the U.S. today. Moving to Slide 14 to see how we can achieve these ambitious cost reduction. On the left side, we can see the typical CapEx breakdown of geothermal power projects with drilling and wells accounting for 30% to 60% of project CapEx including 10% to 15% on tubes and connections. This high proportion shows the central role that drilling in place in lowering costs. On the right, you can see that the rapid reduction in days to drill Fervo's enhanced geothermal wells has led to a 70% reduction in drilling cost per foot over 3 years. These improvements are the results of engineering expertise adapted from the oil and gas and applied to geothermal as well as key enabling technology and equipment such as the premium tubulars in connection we provide. Let's move to Slide 15 to look at the big picture of what these improvements could mean for market adoption of next-generation technologies. As many reports have highlighted recently, electricity consumption is growing rapidly after years of low or no growth. In the U.S., you can see the main drivers are data centers, transportation and industrial electrification, a common thread in many countries. This demand growth is creating a major market opportunity for clean baseload and fast-to-market supply sources like next-generation geothermal energy where off-takers are already paying prime dollar prices for these benefits. With repetition and continued efficiency improvements, next change geothermal costs are expected to reduce significantly. The IEA estimates that in a low-cost scenario, where enhanced geothermal LCOE could be reduced by 80% within 10 years to $50 per megawatt hour, geothermal could meet up to 15% of global electricity demand growth through 2050. This would require the cost-effective deployment of as much as 800 gigawatts of next-generation geothermal power capacity worldwide, producing almost 6,000 terawatt hours per year. To put that in context, it is equivalent to the current electricity demand of the United States and India combined. Clearly, this scale represents a major opportunity for next-generation geothermal and for value. Turning to Slide 16. We outlined some of the key players in the geothermal ecosystem today, focusing on hyperscalers, powering the exponential growth of AI and data centers. These hyperscalers are significantly outpacing other industries in clean energy investments with Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft together accounting for roughly 80% of corporate renewable power purchase agreement in the U.S. last year according to S&P Global. Below, we show some of the geothermal developers. The key point to highlight here is that the level of financing for both conventional geothermal power and next generation is also growing exponentially. Next-gen funding has grown from just $22 million in 2018 to more than $3.2 billion so far in 2026. While funding for conventional geothermal power, projects reached nearly $5 billion in 2025, a fourfold decrease from 2018. Another sign of growing investor confidence in the sector is the increasing share of low-cost debt-based financing accounting for nearly 30% of the total last year. These players value our strong track record, premium product offering, leading R&D capabilities and local asset footprints. Let's turn to Slide 18 to focus on Vallourec's enabling value proposition. Vallourec has a long history of pioneering innovation and execution in geothermal, making us the partner of choice in enabling new projects and technologies. Our first geothermal projects were executed in Indonesia more than 30 years ago, where we maintain local presence today. In 2022, we launched our dedicated New Energies business line in the context of the new Vallourec plan, quickly leading to significant growth in our customer base, now standing at 16 discrete customers and a doubling of our sales volumes. Our group-wide strategy of value over volume is applied consistently in geothermal energy where we address enhanced advanced and some high-end segments of conventional geothermal mainly in the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia. Our industrial footprint is positioned near our customers, leading to lower costs. You will recognize a few of the names of our customers on the slide. With that, I will hand over to Nora Brahmi, Marketing and Development Director for New Energies to walk you through the technical requirements of geothermal wells and our premium geothermal offering in more detail.

