OX2 AB (publ)

STO:OX2

Earnings Call Analysis

Strong Quarter and Steady Growth for OX2

OX2 has experienced a vigorous quarter with its late-stage development growing to 2.4 gigawatts and the construction portfolio showing modest expansion. Solar projects are progressing through stages faster than onshore wind, underscoring the responsive business model of early divestments. A busy quarter saw sales amounting to 3 gigawatts, with new acquisitions and a shift towards a diversified portfolio, including a third now in Sweden. Despite a reduction due to permitting downsides and the active reshuffling of parts of the portfolio, the company sustains a robust pipeline across various technologies and markets. Key sales in Finland and a partnership with Ingka Investments have bolstered confidence, especially as operations in Italy approach construction. Commitment to financial guidance remains strong amid market turbulence.

Project Delays and Investment Shifts

The company is managing a sizeable construction pipeline, currently with 1.2 gigawatts under development, including an inaugural project in Italy. They are facing some turbulence, with delays affecting two of their projects due to issues with a supplier's platform, pushing their Finnish and Swedish projects' completion from 2024 to 2025. These strategic shifts require a recalibration of their plans, as the way forward now involves additional patience and, possibly, the need to adjust financial forecasts.

Financial Performance and Strategic Acquisitions

Offshore development is receiving significant investment, reflecting a strategic emphasis that has led to a 50% year-over-year increase in development expense. Simultaneously, the workforce has expanded by 40% quarter-over-quarter, arising from completed acquisitions like the one in Australia. Despite these expenditures, the company is achieving its financial targets, reporting operating income and margin above the 10% goal, and a return on capital employed (ROCE) slightly higher than the ambitious 25% benchmark.

Earnings Volatility and Focused Growth

The company acknowledges the ongoing volatility in quarterly results, with a strong net sales growth this quarter driven primarily by their construction portfolio. Compared to the previous year, operating margins are quite variable due to the nature of project-based revenue. The company emphasizes its focus on long-term value rather than short-term quarterly metrics, strategizing to maximize project value over time.

Stable Financial and Capital Position

With a robust financial foundation, the company is well-positioned to navigate market turbulence and respond to various customer demands. They maintain a prudent approach to investments, ensuring alignment with their strategic goals on return on capital employed. Currently, their net working capital is at a comfortable midpoint in their typical range, suggesting a balanced approach to cash flow and investment management.

Geographic Diversification and Acquisition Strategy

Through acquisitions, the company has bolstered its portfolio by 5.3 gigawatts over the past year, displaying a robust diversification across markets and technologies. This trajectory mirrors the company's acquisition guidance, with investments slightly above SEK 800 million, expected to continue at a similar pace in the coming years.

Market Expansion and Project Pipeline

The company is committed to advancing their project and technology portfolios and expects to continue making significant investments throughout the remainder of the year. Strong demand for their projects fosters a positive sales outlook, suggesting a healthy stream of future deals based on their varied project capabilities. Visibility and a robust pipeline are highlighted, reinforcing the company's solid market position.

Project Permitting Prospects and Global Reach

A notable advantage in the Finnish market is highlighted, where they've secured critical military approvals, a common stumbling block in the region. This milestone flags high optimism for successful permitting outcomes. Australian expansion is underway with a focus on onshore wind and solar portfolios. Despite challenges in project investment pricing due to rising interest rates and a lack of acceleration in general permitting activities, the company has a high volume of permitted projects, which is perceived as a significant asset.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

