Tecnicas Reunidas Sa Ord

Good afternoon, and welcome to TRS 2023, nine months results presentation. It will be conducted by our chairman, Juan Yadó, and our CEO, Eduardo San Miguel. It will last approximately 20 minutes, and you will be able to post your questions after the final remarks. And I'll read the floor to our chairman, Juan Yadó.

Hi, hello, everyone. In today's presentation, as usual, Eduardo and I will drive you through our a summary of TR results and the more relevant milestones achieved during this last third quarter. Through these presentations, we'd like to transmit how TR step by step is consolidating its recovery and getting ready to fully benefit from the promising future ahead of us. The last nine months, We have successfully worked on our critical fronts, financial, commercial, and execution. For this particular quarter on the commercial front, we have accomplished several major achievements that deserve to be explained in detail. And I will personally drive you through these achievements. And then Eduardo will follow with a successful progress of track. or energy transition business unit. And obviously the financial figure for the period. And finally, I will conclude with the guidance of the year. Let's just start with the more relevant awards focusing in the natural gas and pet chem segment. As I'm sure you will remember, we reported our first half results on July 28th, and up to that date, we had booked slightly less than 2 billion euros in awards. However, at that time, we highlighted that we would prefer bidders and also were placed for another 4 billion euros of additional awards. At that time, jobs were at the tip of our fingers, but not ready to be announced. Nevertheless, that day, 20th of July, we gave a guidance of awards of 5 billion euros. Today, things has changed. I'm happy to share with you that of today, our awards have more than tripled since our last webcast, increasing from 1.8 to 6 billion euros. In the summer period, we were selected by APNOC for its key development of Meram, And also by Qatar Energy for strategic projects that are carrying out in the Ras Laffan industrial city. And then I will go over these two awards in a minute. Moreover, in the last few weeks, we had received a letter of intent of an award for a major strategic natural gas project in the Middle East. And it's a job worth 2 billion euros for TR, that's TR State. This project has already been launched internally and we will share all the details with you as soon as we are allowed. Finally, our strong commitment with TRAC, our energy transition business is starting to pay off much above our expectations that we had by the end of the year. But Eduardo will go over this and we'll get into details in just a minute. All of this implies that we are doing better than the guidance of 5 billion plus that we showed in our Q2 webcast back in July, July 28. And now, let me drive you through our main recent awards. In August, ADNOC awarded, as I've said, the complete development of the MIRAN project in a GV between TR and NPCC. This key project is focused on maximizing the ethane recovery from available residue gas, thus allowing ADNOC to expand capacity under several existing petrochemical units. The overall investment for the complete project amounts to $3.6 billion. 50% is for TR and another 50% to NPCC. with whom we're extremely happy to partner. MPCC, which has been recently rebranded as NMDC Energy, is a major local EPC player with its headquarters in Abu Dhabi, and it is majority owned by the state of UAE. It is worth mentioning as well that TR and MPCC have been successfully working together since September 2021, through a firm agreement signed for the development of front-end design projects for a customer ad hoc. By joining efforts with NMDC Energy, the new name of NPTC, we will together best manage execution and therefore risk in a much more, in a very important and large investment that we have to execute for ad hoc. We do have a very good partner. Furthermore, as well this summer, Qatar Energy awarded Tecnica Ronidas the Balance of Plant of the Northfield Project in Qatar. The Balance of Plant Award represents the fourth one in a row in the last 24 months, which demonstrates the consolidated partnership that TR and Qatar Energy have built over the last two years. The project consists in the development of several facilities that will have to be connected and will connect the southern part of Ras Lathan Industry City to the new LNG storage tanks and to all the active facilities located then in the northern part of the Ras Lathan Industry City. And the value of this new contract, as I said, is the first contract awarded this year, I mean last 24 months, sorry, a month for more than $560 million. And on this project, we can best manage the risk and we will manage the risk correctly as the scope of work is part. In fact, it is an addition of package three job, which is already under execution by TR. Finally, I'd like to focus on two projects of great future importance for TR and that have not been already announced. The first one is a front-end design for a Capco. Capco is Qatar Petrochemical Company. In terms of value, a front-end design does not represent a big addition to the backlog right now. However, quality wise, it is very important. And why is it very important? First of all, because it's a front-end design on a PDH polypropylene plant, which confirms the confidence on TR's pet cam engineering design capacity. And second, because it's an award coming from a major petrochemical player, Qatar Industries or Qatar Petrochemical Company that will surely convert this front end design into an EPC in the coming future. The second award was announced by our customer at the very end of July. RWE, Germany's largest electricity producer, which awarded the development of a combined cycle to joint venture formed by Tecnica Unidas and Sensaldo Energia, the Italian and Saldo Energia. This facility will initially use up 50% hydrogen mixed with natural gas, with the potential to upgrade to 100% hydrogen as feedstock. The project has started with an initial phase where the client has to obtain all the required permitting after which DPC contract will come into force. And now let's go through this slide that all of you are quite familiar with. When I first showed this slide some months ago, I told you that I was convinced that 2023 was going to be a good year. And as you have seen, This has already been confirmed. Just in 2023, TR is bidding, as we will continue bidding, volumes that are going to amount about 33 billion euros, most of them related to the first investment wave of natural gas projects. These 33 billions cover not only the projects that have been awarded or will be awarded during 2023, But many of the projects that our clients will sanction and most likely award during 2024. But this investment cycle is definitely not over. In 2024, as you see in this slide here on the right-hand side of the screen, we already expect to submit new bids for about another 30 billion euros. There is a main change here. The main change is that the composition, the composition of the contracts. We're now petrochemical and low-carbon technology project is starting to gain momentum. And most important of all, PR will continue to be very selective in our bid during 2024. We'll be selective with the right jobs, the right customers, and the right partners. And as I said in my note, we'll focus on profitability and risk management. And let me continue with another very important achievement, important milestone reached in this last third quarter, and that is our strategic agreement with Sinopec. At the very end of this third quarter, TI has entered into a key strategic partnership with Ready Partner and Sinopec, one of the most relevant players in our sector worldwide. This is an alliance with a strong benefit for both parties due to our complementary capabilities and the extraordinary joint EPC player that we become together. And this is very important. I'd like to underline that. We, together, have jointly identified more than 20 bits in different parts of the world, such as the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. With a combination of TR and SinoPAC efforts, I'm convinced we did this for sure to our successful outcomes. And now, after this, let me leave the floor to Eduardo to guide us through the latest developments on track in our