Thanks, Bertrand, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's turn to Slide 19 to examine the unique physical demand of geothermal brands. Wells are the backbone of geothermal developments and are critical to project success. As projects move deeper into harder formations, particularly in next-gen geothermal, more complex tubes become essential for maintaining well integrity. Compared to oil and gas wells, geothermal wells operate for longer periods of up to 30 years at higher temperatures of up to 350 degrees Celsius and face more challenges of thermal fatigue. Moving from conventional to next-gen geothermal, additional requirements such as [ birth ] resistance and higher torque connections to be able to drill long lateral drains and frac through them add to the complexity of tubular products. At Vallourec, we have leveraged our extensive oil and gas expertise, along with our best-in-class R&D and testing capabilities to lead the way in designing for purpose premium tubular products for geothermal applications. I'm now on Slide 20. Our geothermal customers place high value on Vallourec's comprehensive R&D and testing capabilities. These capabilities allow us to demonstrate the suitability of our premium products. For example, in 2023, we successfully qualified our VAM 21 connections back to 350 degrees Celsius in a new test protocol closer to the application. Earlier this year, we conducted the industry's first physical casing collapse test at elevated temperature, generating long-awaited validated data on tubular performance under real geothermal operating conditions. These results mark a major milestone for geothermal well design and provide operators with new confidence in material selection for high temperature environments. Specifically in advanced or closed-loop geothermal, we have integrated our proprietary vacuum insulated tubing solution known as THERMOCASE VIT into AGS pilot projects to demonstrate its suitability. Going forward, our R&D road map is focused on delivering solutions for even hotter conditions above 350 degrees Celsius searches, improving our existing design to enhance closed-loop economies and economically address the challenges of corrosion. Back to you, Bertrand.

Thank you, Nora. To sum up. Vallourec is not just a supplier in the value chain. We are an industrial partner, enabling our customers to extend beyond today's project limitations. Our premium tubulars for extreme conditions reduces the failure risk, protecting project internal rates of return and allowing bankability. Our integrated engineering and well-designed expertise is leveraged to optimize costs and performance leading to lower LCOE. Backed by an industrialized supply chain, strong local execution and deep partnerships with first movers, we enable large-scale deployments without bottlenecks while embedding ourselves in customers' long-term programs and repeat business and the forefront of geothermal development. I will now hand over the call to Joe Hill, VP of North America New Energies Business Development to discuss one of our key customers, Fervo Energy. Joe, over to you.

Thanks, Bertrand, and good afternoon to our listeners. Our journey with Furbo began in late 2021 and culminated earlier this year in an exclusive 5-year U.S. supply agreement for premium tubes and VAM connections. This long-term agreement is worth up to $800 million in revenue to Vallourec, the largest New Energies LTA in our company's history and comparable in size to those of our largest international oil and gas customers. Fervo has big plans. At its IPO in May, the largest ever in the clean energy space, the company outlined a 41 gigawatt pipeline of EGS projects. This comes in addition to its flagship 500-megawatt Cape Station project under construction today in Utah as well as 550 megawatts of mature shovel-ready projects or extensions. According to broker research, Fervo is targeting 1 gigawatts of EGS capacity online by 2030 and 5 gigawatts by 2035. This would represent over 1 gigawatt more than today's entire fleet of installed geothermal capacity in the U.S. The company is constructing projects in standardized modular 50-megawatt geo blocks enabling rapid cost reduction of surface facilities while targeting continued reduction in drilling costs using many of the oil and gas techniques that unlocked the U.S. shale. So why did Fervo choose Vallourec above others? We engaged early. Our engineering team supported them to optimize their well designs and our R&D capabilities enabled critical material and connection testing under Fervo protocols. Lastly and importantly, our fully domestic U.S. supply chain offered improved time lines and costs. We are proud to partner with Fervo in this pioneering of enhanced geothermal technology at scale. Back to you, Bertrand.

Thank you, Joe. Now let's look at how these favorable market translates to value for Vallourec. On Slide 24, we provide typical parameters to translate geothermal power capacity additions down to expected tonnage with an indication of revenue potential and profitability of those tons. For example, adding 1 gigawatt of power using enhanced geothermal techniques, with a yield of 5 megawatts per well would require around 200 wells. At 500 tonnes per well, we would require around 100,000 tons of tubulars. As you can see, Vallourec should benefit as the share of the next-generation geothermal technologies in the mix grows. Here, we generally have a higher opportunity to differentiate, leading to attractive returns that are in line to above average. Let's move to Slide 25 to discuss the high market potential we see in the years ahead. Until recently, geothermal volumes have been almost exclusively related to conventional projects accounting for less than 1% of our group. With the market tailwinds we see today, driven by heavily expanding electricity demand, we expect geothermal to become the largest contributor of our ambition to reach a 10% to 15% EBITDA contribution from our New Energies portfolio by 2030. We display on the right-hand chart our latest view of Vallourec's addressable geothermal markets, which has increased significantly year-over-year on recent commercial success. Here, we exclude regions and end markets that do not meet our strict value over volume requirements with our focus mainly on the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia. We assess up to 5x growth in our addressable end markets by 2030 in our high case scenario from less than 80,000 tonnes today. For context, this is equal to the market size for premium similar tubulars of South America or Africa today. It is worth noting that most of the forecast growth in geothermal power capacity additions lies beyond 2030 with our estimated addressable markets, roughly 30% higher year-on-year in 2031. Our mid-case assumptions reflect the necessary level of conservatism where we apply significant risking to end market projections and our customer drilling plans. In these premium markets, we expect to outperform our market share in oil and gas [indiscernible]. With our base case assumptions for geothermal and the rest of our New Energies portfolio, we are confident in confirming our 2030 ambition to reach 10% to 15% of our EBITDA. Thank you for listening. I'll turn the call over to Philippe for the conclusion.