Thank you and welcome everyone to this Q2 2023 Report from OX2. Today we will tell you about a quarter with high activity level, more projects permitted and in sales process than ever before and in more geographies and in more technologies than ever before and also about a strong customer demand and we will also touch upon the underlying market, which is giving us somewhat more complex sales processes. But in all, a good and solid base for further growth and also reiteration of our targets for both the year and the 5-year period ahead. So with that, we kick off and you can flip directly to Page #3. I'm presenting today. Together with me is Johan. And the agenda will be divided by me starting with highlights and portfolio updates, Johan will take you through the financial review and we aim to end with market and outlook in some 30 minutes. And then have good and ample time for Q&A and we will make sure to have all questions responded to when we're done.So we kick it off. Next page, please. You can see that OX2 is increasing its total portfolio this quarter up to 45 gigawatts by including also Australia in the portfolio. We have good coverage across Europe now. And the technologies we work with, you recognize as onshore and offshore wind, solar and energy storage. The portfolio in development is fairly stable at 32 gigawatt from last quarter. But the total portfolio is up somewhat when we also include projects under construction, the TCM and the sold megawatts with milestone payment to come. Brief: the sales at a record SEK 8.2 billion last 12 months. That is a doubling compared to the LTM figures 2 years ago when we first listed. We remain at a strong 11.7% operating margin last 12 months. Return on capital employed also above the 25% target. And to-date we have about 11.1 gigawatt of sold projects from OX2 whereas of close to 4 gigawatt has been taken to construction.Next page, please. If we double click a bit on the second quarter that just ended, the development portfolio stops at about 32.5 gigawatt. We have seen quite a lot of activity in the portfolio where the Galene, the project on the West coast of Sweden was approved by the Swedish government. We have acquired a 1.2 gigawatt portfolio in Finland onshore wind. And we have also completed and integrated the operations of ESCO Pacific of some 1.4 gigawatt in Australia. We completed sales of about 3 gigawatt. Majority of that is the offshore wind projects 3 sites off the West Coast of Finland done on similar terms to what we did in Sweden last year, Ingka Investments being the offtaker. And we also completed our first sale in Italy which is, for those of you who are initiated in the business, a very big milestone.First construction start marks the start of a very active period for OX2 in a country and this time it was Italy, Europe's third largest electricity market, and we did so at a very profitable and valuable structure. Slightly different structure than what we've done in the last couple of quarters, but not a completely new structure. We will double click a bit on that later on. It is, as you know, not booked in the quarter; but it is contracted and agreed upon. Construction had good progress. We're now managing about 1.2 gigawatt of projects in construction. We will take you through those as well. No handovers during the period and no significant events either in that portfolio. Technical and commercial management continued to grow, 4.6 gigawatt of asset under management currently mainly driven by including the 500 megawatts of solar projects that came with the ESCO acquisition. So as you can see here, very active quarter from an OX2 perspective and also there's been a lot of activity in the underlying market.Next page, please. This is a page we have on our quarterly webcasts demonstrating the different stages; early, mid and late stage and the technology split. And as you can see; the late stage is growing from 2.1 gigawatt to 2.4 gigawatt, fairly stable midstage and some growth as well in early stage. The construction portfolio also fairly stable, but bit more growth in the TCM, technical commercial management phase. I can also reiterate that the midstage 2 to 5 years to sale when you look at the solar sites, they are slightly faster moving through these different phases than onshore wind. And all that we are capitalizing already in early and midstage on or offshore projects with the business model that we have where we sell off projects or we divest part of the portfolio in an earlier stage. So it's the onshore wind that is typically going all the way through late stage before sold according to these phases, but somewhat of a difference between the technologies that I think is important for you to be aware of.Moving on next page, please. The development portfolio is moving on a quarterly basis. We sold 3 gigawatt and took then 3 gigawatt out of the portfolio. And we also had a downward reduction based on that we got parts of the Galatea-Galene project offshore of the West Coast in Sweden permitted and we then took out the remaining part as this was not permitted. We've added about 400 megawatt of Greenfield and on top of that we have through acquisitions; I mentioned ESCO, I mentioned a project in Finland; of 1.2 gigawatts standing for most of these 3.1 gigawatts. So although large volumes have gone out of the portfolio, also large volumes have been included. And to the right, you see the split between the markets. I think in this fairly volatile macro sentiment, we benefit from having a strong portfolio diversified over markets with different underlying drivers and this is continuing to increase.So Sweden now being about 1/3 