Thank you, Juan, and good afternoon, everyone. As Juan says, I will conclude now this first part of the presentation that we have called Main Achievement with an update of the latest developments of track, our energy transition unit. We can proudly confirm that our 2023 goals for track have been fully accomplished. Let me analyze them one by one. First, we have reached 600 million euros in awards, more than 10 times the figure achieved last year. To be honest, we have excelled our initial expectations. We are talking about a volume of man hours equivalent to those man-hours needed to develop LAMSAN projects amounting close to 2.5 billion euros. And I also want to stress the expected bids for 2024 will be five times higher than the volumes we had in 2023. Second, we have fully established our new platforms in order to strengthen our position in the main hubs of investment of energy transition. On the one hand, we have launched our US platform through our new track office in Houston, Texas. On the other hand, as we have already announced, we have reached a very important agreement with IFC to develop projects in Eastern Europe. We are extremely confident that both platforms will contribute to secure a volume of significant award in the upcoming future. Third, under our diversification strategy, we have achieved relevant milestones in the process of penetrating the steel and cement market. The volume of investments in those two industries in the carbonization will be similar to the volume of the energy sector. In fact, We are extremely proud to announce the award of the biggest decarbonization project up to date in the steel industry in Europe. For the time being, we are unable to disclose the name of our client under terms of this major award, but I will try to give you some color about it in a specific slide later. As you all know, one of the main goals of TRAC is the development and structuring of energy transition projects from scratch. In this sense, CR has already identified a fast-emerging project development pipeline with more than 4 billion euros in new opportunities. And last, but relevant as well, we are taking solid steps in offering carbon management services to our clients. In this regard, we have reached an important partnerships for carbon transport with Ecolog and for its storage with Estorenga. Let's analyze now the most important awards that TRAC has received in the last quarter. As I said before, we are proud and excited to announce that one of the major steel players worldwide has relied on Tecnica Ronidas to carry out the major decarbonization investment in Europe up to date. It consists on the decarbonization of four of their most relevant facilities located in three different countries in Europe. The contract is structured into stages. The first one includes the fit, purchase of the main equipment, and soil preparation works. The second stage will cover the detailed engineering, the procurement services, and construction supervision. To give you a hint of the size of the facilities we will be working for, I would say the joint production of these four facilities amounts for about 15 million tons per year. We have another two important awards in the energy transition segment that we include in this slide. I do really regret not to be allowed to disclose the name of our clients again, but as you can imagine, they are key strategic projects and our customers prefer to remain anonymous. The first one is an EPC for an e-fuel demo unit in Spain. The contact scope includes services, supply, assembly, pre-commissioning, commissioning, and support during the startup of the demo unit. And the second one is and basic and detailed engineering services for two green ammonia projects in two different locations in the Iberian Peninsula, one in Spain and the other one in Portugal. We hope to be able to disclose additional information in future webcasts if the clients authorize us to do so. And now, let's have a look to the financial figures for the first nine months of the year. In terms of sales, Tecnica Reneas continues to register quarterly figures of more than 1 billion euros, reaching 3.2 billion in the first nine months of the year. This figure implies an increase of more than 50% compared to the same period of 2022. The EBIT of our operations continues to grow and already stands at 4% in this third quarter of the year. The successful delivery of our project obviously is behind this solid improvement of margins on a quarterly basis. And let me highlight that this is the fifth quarter in a row that edit margin rose versus the preceding quarter. We're confirming Técnicas Unidas' positive trend in the last year. Moving to balance sheet figures, as you can see in the slide, The net cash position stands at a healthy 234 million euros level at the end of September. This figure does not include any down payment of the recent awards. We will be collecting those down payments soon, some of them before year-end, and we will pass part of these down payments to suppliers to secure a smooth launch of the new project. For the next month, we anticipate a certain stability, stability in our net cash figures, since our strategy today is to accelerate existing projects through enhancing our suppliers' cash cycle. We believe it is the most efficient way to drive forward the project scale and meet our clients' expectations. And now I will hand over the floor to Juan.