Thank you, Bertrand. Let's turn to the conclusion on Slide 26. As we have highlighted today, next-generation geothermal is scaling rapidly with game-changing potential for structural tubular demand. We at Vallourec have the winning formula customized premium geothermal tubular products, decades of expertise, experience and a local asset footprint close to our customers. We will approach this major market opportunity with our established value over volume strategy and emphasis on return on invested capital. Thank you again for your attention. We are now ready to take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] We have the first question from Guillaume Delaby from Bernstein.

Thank you very much for this very interesting presentation. My first question is for Bertrand and Nora. Just to fully understand, for Fervo as of today, given the fact that it is higher temperature than oil and gas and longer useful life, what are you exactly selling to Fervo? Are the products already available? Is it the VAM connection? So I'm a little bit confused. So if you can maybe help me a little bit. And second question, mainly stupid, and sorry, Philippe, this is for you, this one. Regarding your addressable market size, so let's assume the [indiscernible] is reach of more than 350,000 tons. So it means in a blue, blue, blue sky scenario, compare your current volumes that geothermal could represent 20% to 25% of your volumes by 2030?

Okay. So Bertrand, and Nora, I'll let you...

So regarding the first question, so what we are selling, we are selling OCTG, which have been tested under strict protocol defined by Fervo for enhanced geothermal application for their enhanced geothermal application. So maybe, Nora, you can describe a bit more what is the context and what is actually the request on Fervo in terms of technical tests compared to traditional oil and gas. But what we do primarily is making sure that our existing technologies are applicable to the context that Fervo is giving us.

Yes. And to complement, so yes, we are talking about VAM connections. As said by Bertrand, we are pushing our OCTG products. And we are also leveraging on the share application because Fervo is having an application with long [indiscernible], where you need to torque, you need fracking, so you need some internal pressure. So we have also developed some testing protocol to replicate the application to make sure that we have the best VAM product for their application.

Okay. Thank you, Nora. Well, obviously, as you understood from the answer to your first question, it is a market where very few people will be able to play because you need to demonstrate that your product is fit for mission, which start with obviously developing new test protocols, which don't exist and that we have to invest. And this, that's what we do today in our research and development center in the north of France that you may have already visited. So we are really in a value-over-volume strategy where it's really premium technology to be sold. That's the reason why when you look at the addressable market, even though we consider it's highly technical and we are well positioned, we don't consider we get 100% of this market. So you have to apply a percentage on the total market of 350 kilotons. As Bertrand said, by the way, we expect to have a higher market share than the way we have in OCTG for the reason we just explained earlier. So even if you apply a 50% market share on the blue sky scenario, you are still on high volume and consistent with our obviously objectives to be 10%, 15% or even higher. All this depends, obviously, it's a ratio on what oil and gas market will be in 2030, obviously.