of the portfolio only is in our opinion a strong capacity of OX2. And you also see that there is more diversity in terms of technology split. So we have both onshore, offshore and solar representing fairly equal parts of the volume, which is also a strength. Energy storage is growing. We are not including yet all of our ambitions in hydrogen, but you are aware that we are working quite a bit in hydrogen as well. So we'll come back to that once those becomes a bit more mature. Next page, please. Looking at some of the projects we can highlight from the quarter. Finland has been an important market for us. It's a very predictable market. We have to-date still not lost any permit processes in Finland. So we see good visibility in the portfolio and we had some good examples from first half as well when we had significant permits granted ahead of schedule.And this gives us also more confidence into growing the onshore portfolio this time by a partnership with local developer, Tuulialfa, with some 1.2 gigawatt of onshore wind. When it comes to offshore wind, we have a good working relationship with Ingka Investments. We ran a competitive process and they were the most competitive party to that sales structure. We presented earlier in the quarter. It closed end of the quarter after having gone through the competition approval in Europe and we got similar payment milestones to what we had. Slightly lower because of the Finnish electricity market being a bit lower than the Swedish SE4. But all in all a very similar structure, which makes up a good foundation for further partnerships with Ingka Investments. As I mentioned, Italy is also a very important market in Europe; the third largest electricity market set for significant growth, significant ambitions and good both wind and solar conditions.We're growing our team and we're growing our portfolio there and then it's very rewarding to now see that we can come to construction start. We did this on a forward sale structure meaning that the project underlying contracts is very similar to a construction that we typically do, but it stays on OX2's books until the project has been taken into full operation and then handed over to our customer Glennmont Partners in this case meaning that it will be booked in 2024 and none of the margins will be coming through our P&L until then. We acquired those project rights in 2022 and we were able now to reach construction start less than 12 months later than that showing we can in fairly complex market conditions still reach projects start or construction start with good valuations and we attracted a lot of potential buyers through that sales process.Value was in line with what we expected and we were able to achieve a strong margin expectation from this structure as well. So this will be booked in '24 when the project is ready and good to go. Next page, please, and this is a new page we don't typically have. But now we're moving into the second half of the year. We have said that most of our projects will be sold second half of the year. And we with this want to just demonstrate that we have a very good visibility. We have more permitted projects and in sales processes than ever before. Good underlying attention and demand from these projects and a very diversified portfolio when it comes to both geographies, but also technologies. So it's attracting a lot of interest from 3 projects that we have in sales. We have several projects on onshore wind in Finland and you know these are our core markets with good track record of reaching good values.Same with Poland where we both have wind and solar in sales processes. In France, we are just finalizing the realization phase of our first projects. It's a new market for us. We've been there quite a while and the portfolio has matured and ready to be sold now. The same goes with Spain where we also are divesting out first project rights right now. in Romania, we have worked a while with some significant project rights that are now being matured. The underlying market is attracting a lot of interest. Return requirements are slightly higher, which is positive that this market can give higher yields than some of the more classical European markets. And we are progressing very well with both the financing structures and the PPA structures for the Romanian market. Then we have the first project in Australia already ready to be sold. We are also expecting, as we said in relation to the acquisition that Australia will contribute positively already in 2024.So we see good traction on that portfolio overall and first project is already in the market. So all in all, good visibility on the year. We are reiterating that second half will be an important part of the year and will contribute with the absolute majority of the revenue and margin and we see good visibility. And by this, we try to demonstrate a bit more insight for the market into what projects, what markets we are working on. Looking at the next page. We have about 1.2 gigawatt under construction including then the first project in Italy. Some of you may have seen that Siemens Gamesa have reported some issues with their latest platform. We have 3 projects using that platform and we expect a slight delay on 2 of them. So we have been cautious and expect to move Niinimaki and Riberget in Finland, respectively Sweden, to 2025 from 2024. But as we have seen over the last 2 years where several project has been prone to be a bit delayed, this has had no or little impact on our financial situation. So the contracts are solid. We do not see that we have any delay.So with that, next page, hand it over to Johan for a financial review.

