Earnings Labs

TechnipFMC plc (FTI)

Q3 2017 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 26, 2017

$75.34

+0.27%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.05%

1 Week

+6.30%

1 Month

+3.45%

vs S&P

+0.61%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My Name is Jackie, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the TechnipFMC Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Matthew Seinsheimer, you may begin your conference.

Matthew Seinsheimer

Analyst

Good afternoon, and welcome to TechnipFMC's Third Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. Our earnings release and financial statements issued yesterday can be found on our website. I'd like to caution you with respect to any forward-looking statements made during this call. Although these forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, beliefs and assumptions regarding future developments and business conditions, they are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by these statements. Known material factors that could cause our actual results to differ from our projected results are described in our most recent 10-K, most recent 10-Q and other periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the French AMF and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority. We wish to caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of our forward-looking statements after the date they are made whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Because this is the third quarter of operation following our merger, we have prepared pro forma financial statements for 2016 as if the merger had been completed on January 1, 2016. All prior year quarter comparisons are to these pro forma results. I will now turn the call over to Doug Pferdehirt, TechnipFMC's Chief Executive Officer.

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Thank you, Matt. Good morning, and good afternoon. Thank you for participating in our third quarter earnings call. I will give a brief overview of our operational results, provide an update on our capital allocation strategy and discuss market outlook. Maryann will then review our third quarter financial performance in more detail and provide an update to 2017 guidance. She will also introduce preliminary segment guidance for 2018 before opening the call for questions. Third quarter results demonstrated another solid operational performance across all segments. We continue to execute well on the backlog of our long-cycle businesses while capitalizing on market opportunities in our short-cycle businesses, particularly in North America. Total revenues for the quarter exceeded $4.1 billion, with an adjusted EBITDA of $536 million. Total company adjusted EBITDA margin was 12.9%. Looking at the individual segments. Subsea adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.6%, Onshore/Offshore was 10.6% and Surface Technologies was 20.1%. These results demonstrate strong margin performance across-the-board with continued operational momentum in several of our largest projects. With Jamaal LNG, we delivered all 142 modules to the project site and continued to progress well on the commissioning of Train 1. And with Prelude FLNG, the floating unit was successfully moored on August 24, with the Subsea hook-up underway utilizing a complete TechnipFMC Subsea offering. Total company orders for the quarter were $2.5 billion, and we ended the quarter with $13.9 billion of backlog. As a reminder, our backlog does not capture the reimbursable activity within our Onshore/Offshore business or the reoccurring revenue from Subsea services. Our balance sheet remains strong with net cash of $3.3 billion. We've previously outlined the drivers of our capital allocation strategy, with investment for growth as the priority, followed by shareholder distributions, both cash dividends and share repurchases. With respect to capital growth, we…

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Thanks, Doug. We delivered solid operating results in the quarter. These were in line or above our expectations. Adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.39 when excluding after-tax charges and credits of $0.13 per diluted share. Charges and credits in the quarter totaled $101 million on a pretax basis. Included were pretax charges of $10.9 million related to the impact of Hurricane Harvey. We have provided more detail for these items in the accompanying schedules to our release, but the majority relate to cost associated with our merger as well as restructuring cost and severance cost. Total company adjusted EBITDA was $536 million in the quarter. Year-over-year adjusted EBITDA margins decreased 100 basis points to 12.9% despite revenue declines. This is the result of good project execution in our Onshore/Offshore and Subsea project and the improving activity levels in Surface Americas. Doug has shared with you segment operational highlights. Let's take a look at the corporate items in the quarter. Reported corporate expense was $42 million. Included in the quarterly results is $19 million of net gains associated with foreign currency. When excluding charges and credits, the adjusted expense was $41 million. Net interest expense was $86 million. This includes $73 million of additional liability to joint venture partners. Our reported tax provision for the quarter was $112 million, resulting in a reported tax rate of 48.6%. However, our effective tax rate in the quarter was 30.3% when excluding the impact of certain discrete items. In the final week of the quarter, we began our share repurchase program. Since that time, we have repurchased approximately 730,000 shares at a total cost of $19.6 million as of yesterday's close of business. Looking ahead, we have made updates to our full year guidance for 2017. For Subsea, our 2017…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And your first question comes from the line of Sean McKean from JPMorgan.