Hello, again. Thank you very much, Eduardo. As usual, this is guidance time. And so, let me conclude today's presentation with a slightly revised guidance. Now that the visibility for the rest of the year is obviously much higher, we can update the guidance for 2023. On the commercial side, I would like to reiterate our firm conviction that investment cycle, super cycle, we call it now, has only begun. We were above our initial guidance for 2023 awards. Now, it's more than 6 million euros. And I can tell you I continue to be optimistic for the upcoming months. Upcoming months don't have to be this year, but a month in general. And I'm optimistic of our activity this time. Regarding our revenues, project progress has been accomplished as planned, and it will conclude 2023 with a slightly higher figure than originally forecasted. That's why we have a plus on this slide. And finally, moving to our EBIT forecast, as you know, we ended this first half of 2023 with an EBIT margin of 3.6. And as Eduardo has previously analyzed, the Q3 figure has already increased to 4%, demonstrating that the margin recovery in our operations continues. So for the entire second half of 2023, we expect to reach a level of 4% or above, everything depending on the year-end operations, new jobs, and delivery of other ones. in the next few weeks. So after that, you know, we're done with this presentation, and we're all here very happy to answer any questions that you may want to address to us.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Robert Jackson from Scentender. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon, gentlemen. First question is related to your ongoing de-risking strategy. Can you shed some light on what sort of de-risking you have achieved in the awards year-to-date? That would be my first question.

I mean, if you go, let's just do a quick analysis. You know, what have we done through this year? I mean, we have, you know, we have the job caters up, which is we started with the feed, with the conversion strategy. Obviously, the day we convert is the job has been world at risk as we have defined procurement dance engineering and define construction strategy with our customer. Hanseatic is Germany. We could have done it by ourselves. I mean, we won't have to know how to do our LNG terminal, but in order to better execute and the risk, we have gone with two partners that will run the construction. Turkish was established in Germany, and as you see, a Spanish company, very good on the civil side with whom we had worked before in this specific activity. Obviously, we used to meet them. You know, in Abu Dhabi, very often, we have gone by ourselves. In this case, it's a $3.6 billion job, and we are executing the job with MPCC, which is one of the main contractors in the region, very good in construction management, very good in modelization, expertise, Obviously, in the region and more so in Abu Dhabi. So, we have a strong partner with whom to manage the risk at the site. Parasite planning, we're by ourselves. This is a traditional lump sum, but we're by ourselves. But it is an addition, so to speak, of package three, which is the one with the water tours about a year ago, if I remember well. We know the site, we know the subcontractors. We had been able to measure every single detail of the job. So it's a job that as I said on my slide, we could manage the risk quite efficiently. I mean, I'm always gonna say nicely, but risk never manages nicely. The job that we have seen All the steel mills in Europe are on service. It's pure service. Everything is costless. It's quite similar to the one we have with Reneo. So we have to have quality engineering because it's important for the customer, quality procurement design and management because it's important for the customer, and then help the customer in supporting construction, but we're not running EPC lumps and risks. And then the letter of intent that we have announced in the Middle East that we cannot declare the rooted until we have allowed to do so. I can anticipate you that we have a construction partner. Okay. So, I don't know if you want more details, but I have .