[Johan Rydmark, executive]

Thank you, Paul. Hello everyone and we can move on to the next slide, please. Right? And as you said, Paul, there is a lot of things happening across OX2 and it's hard to sort of describe all of those things when only looking at historical numbers, but I'll do my best. But also reflecting a bit on the 2 years now as a listed company. I think we've been able to put ourselves in a very good position for the time to come in terms of the expansion that we have undertaken and that has been part of the historical numbers now being established in 11 markets with a good portfolio in all of these markets. Also markets with a bit of a different dynamics to them if we look on individual basis, which I think is good now also when there are different market conditions. But the 1 common denominator that there is strong underlying demand for our product, more need for electricity and we have competitive technologies that we're working with in these markets.So I think a very solid position and positive outlook for the time to come, which is also reflected in our financial targets. But if we zoom in and look on this quarter Q2, obviously from a financial perspective a quarter very much characterized by the offshore activities once again with the transaction that we did in Finland now. The farm-down strategy that we have for early stage development. I think a good proof of us being able to create good value also in early stage development. And then also the permit that we got from the Swedish government, OX2 being the first company ever to receive a permit if we disregard state-owned Swedish companies. So I think that is also really a quality stamp and a good stamp for us when it comes to our offshore activities going forward. Megawatts sold, the bulk then coming from the farm-down in Finland and then a small part with the first transaction that we did in Italy.And really completing that full cycle of now also having a project under construction is important for us and I think we've learned a lot and will bring a lot of new good opportunities for us with the remaining part of the Italian portfolio that we have. Looking at the gross profit coming in in line with Q2 last year. And when we look at operating income, quite a big decrease there, but very much based on the strategy that we have in terms of the expansion that we are undertaking. Significant efforts and resources going into our offshore development growing our overall development expense where offshore is the main part of that with more than 50% if we compare to Q2 last year. And also now when we have completed the Australian acquisition, quite a big increase in personnel expenses growing with 40% on a quarter-over-quarter basis when we compare to Q2.LTM figures the longer trend is I think a bit more reflective of the underlying performance that we see in the business. The megawatts sold obviously very much characterized by the 2 offshore transactions that we've done during the last 12 months. And the gross profit growth of some SEK 600 million over the last year and operating income and margin coming in a bit above our financial target of 10%. Return on capital employed, a key measure for us and thus we also now are deploying more capital in our project portfolio. This is of high importance for us to continue to be diligent here and make sure that we have a good asset turnover. I think the transaction that we did now in Italy is a good proof of that. It's a project that we acquired about 12 months ago and now also being able to complete the sale of that transaction. Return on capital employed a bit above our financial target of 25%.Moving on to the next slide, please. No surprises here for those of you who attend our earnings calls. Volatility continued to be the theme on a quarterly basis. The big net sales growth this quarter very much being driven by the activities in the construction portfolio. And if we look at the operating income and compare that to Q2 last year, we had 2 very profitable projects in Poland that we sold, which really drove up the operating margin last Q2. This will continue to be also the theme for the remaining part of the year. We're not zooming in on quarterly -- individual quarters, but rather working to maximize value over time for our projects. Moving on to the next slide, please. A bit longer time series in terms of the growth that we see. Net sales when we compare to where we ended last year '22. The bulk of this growth is coming from the construction sales where we went into this year with a bigger portfolio based on the growth that we've seen in project sales earlier.And if we compare a bit back to '21, 2020; then the sales growth very much driven by a combination of the increase in project sales, the construction portfolio as a result of that as well as a growing asset management business. Looking at the profit development. Gross margin standing at 27%. I think this is also -- and we tend to get a lot of questions on this and I think that's fair. With the increases that we as well are experiencing in terms of the input variables that we have going into our projects, we're still able to come out with good profitability on the projects that we do bring to sales. Moving on to the next slide, please. Solid financial position. This is a good position to be in especially when markets are a bit more turbulent in some places and acting from a solid financial position is also something that caters for us to be flexible and cater for different customer needs.I think again the transaction that we did in Italy is a good example of that where we could see that the value that we got from Glennmont by also offering to take on the financing of this project still bearing in mind our return on capital employed that we want to see really was value maximizing for us. Also when we look at investments in project portfolio in the quarter, obviously a big portfolio in our core market Finland, the transaction that we did. But here I think there will be more opportunities for us to come and a good position to act from. In terms of net working capital and the significant decrease in cash flow in the quarter. Hopefully that didn't come as a surprise to anyone. We spent quite a lot of time on that in our Q1 report explaining that the negative working capital that we had in the construction portfolio standing at some minus 30% end of Q1 was a bit unusual and this is a normalization now that we're seeing coming out.We're ending this quarter at minus 10%. So more in the middle of the range where we typically tend to be between 0% and minus 20%. The other significant cash outflow was the acquisition of ESCO Pacific that we paid by our own cash needs. Moving on to the next slide, please. Project acquisitions. It is a good mix that we're seeing now also including the Australian acquisition in these figures, 5.3 gigawatt that we have acquired during the last 12 months. It's a good division across markets and technologies and I think this is also tying a bit back to what Paul said in terms of what we have ongoing in terms of sales. This is very much a result of this diversification strategy that we've had with the 11 markets that we're now operating from with a good portfolio in all these markets. So Italy was sort of first out of the newer markets, but there is definitely more to come based on also these acquisitions that we've done during the last couple of years. In terms of investments, a bit above the SEK 800 million that we had guided in terms of where we see acquisition pace being for the coming years.And if we move on to the next slide, I'm touching a bit upon this also in the planning assumptions in the report where we see that 2023 most likely with the opportunities that we see will continue to be around sort of the LTM pace that we see now a bit above SEK 800 million. And we will continue to do the investments needed in order to bring our portfolio and develop the different technologies in our different markets to make those investments also during the remaining part of the year. And in terms of the sales processes and outlook there, we're acting from a very good position. We have a lot of different projects out in the market. There is strong demand for projects and I think our product being able to cater for different customer needs; really having the smartest Board in terms of offtake, in terms of doing permit sales, in terms of doing EPC, in terms of doing construction on our own books and handling the financing is a very good product portfolio to be able to offer in our different markets. So promising outlook.Handing it back to you, Paul.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