Sean McKean

Analyst

Looking to - maybe start off with - let me start with Subsea. I recognize that you might be ready to commit quarterly margin guidance range for '18 at this point. But does the '18 guidance, coupled with the implication of the 4Q guidance off from the 3Q result, odes that suggested the next quarter could represent the bottom for Subsea margin? Or I guess, how would you suggest that we view the potential for identifying a bottom in the margins from here?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Sean, I think the guidance that we're providing for 2018 of an average of EBITDA margin for Subsea of 14%, we have confidence in the way that, that will play out on a quarterly basis throughout the year. As it did this year, there will be some quarters that will be stronger than other quarters. But we do have confidence in the overall average EBITDA margin for 2018. A bit early to get into discrete quarterly guidance or quarterly updates, but as we see the year play out, we will certainly continue to provide an update at that time.

Sean McKean

Analyst

Okay. That seems entirely fair. And then just thinking about the order progression, it sounds like continue to be building confidence in terms of the queue of FEED awards and the ability to convert those. You noted in the prepared remarks that some of - that you expect some of the incremental wins to be larger in scale compare to what you were awarded so far in the integrated projects. Could you give us a little more color just on how - on what those types of products could look like, or how that progression could look in terms of scaling some of those awards you expect to get the next several quarters?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Yes. The integrated EPCI awards are really quite critical in our company. And as I pointed out, it gives us unique view into the marketplace. And in many cases, we're working on projects on an exclusive basis with our customers. So, these, if you will, are not projects that are being pursued by our competition. The advantage of having worked together now for almost 3 years initially in the alliance and joint venture and more importantly now as a single entity, TechnipFMC, allows us to take that work that we've been doing as it matures through the FEED stage, which typically takes 12 to 15 months and then into the FID states, which typically takes 6 months. We now have this backlog of integrated FEED activity that has the opportunity to convert into integrated EPCI projects. So, we're looking at both the visible open tenders and participating where we think we can create value for ourselves and for our customers, where the economical limit - by setting economical limits. But on these integrated projects, we have that unique opportunity because of the early engagement to introduce new proprietary technologies, to deliver Subsea architecture that is unique and differentiated and at the end a situation where we can help our customers meet their economic hurdle rate while benefiting ourselves as well. So, it's simply the majority of that FEED, the maturation of that FEED backlog that now gives us the unique ability to be able to convert an increasing number in 2018 to integrated EPCI projects. In that list of maturing projects, we see some projects that are larger in size than some of the awards we have received thus far, and hence, the comment in the prepared remarks.

Sean McKean

Analyst

And then just to put a button on that, is it fair to say that those types of projects will be accretive relative to, say, the legacy procurement style projects out there?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Certainly, in today's environment, that would be correct.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Fiona Maclean from Merrill Lynch.

Fiona Maclean

Analyst

It's Fiona Maclean from Merrill Lynch. My first question relates to the fact that you published guidance for 2018 earlier today. I just want to get an understanding of why you felt the need to do that now and not keep it for the Capital Markets Day that you're going to have at the end of November? And could you maybe give us a flavor what we should be expecting at that event later in the quarter?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Look, we have so many exciting and important things that we need to talk about at our Capital Markets Day and showing how we are making this - how we are impacting the industry in a real, substantial way that we wanted to have plenty of opportunity on that day to really focus on the future and to focus on how we're driving real, sustainable change for our industry. So, lots of exciting things to talk about on that day, so we thought we'd take the opportunity today as we have now our first look into 2018. Our 2018 planning cycle, we thought we'd share that with you, also giving you the opportunity to digest the that, and then we can have an even more deeper discussion at our Capital Markets Day.