We have now a question from Kevin Roger from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes. I have the first one that is maybe completely naive, sorry for that. But you do not talk about the, in a way, legal environment for the permitting, et cetera, for the geothermal. So the first question is, is it difficult in a way to get the permits to make the geothermal activities or it's very simple everywhere and if there is any difference by region? That will be the first one. The second one is about the competitive landscape. So if I may, let's say, the road map based on the number that you provide, you have a kind of 10% market share maybe on the total addressable market today. So who are the big players against you in this in geothermal market? Is it the same OCTG guys that we know like [indiscernible] or you have some specialized player also? And the third one is just to be sure that I understand correctly. So today, in a way, geothermal makes 1% roughly of your volumes. And if I look at the addressable market, that's going to, let's say, multiply by 5. So let's assume that you keep the same market share that will mean that the geothermal business will make 5% of our volumes and you expect it to make 10% to 15% of the EBITDA. So implicitly, are you assuming that the EBITDA per ton in the geothermal business will be 2x higher than in the oil and gas? Just to be sure that if I follow the math.

Bertrand, I will hand over to you.

So -- regarding -- yes, Kevin, regarding the permitting, clearly, Kevin, it's an enabler, and we see this part of the central question also to contribute to the acceleration in the future. Why it's starting earlier in the U.S. and in Europe, for example, what are -- 2 reasons, the first one [indiscernible] Europe. And it's at the heart today of some of the questions to [indiscernible] and why it's moving faster in the U.S. it's [indiscernible], let's say, a lot of things -- several measures they are taking in the U.S. to allow simply define permitting for the [indiscernible]

[indiscernible] players into this market because [indiscernible]

Yes. So on the second question, Kevin, clearly today in the market [indiscernible] as we said, AGS, I would say, in [indiscernible], there are 2 players which are able to play here, and there are less players than on the OCTG is. So I mean, the Q1, you are probably -- some of them are probably capable on some of those segments. But I would say that in general, they are much less competition than we see on the OCTG market.

I'm going back to [indiscernible], we expect the market share [indiscernible] the market is decreasing by [indiscernible] 2013. And there is still growth after, by the way, [indiscernible] it's almost exponential when we look at the numbers beyond [indiscernible] with a higher market share on a significantly increased market obviously turns into [indiscernible] at the current market in the current addressable market. [indiscernible] consistent with our [indiscernible] between 10% and 15% of our EBITDA [indiscernible] coming from these new energy applications [indiscernible] definitely taking a very [indiscernible] and a clear acceleration in [indiscernible]. And obviously, we are there to stick to our value over volume strategy.

[Operator Instructions] For now, there are no more questions on the conference call at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for the written questions.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, I will take a few questions from the web at this time. So there's a couple around the required capacity for geothermal. So maybe we could give a bit of color around the sort of spare capacity comments that we've made around the oil and gas business in the U.S. and the requirements going forward in the geothermal market.

Yes. As you know, we have spare capacity. As you know, in the U.S., we have 2 rolling mills, one of them for larger diameter, which are the one used today with Fervo. So we have capacity, and we have ways to debottleneck if needed. Obviously, 2 scenarios, it comes on top of oil and gas volume, which, at some point, may decrease or it comes on top. And in this case, we have to invest to debottleneck, but these are 2 good programs to have anyway because it guarantees that we continue to fully utilize the existing capacity we have. And again, with volume, which are not dilutive. And on top, I would add that when you have demand putting in excess of capacity, usually, you have a better pricing power, too. So I think -- and at the end, it's only a good news to see that we have a new market opening for our technology today in the U.S.

And then maybe another one on the product mix is, one of the key lessons of shale was the ability of the industry to innovate and use more efficient products and better value products, what areas is Vallourec looking at to help the cost curve reduction from here?

Bertrand?

So in terms of products, the product mix -- so -- the shale is moving, the shale market in the U.S. is moving more and more to high torque solution. I think we already introduced that to shareholders in the past. And we are seeing for enhanced geothermal a very similar trend with a strong interest for torque solutions. But I would say that this needs to be applied to the geothermal world. So now I explained, so a bit earlier, so higher comparator requirements. So it's a different environment. And the future -- probably in the future, we will go for even higher temperatures. So this is today on the agenda, for example, for our R&D. So we are talking about 350 degrees, but it might go beyond that in the near term. So that's what we are looking at. For the AGS, what is important to mention here is that as a strong interest for a technology that was mentioned by Nora, which is our -- the vacuum insulated tubing that we are one of the very few to have available on the shelves that we are also continuously developing to adapt it further to the geothermal world. So there are many, let's say, -- and we are, let's say, using our OCTG existing products, highly premium and adapting them gradually to the geothermal constraints which we have mentioned earlier, and which include clearly a direction for longer laterals, higher temperatures, so new constraints in the long term.