If we jump to the next slide then. Thank you, Johan. I will round it off with a couple of comments on the market and outlook. And next slide, please. We can conclude the second quarter by saying that we had a very active quarter. The acquisition of ESCO has been very successful and integration is ongoing. We sold offshore and onshore, both significant products, into different markets during the quarter totaling 3 gigawatts. And we also received a first permit in our offshore portfolio. So a lot of milestones and new ground paved during the quarter. On remaining parts of '23 we continue, as Johan said, on acquisitions; but also quite a bit on Greenfield development because this is a very long-term growth that we see ahead of us. We see that we have an opportunity to strengthen our position in existing markets. We showed it first half this year with more than 4 gigawatt of additions through acquisitions in existing markets. And we also are now starting to build a stronger position in Australia through ESCO, which is now being rebranded OX2 Australia. And of course the majority of focus will continue to be on closing all of our ongoing sales assets and we then reiterate that we have good visibility. We stick with our targets and guidance for the year and the 5-year period.So with that said, we can move to Q&A and next page, please.

[Olof Cederholm, analyst]

Olof from ABG. A couple of questions from my side. You mentioned that it takes slightly longer in project sales, which is understandable and I've seen that myself. But project pricing, can you talk a little bit about that also in general? What are you seeing, any pressure on pricing?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

We can start by commenting on that. The complexity in the project sales to some extent derives from that we are looking to capture maximum value. So we could have stayed with simpler sales processes, but at a compressed potential value. But we see that we continue to seek to value maximize and then we do not see a compression when it comes to the overall value of the projects. This derives quite a bit from the outlook being very positive on the cost of electricity in the market. And on that, we see also that CapEx is starting to normalize and in some technology even going down. So we are positive that we will remain with a good margin on our sales in the coming period and are able to use our balance sheet to create even further value in the portfolio.