That's okay. That gives us a better idea. The second question is related to the Sinopec agreement. You mentioned you have a complementary relationship and, you know, identify projects in North Africa and Asia. Why is Sinopec gone with Technicas? What do you have to offer that they could have gone with someone else? Basically, that's the question.

I mean, Sinopec, we have not met yet. each other at the airport of Beijing. You know, we've gone a long time together. We have done jobs with them as a contractor for construction and as well as partners. If you go back, our old jobs, the largest we finally ever built from scratch, which is in Kuwait, we did it in a JV with Tanopec. We have worked over the last 18 months together thinking about which jobs to be together. We came to the conclusion that we bring a lot to Sinopec. I mean, let me tell you, we have probably more experience in complex project management in general. We are better process engineers. They don't get into process engineer. For better process engineers, we have stronger references. But let me tell you, Sinopec is a very good You know, it's powerful. Our construction company is quite good in some segments of engineering. We have experience of having worked together very successfully. And Santa Fe realizes, and us too, that together we make a very powerful JV. Very powerful. I mean, some of the bottlenecks in the market, which is Not only engineering, it's construction in the Middle East. Well, with SinoBEC, we're much stronger. Engineering, you know, it can be processed, but you have the off-sites and civil engineering, many engineering in SinoBEC is stronger than that. So we both together, you know, we are very attractive.

And with this agreement, will it be more than 50-50, or will it vary depending on the projects?

It has to do with, it's in a job-by-job basis. Okay. It depends what is the scope of or what is our scope of what is our appetite or their appetite, you know, different job for different countries or, you know, different regions.

Okay. And my final question is related to the decarbonization. process or projects, working or doing projects for one of the largest producers in Europe or probably in the world. Will this give you opportunities to leverage off these projects in Europe to do projects elsewhere in the world such as the US where you said you're starting off your transition and then Are you also discussing potential opportunities with other theatres today?

Hi Robert, this is Eduardo.

Complimenting my answer. You know, we have seen opportunities, I would say, all around the world. Obviously, our first step, our first stage has always to do with Spain. We have a number of projects here. We are developing projects, and we are also being called by our traditional clients to develop projects in the country. So, obviously, that is our primary market, and we are doing things currently here, trying to learn and to obtain a good track record to offer our clients In the future, second, we have, as I told you before, two clear targets. The first one has to do with the U.S. We've been in the U.S. the last week. I think a large representation of 10, no less of 10 people. And basically, we were talking about energy transition with every client, not only with our traditional clients, let's say Exxon, but with any other new potential client that has to do with the oil and gas business. But also, we've been talking with new companies that are very focused in energy transition, developers. You know, it's, I would say, I don't know how to describe it. It seems it's a world of infinite opportunities. And also, and also, we have realized that there are many Spanish companies that would act as of takers of the products that can be produced in the States. So, it makes this country very attractive for us because, you know, we have a, the technicians, we have the off-takers, we know the financial markets. So, you know, the number of opportunities we have there is huge. Here in Europe, we have, we already have projects. We have projects, you know, in the Netherlands. We have projects in the United Kingdom. I'm talking about decarbonization. I am talking about waste to methanol, biodiesel, biofuels, you know. There are many opportunities around in different countries. And obviously, the opportunity we have in the Middle East, not in the Middle East, sorry. in Eastern Europe due to disagreement with the IFC open source and a number of new opportunities. And we are currently detecting those new projects we want to share with the IFC as co-developers. So, you know, for me, it's difficult to tell you where are the opportunities because the opportunities are all around. I don't know if Joaquin, oh, yes, sorry. It reminds me that, you know, cement seems to be an extraordinary opportunity. The European legislation is requiring cement companies in Europe to implement certain measures to reduce significantly the carbon that is sent to the environment. And, you know, these guys have to do it. It has to happen in the forthcoming, I don't know, two, three, four years, but it has to happen. And we are there, and we are already talking with the five major industries in Europe, trying to select which are the right projects to start working for. So, you know, the good news is there are many opportunities. The bad news is we have to select which is the correct one.