Fiona Maclean

Analyst

Okay. And then my second question is about Yamal LNG. Could you give us a bit of a road map for how that project is going to progress over 2018, '19 and '20, and whether there are any other big milestones that we should be looking at for on that project?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

So, the Yamal project continues to execute extremely well. As I stated in the prepared remarks, we're very excited to state that all of the modules of that have now arrived on site in Russia. That's a very critical milestone. Our focus right now and the focus of our team is on the commissioning of Train 1 in 2017. That is the commitment that was made to our customer, and that is our primary focus. Clearly, we have additional work to be done in decommissioning of Train 2 and Train 3 in the subsequent years of '18 and '19. Along with that will come a reimbursable scope or reimbursable activity to support the further commissioning of the remaining trains as well as ongoing support for the LNG facility.

Fiona Maclean

Analyst

Okay. And are you willing to give us a breakdown of contribution for either revenue or profitability for '17 or '18 on Yamal?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

I mean, it's a very successful project. We continue to execute very well. And as with other projects, we don't breakdown that scheduling as that would be not in the best interest of our customer or relative to our competition.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Judd Bailey from Wells Fargo.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

First question is on the margin guidance for 2018, at least 18%. It looks like and you highlighted it Maryann that the biggest variable is the lower fleet utilization. Couple of questions on that is, is there a scenario where that could be better than you think? Or is the work kind of lined up already? Could you give us a sense of how variable that component of the margin guidance could be, depending on obviously work, scope going forward? And as we move into 2019, is it then reasonable to think that you could recapture some of that lost margin, obviously depending on project moving toward? Just trying to get a sense of how variable that component of the margin component could be.

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Sure. Thanks, Judd. In our guidance for 2018 for Subsea of at least 14%, you're right, we are making an assumption right now that we will see a lower utilization on our vessels. Now clearly, to your point, we do think there is some potential improvement to that as we look at the inbound that comes in or there is the opportunity to take on some additional work and we could see improvement. So yes, there is opportunity for us to further improve. As I mentioned, it is early. We are 4 months ahead. But again, we thought it is important to give you a good view, a good view of that. Your second question I think is about '19. And it is a bit early really for us to be commenting on '19, so we'll hold off on some further communications around '19. But we've got a lot of things obviously in play that we are working on. We're talking about synergies. We'll have another $200 million worth of synergies total company, of which a portion of that applies to Subsea. We'll see the benefit of all of our initiatives as well. And we will be able to give you some better clarity around '19 soon, but we are a little bit early for 2019.

Judson Bailey

Analyst

Okay. And my follow-up is, Doug, you mentioned integrated EPCI opportunities that the scope of those are starting to increase. But I wanted to clarify, are any of the projects you've listed in your presentation, are any of those a candidate for integrated type of award? Or are those going to be the - all those pretty much traditional model?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Yes, there is the possibility for some of the projects on the project list to be awarded as an integrated EPCI.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Rob Pulleyn from Morgan Stanley.

Robert Pulleyn

Analyst

So, couple of questions, if I may. So firstly, a bit high level. You're 10 months into this merger. As you mentioned, Doug, you've been working together for 3 years now. May I ask how is the integration going? What is pleasing the management team? And maybe what has been a bit more frustrating, to give us all a bit of color what's going on underneath the heard? And just a follow-up later, but just as a second question, given that the headwind, the huge and consolidated Yamal contract creates the group book-to-bill, could you have a stab of when do you think that you envisage the backlog at a group level growing again?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