[Olof Cederholm, analyst]

Excellent. And on that using the balance sheet, in Italy now you're taking this on your own books and throughout the presentation you mentioned this several times that it adds value to have that flexibility. What are the -- should we expect the biggest part -- is this a oneoff or should we see more projects like this on your own books going forward because it's a little bit of deviation from previous thoughts that you were reluctant to do this?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

I think the reluctancy in the past has not maybe come from that we have not wanted to do it, but we haven't maybe needed to do it in order to value maximize. But remember the Capital Markets Day when we pushed a bit further on the return on capital employed targets, we stay true to that despite now using the balance sheet a bit more actively. So we will continue to value maximize. We will recycle the capital in order to reach those type of targets that we have put forward. But the tool box is of course valuable to have in order to reach a combination of the growth and profitability targets that we have. So I see that we will continue to use the balance sheet in order to value maximize, but there is no kind of near tendency to that this is now what we're going to do.

[Olof Cederholm, analyst]

Understood. And then lastly, you managed to add to your late stage portfolio during the quarter, which is good. Does that come from product acquisitions in the Australian business or were you also able to move things from mid-stage to late stage?

[Johan Rydmark, executive]

The majority of that addition in late stage came from the Australian acquisition and as Paul said there.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

So what we have not -- we have not moved for instance the permitted offshore projects just yet because there are a couple of permits still remaining. But that is not yet moved, that is still in mid.

[Olof Cederholm, analyst]

And when that happens, that would trigger the revenue.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

The milestone payment, yes.

[William Mackie, analyst]

Can I follow up on the previous question first. You mentioned the sales process is becoming more complex and a focus on value maximization. Can you just maybe expand on what actions you're taking to increase the value of the project development portfolio? And then also following up on an earlier comment about capital costs. You said the CapEx in some areas was falling. I wonder if you'd be specific is that solar? And more generally about the technology. When you look across the portfolio at the moment and you look into the rest of the year, where do you typically see the best risk-adjusted returns by region and technology? I mean you've mentioned Romania and Italy quite a number of times. Are those now particular spots alongside developing Australia?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

Good. I heard them loud and clear and I will try to respond. If you first look at the sales processes, we talk about the complexity compared to maybe the last 2, 3 years when a lot of the parties that were involved in the sales auctions that we run came from traditional investment houses very kind of used to running transactions, underwriting the full equity, taking the PPA risk and the debt financing risk for instance on their books. And that particular group has been maybe more than others affected by the general rates of debt that has come up. So what we now see is that we work more actively with utilities and industrials and other type of strategic investors. On top of that, we cater for offtake agreements to a larger extent. So both in Italy, Romania, Spain; we have actually procured and arranged the PPAs for the projects that were typically or that has -- we've seen some tendencies during the last couple of years that that has been desired to be done by the buy side.On top of that, we can utilize, which also was the comment Olof made, our balance sheet to create room for buyers that cannot finance the construction according to their mandate. So looking at the Italian project, we were able to reach a better valuation using and tapping into a customer pool that did not have the capacity to finance the construction themselves. And by that, we can kind of derisk it slightly in the eyes of the customer by using our funds to construct it. But we have the same underlying construction risk meaning that we have our contractors already procured, we have the agreed sale price once we come into full operation of the sites, we have the PPA in place. All of those, kind of it's a more finalized package so to say. So I think those 2 or 3 examples of what we can do now being a larger entity catering more for buyers slightly further down the value chain to come into the product is something we can maximize the value on the projects on. Go down to the other 2 questions if that was answer to the first.

[William Mackie, analyst]

Really helpful, yes.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

So looking at the CapEx so that would be not the capital cost, but the capital expenditure so our kind of cost of constructing the sites. We've seen a stabilization of wind CapEx. So the OEMs are starting to kind of stabilize and even kind of come slightly down compared to Q4. We also see a quite significant drop in panels in PV. So I think you mentioned solar PV as the main driver for reducing CapEx and that is a correct observation, but also on other technologies we see that. As demand from other industries are coming down, we also see that for instance the balance of planned like construction services, et cetera, are coming down or stabilizing. That was your second question. Is that okay?