Okay. Thank you very much indeed.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Ignacio from JP. JD Capital, please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question is on track. I believe you mentioned during the presentation above 300 million euros awards, but in the nine-month results, I believe you were mentioning 100 million euros related to track projects. So I just wanted to clarify if the New awards from TRAC amount 200 million euros or these are larger in size. And then my second question is related to the down payments that you also mentioned in the release that are not included in nine month net cash position. So just wanted to have your view because I would assume you would have already received some of these down payments. So just wondering where do you see a net cash position by year-end? Thank you.

I'm sorry. I've been trying to understand which are the differences, and to be honest, I still do not understand where the difference is coming from. But to be clear, we have 300 million euros awarded. 250 have to do with peer services. Around 50 million has to do with something that is not peer service. And this is the size of the awards of the quarter. to be fully clear, okay? And the second question is down payment of new awards. Yeah, but what was the question? Sorry, because I was... We're talking probably about the future, okay. Well, as of today, I mean the 15th of November, we still have not collected the money of those down payments, but we are currently issuing invoices and the money will be here late November, early December. That's our expectation. But we are talking about the project. We are fully disclosed because the project that it's only an LOI today, probably the down payment will come in the first month of 2024, okay? And that's the way they are going to flow. And we will try to, as I told you before, or as I told when I was describing the cash situation, we will try to pass as much money as we can from these down payments to the suppliers and the local contractors. We need to launch the project because, you know, it's tight in terms of timing, and we have to do it.

Okay, very clear. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you want to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from Alvaro from Alantra. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be regarding the Sonatrac Hasime Saoud project and whether you could provide some update on what are your expectations on the project and maybe executing it or changes in size or whatever color you can provide on that front. The second would be Moving into 2024, just to understand the dynamics in terms of revenues and margins and how your changes in the mix of your contracts should affect that. I don't know if the new contracts like Cost Plus have lower revenue contribution but higher margins or whether you should continue to deliver on this roughly 4 billion sales and 4% margin going forward. And lastly, it would be going back to the working capital question. The first is, when should we expect this significant improvement in operating performance to translate into positive cash flow generation? And also, maybe on a long-term basis, what should we expect in terms of working capital going forward? Should you continue to receive financing from working capital, or is the new technology type of projects more working capital neutral, or should you invest more than you have in the past in working capital until project completion? Thank you.

Hi, Alvaro. I'll focus on the first two questions, and then Eduardo will answer question number three. You know, things in Algeria, you know, in many fronts are improving and we continue little by little, and this is a slow in conversations with our partner and Sonatrack, which is also changing management and different ways to move forward with this project. So I cannot give you a lot more color, but we are there. We are in good conversations with the customer. What are the dynamics of margins? So you have seen that we have been improving margins, you know, as we progress on execution and we're getting new awards. We are optimistic. We have to be prudent, and we don't like to use this Q&A to give guidance, I think. The guidance all I can give you is that I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic that because of the new jobs, because of the activity, because of the customers who wanted to run, and because our customers have a lot of money and very profitable jobs, and that's why we have to get, we're getting the payments, we'll be getting the payments, they have to be spent right away, to pay the supply chain so we can run and deliver and therefore make money for us and for our customers. in this new cycle and optimistic cycle, investment cycle, we'll see better margins. And as we are seeing, very healthy awards, very much the risk. But I think it's too early. I mean, it's too early. And let's not get too excessively optimistic without these quarters that are being good. in order, you know, to go to the market and start giving guidance that we don't want to. You know, the message is we're doing good or better. That we are, you know, being very successful with awards. It is also true that our mix of awards, in-ears, steel mills, lot fits, it gives us, it doesn't affect us very much, but it just gives us a little marching cushion. Just a little bit. It also is not easy to manage because it requires a lot of our engineers. So it's operation-wise sometimes it's a constraint, and margin-wise it can be translated into slight margin improvement, margin cushion. So let me now pass the third question to Eduardo.