So, thanks, Rob. I'll take the first question and give the second question to Maryann. I think what's going well is exactly what we're here today communicating. The operational results of the company have been exceptional since we created TechnipFMC. So, what does that mean? At the project level, the level of collaboration, the level of colocation has been quite significant. We have continued to perform well both financially, but more importantly, from an HSES perspective, or Health Safety Environment and Sustainability, Security perspective. That's, first and foremost, what's most important. So, I'm quite pleased with the fact that in a very challenging market, so the backdrop for the environment been extremely challenging, coupled by the fact that we're going through a merger and bringing together two industry leaders into a new, unique company that is truly differentiated within the industry, that can create distractions. Those distractions can show up in operational performance. They can show up in safety incidents, et cetera. And that simply is not the case. We are executing extremely well in that area. As a new company, we continue to develop the culture and the practices and the way that we will operate as a new company. That simply takes a bit more time. So that's where we're putting the majority of our focus now is on developing that unique culture of TechnipFMC and continuing to deliver to you the results that we have since we closed earlier this year. Maryann?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Yes. Hey, Rob. Around the backlog, so a couple of things with respect to Onshore/Offshore. As you can see, we're sitting on just about $7.6 billion worth of backlog. And as we share with you, what we've had in backlog right now scheduled for '18 is somewhere in a range of about $3.7 billion. And of course, you know that doesn't include a portion of reimbursables. We are tracking $5 billion worth of major projects in Onshore/Offshore. They will have obviously good contribution into the backlog and obviously the revenue. In addition to that, there are several midsized projects, E&P prospects that we're looking at as well. And our FEED activity, FEED engineering activity remained resilient. In the quarter, we had just over $1 billion worth of inbounds. And as you know, we didn't announce any major projects. I think that speaks to this strength of our PNT business and our project business as well. So, we're quite hopeful on the inbound timing, as you know, is critical. But we're quite hopeful that we will see an uptick in 2018.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from fork car scion from Goldman Sachs.

Waqar Syed

Analyst

Doug, are reimbursables from Yamal included into the guidance or no?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

They're not in the guidance that we provided. That is reoccurring stream that is not booked into the guidance.

Waqar Syed

Analyst

Okay. And then just in terms of Onshore/Offshore, do you expect '18 to be the bottom for revenue and margins? So, do you see the bottom kind of lending into '19 or so?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

That's a very good question. And again, it's going to be a function of the inbound opportunities that we have in 2018. I did mention in my prepared remarks that we're tracking a few projects to have an aggregate inbound value of over $5 billion. We feel we are very well positioned on these projects. It's not so much a question of if we would be awarded the projects, if we would be the winning entity on the projects. It's more a question of when the projects will actually be sanctioned. These are big, massive petrochemical and refinery developments that some have been on our list for a period of time and are held up for one reason or another beyond that of the contribution that we're making to the project. So, we feel very strongly about the projects. It's just a question of the timing of the projects and when they're actually sanctioned. If they come in 2018 as we are anticipating, that will certainly benefit 2019.

Waqar Syed

Analyst

But even without these any big project awards, you think $1.2 billion of inbounds in Onshore/Offshore without major project awards, is that a sustainable number? Or there were still some, something unique about this quarter?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

I wouldn't say necessarily unique, but it was a strong quarter. I mean, as you're pointing out, without the major projects, so that's obviously a high level of reimbursable and service activities associated with our Project Management Consultancy business, which is very important. But I would consider this to be a bit of a higher number than what you could necessarily anticipate. Again, the level of reimbursable does vary from quarter-to-quarter.