[William Mackie, analyst]

Yes.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

And the third was on technologies and geographies with risk-adjusted return. I think you can kind of see that there is a very diverse pool. There is a lot of capital seeking to participate in the energy transition, but there has been -- some are very much kind of geographical focused, but others are more value seeking. And we are able to offer higher returns on the projects in Romania for instance. The projects in Italy came with kind of a more packaged envelope. So I can't really kind of say that there is any optimum for us. We see large pools of capital seeking the slightly higher returns that you can get from markets that have a higher or maybe you can say that they have a bit of a lower financial credit risk or credit rating meaning that the government bonds are traded higher and hence you can also expect higher returns on infrastructure investments in these regions. So that's a very attractive pool of capital for a lot of transition and infra investors. But we also have the classical investors both in offshore in kind of Western European regions with fairly low return requirements and long return horizons. Remember that these are 40-year plus returns that they are [ seeing ] on the projects meaning that they are not one to one evaluated with short-term fixed income instruments. And we are also seeing that the long-term fixed income instruments have dropped over the last quarter. So we do see different pools of capital seeking different pools of risk-adjusted investment and we're able to cater for the multiple of these.

[William Mackie, analyst]

Can I just ask another question about technology and how technology development impacts your risk profile? You highlighted the 3 projects in Finland and Sweden relating to the recent contracts you have with 5.X or SGRE whatever it is SG 6.6-170. Maybe on that specifically, how does the lengthening of delivery timelines from your supplier or potentially the early failure rates of technology or the decline in AEP due to adaptation of technology in early stage? How does that affect your construction profile, construction revenues and future potential earnings?

[Johan Rydmark, executive]

Maybe I can comment on that. So with the contractual setup that we have and we've looked into this and I think Siemens is also very much looking into this themselves and I think after summer here will come back a bit more with how they see it. But from our perspective, it's more a shift in time in how we see these projects play out. And what I mean with shift in time is some of the margin from these projects with the delay that they are not foreseeing will be postponed into the future. So that will of course impact slightly then the margin that we envision from these 2 projects in '24 now being pushed into '25. But the overall profitability for these projects remains the same as we see it.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

And the second question on maybe credibility of applying new technologies, that's what we've been doing for the last 20 years. We have not observed any deviations from the Siemens product line historically. We operate about 50 sites with Siemens turbines and they are producing well in line with expectations. So I don't see any major kind of technology risk perceived to increase from buy side or investor side due to these comments. It's more about aligning new production facilities to cater for new turbines and that's something that I expect will be sold very fairly rapidly. The absolute majority of what is being sold from Siemens Gamesa now is coming from these 2 platforms or this platform that they now have the bit of issues with. But that's being fixed and we have a good dialog with C-level management at Siemens Gamesa being an important customer for them.

[William Mackie, analyst]

To further follow-up, sorry. I'll then step away. Just how should we think about the probability of achieving the permitting on the Finnish projects that you sold down initially with quite a low price per megawatt, but with a very large potential income stream related to a post permitting approval? So just sort of thinking about how to adapt or think about the permitting on the Finnish offshore contracts. And then my last would relate to Australia and ESCO or now OX2 Australia. How do you see the potential to expand the onshore wind portfolio or the solar portfolio?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

Okay, I'll cover this quickly so others can ask as well. Probability adjusted in Finland, we have approval from the armed forces in Finland, which is a major stopping block for other developers in the Baltic Sea. So I would say we bet and Ingka has reviewed this as well and we bet on good and high probability of achieving permitting for these projects. Looking out to Australia, part of the business is definitely to expand. We're moving senior staff down to Australia with experience in wind, adding to the team and recruiting as well. So this is part of our expectation for growth in Australia. And what we liked about the position that this developer had with good experience from solar, but also experienced team in wind, but not yet a portfolio in wind. So we see good expectations on that and part of the ongoing business there.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] There are no more phone questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions and closing comments.

[Johan Rydmark, executive]

Yes. We have a couple of questions on the web. So the first one here is how are you project investment prices developing currently in the face of rising interest rates? Are you seeing an acceleration in permitting activity?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

Good questions. I think we covered the first by earlier questions when it comes to pricing. We are working to maximize the value and the price levels we are achieving is still very competitive and in line with our expectations previously. When it comes to accelerating permitting, no, we're not seeing that in general. [indiscernible] there has been a bit of a speeding up on some technologies. You can remember Spain coming in with quite a lot of volume permitted during early this year and also on offshore we got big volumes permitted in Sweden. So some positive signals, but in general it is still a very big -- it's kind of the lacking element of the transition is still to speed up the permitting. This is to some extent an advantage given that we now do have a record high amount of permitted projects in several markets and several technologies and the value of the permitting still seems to be significant.