Okay. Okay.

The working capital is currently being normalized, I would say, little by little. You know, when you have a look to our figures, you see that we are reducing the size of our accounts payable, the size of our account receivables. We're reducing the volume of debt we have with financial institutions. So, it's a fact that we are doing things correctly, and the balance sheet already reflects some improvement. But you are right, and you are right. We will see better figures in the future. And just me, when now? What's going to be the trend? For me, it's difficult to predict exactly when, but something is clear to me. I have today around 6 billion euros awarded out of a backlog that is in the range of 10 billion. And that will be the figures by the year I'm going to take. I believe once the delivery of the backlog fully normalizes, you know, because now I have projects at the very last stages and some projects at the earliest stages, but when the backlog fully normalizes, we will see a solid generation of cash coming from our operation. That's my feeling. If you want to ask me when, I think the second half of the year, next 2024, we will see. see a significant increase in our net cash position if it will be a consequence of the normalization of the operation.

Thanks, that's fair.

Your next question comes from Kevin Roger from Templar. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon. Thanks for picking the I have a few questions, if I may, and I really understood that you do not want to provide any guidance on the EBIT margin for the coming years, but just in terms of fashion, you are guiding for a margin of slightly above 4% in H2. Usually, you were saying that over the mid-term, the margin would be around 4%. Is there any reason why the margin would be lower at the beginning of 2024 than at the end of 2023? Because if you have a refreshed backlog that the contracts are secured on a better terms and conditions, et cetera, I guess your marginality should continue to improve just in terms, you know, not committing in terms of numbers. Is there any reason why the margin should be lower in 2024 than what you end in terms of performance in 2023? That would be the first question. The second question, sorry if I missed that, but the partnership with Sinopec, just wanted to understand, are there any discussions with your new partners to maybe reinforce the relationship, whatever the solution that you are talking on? And the third one is on the technology side of the energy transition story we've notably tracked. It seems that the technology partners side will be very, very important, especially on subjects like carbon capture. So what would be your key strategy here on technology? Are you trying to acquire some key technologies, developing internally your own patents, technology based on the naming solutions, for example? So globally, with TRAC, what would be your strategy on the technology side, please?

When we're talking about a four plus, my message is clearly we have a four percent in the fourth quarter. But, you know, we are closing very relevant projects. From today until the end of February, I will be traveling around the world where we have one trying to close projects with our clients and our suppliers. We have done our estimation, and we know, give or take, where we are going to finish. But, you know, there is some margin, and it's more margin, additional margin, that can be achievable. And that's why we say 4+. Okay, that's – so I think that talk about anything above 4% is not realistic today. What we are currently delivering is at 4%. That's my message for you. The second question, we have missed it, but probably we can answer the third one, Joaquin, and then go back to the second one, okay?

Yes, okay, hello. Well, regarding technology in the energy transition, well, first of all, I think we have always been and we are still being technology agnostics in low-carbon technologies. That is that, well, we are already building a long network of partnerships with different technology sensors in every vertical, in hydrogen, the full hydrogen value chain, circular economy, carbon capture. And this is, I would say, a strength from our point of view, in the sense that we are working with different technologies, understanding and assessing different performance, different for different projects. And this, I would say, gives a very good understanding of the technology landscape regarding the energy transition. Finally, for carbon capture, what you mentioned, well, here our approach is the same as above, as I have already said, okay, but also we are building a carbon management service practice, okay, that we want to do is to provide an end-to-end services to large emitters, okay, that is, that will be get the carbon from their plants, liquefy it, transport it, and then give a use or storage it. So, and this is our strategy regarding carbon capture.

Okay.