Thank you. So maybe another one just to clarify from the web. There's a question saying that we've indicated that New Energies will contribute 10% to 15% of group EBITDA by 2030. Should we view this as incremental to the existing OCTG business? Or does it imply a reallocation of capacity away from OCTG?

I would say it depend which assumption you make on oil and gas. But it could be on top of current volume we enjoy already in oil and gas. But again, all this depends on its ratio at the end of the day. But given what happened recently in the Middle East, I think oil and gas and even more gas than oil, a great future and likely will be leading to a sustained CapEx. And obviously, this new development may come and likely will come on top. So for us, it's just an assurance that existing capacity for sure, will be fully utilized and [indiscernible] to CapEx to [indiscernible] as we do in oil and gas. You've seen the last investment we announced in November in OCTG [indiscernible] latest generation of [indiscernible]. So this will be the same approach, I think, for this new market. So we'll see, but it just consolidate the fact that we are able to develop new markets for premium product, non-dilutive from a margin standpoint which can fully utilize existing assets that we may obviously further into which we never invest. But all this is very, very consistent with our will to improve our return on capital employed.

And another one from the web is around I think, the replacement market. So do you need to service or replace the tubes in geothermal wells over the life span and how long do the products stay in the well for?

Our clients today are coming with requirements to have a 30-year lifestyle. And the project financing is also based on 30-year minimum. So that's actually the specification that we are receiving for the brands.

That's maybe a point we didn't convey well enough, but we are entering in an infrastructure business, which is, by definition, financed by infrastructure financing which needs to be to cover 20, 30 years. And usually, even on infrastructure, you have the first financing. And after a few years, there is a new financing, which needs, yes, at least 20 years runway. So that's why customers like they are coming with a 30 years lifetime of their web and that's where there are very few people in the world able to do it because you need to demonstrate for very specific test protocols and all the science behind, obviously, what we do, that the wells will [indiscernible]. So that's maybe something we didn't convey well enough, but we are entering in a market where very few people will be able to play. And again, comes with the evidence that they will be able to cope with this challenge of 30-year lifetime, which are mandatory for financing and good financing and project financing.

[Operator Instructions]

Okay. We have another one around the market development in the U.S. asking, are there any more Fervo energies out there? And how mature are these sort of conversations with customers in the U.S. today?

Yes, we communicated earlier on last -- this year, earlier this year also on MOU we signed also with XGS and yes, there are many several credible well-financed geothermal developers, which are moving towards the next-generation technologies at scale, whom we are discussing with now. It's a bit premature right now to discuss these customers. But there are several of them who have made already some public announcements around growing actually there an exchange of thermal projects. Last week, there was a World Geothermal Congress in Calgary and several of them mentioned new investments. I mean, I think that [indiscernible], for example, mentioned moving forward together with SLB for development of HGS. So we see that gradually, the industry is scaling up. So we, as Vallourec, we are -- our mission is to really very early engage with them. At very early project steps [indiscernible] even before their proof-of-concept billing, we start discussing with them to support them on their engineering, on their well design and be there to provide them with their solution adapted actually to their specification and actually to their challenges, the drilling challenges, which is new to the oil and gas and adapted to their very particular challenges.

Thank you. It looks like there's a few questions around clarifying an earlier analyst question. So maybe I'll just repeat the one about the market share and what market share we're targeting in geothermal.

Yes. Again, as we said earlier, we expect the market share on that new market higher than the one we enjoy today on CTG. Obviously, we don't bet that we get 100% of it, even though another consequence, obviously, to get more of the market -- addressable market, you see on Slide 25. Again, volume-wise, if you turn this into volume, again, as I said, it's very consistent with our 10% to 15% EBITDA by 2030 coming from these new applications. Geothermal, having likely the lion's share of this 10% to 15%.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions. So I hand the conference back to the speaker for the closing comments.

Thank you. Well, we hope that you have found today's Deep Dive on Geothermal useful and are as excited as we are around the opportunity presented by this value-added market. With our local industrial footprint, leading technology offering and close customer relationships, we are well positioned to drive further value creation. Operator, you may end the call.