[Johan Rydmark, executive]

And the final question here relates to grid erection, whether we are seeing delays in some regions?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

No, we have not seen any significant grid delays outside of the normal delays that we have had over the last 10 years.

[Johan Rydmark, executive]

That's all.

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

If that was the final question, maybe I can just round it off.

[Operator]

The next question comes from William Mackie from Kepler Cheuvreux.

[William Mackie, analyst]

My first question comes to what you're observing with regard to offtake prices or basically CFD or auction prices. We've seen an increase in Germany on the agreed cap level of pricing. But in contrast we've seen Vattenfall withdrawing from the UK offshore projects on the basis that the offtake prices don't make the economics work at the moment due to capital cost inflation. So my question is when you look across your onshore or offshore markets, how do you see the offtake pricing on the projects developing and is it enough to certainly make some of the offshore contracts still attractive on an economic basis?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

I was waiting for that question. So starting by in general, our view is CFD or PPA offtake prices are typically derived from the long-term forecast and forecast have gone up over the last 2 years. I think without having participated in the very competitive US and UK offshore tenders, I think they were not factoring in the CapEx and the inflation or WACC that has increased over the last -- just even over the last 12 months. In addition to that, the land leases or the seabed leases paid in these regions are substantial. So when it comes to our own offshore development, those are not made in regions where you have fixed pricing historically or you have these kind of significant seabed auction prices paid. So when we run numbers on offshore sites now, we see good profitability in them also demonstrated by the acquisition that was done in the quarter by Ingka running their numbers and seeing and coming to good values of the development.So I think there is a pretty big discrepancy right now with some markets that has really gone to maximize the seabed lease to the state. That are maybe -- that may actually come back and bite them because as we saw you mentioned Vattenfall. You also have examples from Iberdrola, Orsted, et cetera, not completing and instead kind of pulling out of agreed positions over the last couple of years. But at the same time, you see Total and BP bidding zero prices for the German offshore auctions. So I think we're in a very good position with our portfolio being much more market-oriented than what some of the previous mentioned sites and markets have been. Also when it comes to capturing the applicable current market prices of energy, which is a large driver of the CapEx and even inflation today. So I think it's important to balance these and not lock them in.What we see, I mentioned that we have secured PPAs in multiple markets just over the last couple of months, is that in general they are at completely different levels now than what you had 2, 3 years back or even 4 years back when prices and expectations of prices were very low. Now we do have a European market in transition. Everyone knows that it's going to be more costly to consume electricity because of the scarcity of production assets. So we are building a new asset base, but the consumers will need to pay for that and that I think is trickling down to a large extent. The large consumers are signing PPAs at higher levels because they start to see that volatility is hurting them, price levels are hurting them and the price levels that we can achieve on current prices or in current markets are profitable or catering for very profitable construct. So it's important to not kind of have a too big of a lag when you start to lock in different components that makes your business case.

[William Mackie, analyst]

So if I sort of crudely summarize that certainly in onshore, you can achieve your target ROCEs on projects with the current financing condition with the PPAs or offtake prices you're agreeing at the current technology or capital cost so I'm thinking onshore wind specifically. So the increased prices that your technology providers had to make to mitigate their losses, you can absorb and still make sufficient returns to meet your corporate objectives?

[Paul Stormoen, executive]

Yes. Correct.We have 1 minute left of the call. So well, if you have 1 spare question, feel free to shoot. Otherwise you're as always welcome to reach out to Henrik, our Head of IR, if you have follow-up questions. We'll try to cater for answering during the day or as soon as possible. But there will be some vacation next week I hope that will be allowed to the IR function. Otherwise we will come back as soon as possible. Thank you all for a good and interesting discussion this hour. With that, we wish you a good weekend and a good rest of the summer.