Let me ask you, let me ask you, because we know we were in the United States last week and we were talking about different technologies and we've always in this house we've been talking in our business petrochemical refining technology is always in our mouth in our process department they always talk about the different technologies and as a strategy and as a strategy we had a lot of you know you know petrochemical business as well a lot of thinking And a lot of analysis is, do we become close technology or are we agnostic? Agnostic is not negative, it's positive. And that means, are we good in working with Lumus technology on a cracker or is it better to work with the KVR technology on a cracker? In our case, we've worked with both. Okay, we don't want to be any. So you invest in a technology in a new business, it might give you leverage. But if you get it wrong, you're dead. So you have to make a decision between making a bet and have the leverage and then not have the best technology and other technologies not working to work with you because there is something that is called technology contamination. And then in that, you're dead for a while. So what you see in our business, there are a lot of people that decide to be it you know, good with all those technologies, have a very strong process department, very large workshops that we have and continue having with accents, France, KVR, United States, Lumos, UOP in the United States, but are not being tied up to any technology. The same thing in combined cycles. You know, in combined cycles, we're probably one of the very few ones that are able to work with all, you know, technologies. Siemens, Mitsubishi, GE, we've done a work and now recently with Ansaldo. And why with Ansaldo? Because Ansaldo's technology is Alstom's technology with whom we had work before. So knowing that technology and being able to work with is important. Owning a technology can give you big leverage, which is true, I fully recognize. But it's 10 times more aggressive than that. And we're following a different strategy. I don't know whether that has answered you.

No, clearly. It's very clear. And the question on Sinopec, it was just to know, you know, you have signed this partnership to – bid jointly on some projects. I was just wondering if you could consider, you know, this partnership to move forward with IDOTO, maybe a GV, a common entity. So if there are any discussions to move ahead or if a partnership like that will be more than enough.

I think for the time being, I mean, you see our business is, I mean, for the time being, let's have a prematural life. And then we'll think about whether we want to get married or not. So to put it in a way, we have already had that for much of our life. We worked with Sinopec in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia. We have that experience. And we've made a step forward and said, let's look for the markets that we're good at and for other markets. So it's a strong alliance with teams that are going to go through that alliance in both financial, and commercial and execution, but for the time being, it's an alliance fully signed at a very senior level. And are you going to see us working with them in new jobs extremely soon?

Okay, understood. Thanks a lot for the time. Thanks, Kevin.

Your next question comes from Bapast Lepko from Odo. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Just a very quick question regarding your bidding pipeline. In 2023, you said that you bid or you are bidding on around 33 billion euros and you are targeting around 60 billion euros of awards, meaning that it's circa 20%. And I know that the calendar could be different between bidding and awards. For next year, you are targeting 30 billion of bidding. Can we imagine that due to the mix, you have more low-carbon techno in the mix in terms of bidding, you will be able to keep this 20% of success ratio? Or what is your thought regarding this, let's say, dynamic in terms of success for next year? Thank you.

It's very difficult to do some sort of a, you know, ratio analysis, percentage, you know, analysis within this business. You know, if I would have to sign for that 20%, you know, I'll be signing it right now. It could be better, and we have had years that are far better as we are, you know, as the market develops and the market gets full because, you everybody is getting full. You know, contractors are getting full, subcontractors are getting full, suppliers are getting full through this year with a lot of activity. That would allow us to be more selective and probably even improve the rate of success. So, if I have to say anything, it's that a rate of success should improve and not get worse. But again, it's having got the crystal ball. That 20% is fair, but I mean, the reality is that it's even higher as we have won a lot of jobs with following the risk strategy with partners. So in terms of volume, the percentage of, I think we did quite well in terms of being selective and there were the jobs that we have talked before out of the big pipeline that we were bidding and selecting, and we have been quite successful. We have been successful on customers and partners as well. It might bring confusion because part of the bidding of 2023, as I was trying to present before, it has not yet been awarded. In the bidding process today, we have presented bid and that will be sanctioned first quarter, we guess, of 2024. So it's like a moving target. Sorry to be so imprecise. But the answer is that we've done quite well.

Okay. Fully understand your message. And maybe just one last question, if I may. It's regarding you just mentioned that everybody is getting full and also subcontractors and so on. Which part of the supply chain You are all today more careful than a couple of months ago. Is there some bottlenecks, according to you, or some specific components on which you should be more careful? Thank you.

Usually, like in any business, I mean, in this business, usually the problem comes at the end, the tail of everything, which is construction. Construction resources... which they all get mixed up because all jobs don't get finished, new jobs starts, and the problem is on construction. And that's one of the beauties of our Santa Fe Alliance.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Babin.

There are no further questions at this time.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, all of you. This was third quarter, so year-end will be, if I remember well, by the end of February, where we'll have to, you know, full year results and audit results as well. So thank you very much for listening to us and posting questions and being active, and I'll talk to you in February. Bye-bye.