Waqar Syed

Analyst

And just one last question. Maryann, you mentioned in the Subsea, the service revenues could be about $1 billion in '18. What it is the number likely to be in '17?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Yes. So, our '17 number is relatively consistent with what we are forecasting this early for 2018, so roughly about the same. No significant change year-on-year.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Nick [indiscernible] from Barclays.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Just first to clarify, did you just say that Yamal reimbursable is not in your guidance?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

That is correct.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

In the revenue guidance?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Correct.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, that's a starting point. Thanks, on chart on margins. You obviously don't want to talk about '19. Can you just help us a bit and talk about what's [indiscernible] backlog and Subsea and the vintage of it? Is there any way you can break that down into when that was awarded so we can think about going forward?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Subsea projects, typically the burn rate happens over 2 to 3 years. So, if you look at the vintage of it, there's obviously a portion of it that would go back to a point of the last cycle where there was higher margin activity and but the last 2 years being in a different environment. So, it's really a blend of the 2 that you're now beginning to see a blend of margins that have been secured over the last 1 to 2 years. I remind you, that our inbound in 2017, we're projecting to be a step-up from 2016.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And the merger synergies within there, if I look at what you're going to deliver this year and next year then multiply it by Subsea, it's hard to see the merger synergies or the major benefits of this year shouldn't be significant more than you seem to be implying in that chart. What am I missing?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

No, I don't believe you're missing anything. The merger synergies, as we indicated, are not all going to Subsea. They're distributed across the various business segments as well as corporate, and we've indicated that as well. And if you break that down by which should be expected of $200 million, about $200 million by the end of 2017, the remainder by 2018, I think that you'll see it comes out quite in line with what we have on that chart.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes. I'm just thinking the average of those 2 and 1/2 of it, give or take the Subsea, is more than less than 1% of that chart seems to be showing on the base of $500 billion.

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

No, sorry, it's exactly as we have indicated.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from Kurt Hallead from RBC.

Kurt Hallead

Analyst

So, I appreciate the guidance and the effort to kind of set the bar and the tone for '18. I guess I was curious in the context of you talked about a growing percentage of your Subsea business being the integrated kind of direct negotiation feed work. At least that's what I thought I heard, and if I didn't, you can feel free to correct me. And then in that context, I guess I would be under the impression then that you wouldn't be subject to the same elements of open bid competitive pricing power, which I think sets you up for potentially even better margins than that 14% dynamic that you provided for '18. So, hoping you can just give a little bit of context around that. Does the direct bid versus open negotiation? Shouldn't we think that direct negotiation and integrated FEED work carries a higher margin along with it?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

So correct, that is correct, but not 100% of our business will fall into those categories. But it is important to point out that we are uniquely positioned, that we have a portion of our tendering or inbound activity that is not exposed to the very competitive open market that we have today. That's our Subsea services business. That's the direct award from our alliance partners, which we have always had. But now in addition to that, we have the integrated EPCI awards, particularly those that are direct result of our integrated FEED activity. So, as you indicated, that is improving. And therefore, that is why we gave the margin guidance that we did for 2018 taking that into account. The rest of the portfolio that is exposed to the open market am a that would be generating a lower gross margin as you indicate.

Kurt Hallead

Analyst

Great. I appreciate that. And the one thing I'm still trying to get a better understanding and feel for is the Onshore/Offshore piece of the business and understanding that Yamal is a very significant piece of that overall dynamic. So, is it, I guess, safe to assume, it may be obvious to others that the decline in revenue, expected revenue in '18 versus '17 is effectively because of the delivery of the first train on Yamal? Is that really the primary differential in revenue progression year-on-year?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Well, it's the overall activity on the project, part of it being the delivery of Train 1. But again, recall that I mentioned that all of the Yamal modules for Train 1, 2 and 3 have now been delivered onsite to [indiscernible] and we're now moving into reimbursable phase of the project.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jean-Luc Romain from CM-CIC market.

Jean-Luc Romain

Analyst

My question relates to Yamal LNG or so. Nova Tech has announced its intention to build the fourth LNG train. How could that translate in your inbound and revenues in the next couple of years?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Thank you, Jean-luc. Clearly, our focus remains on delivering and commissioning Train 1 in 2017. The success of doing that and the continued success of the project could lead to future opportunities. Any decision around a fourth train, we would leave to the discretion of our customer in order to make such an announcement.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Marc Bianchi from Cowen.

Marc Bianchi

Analyst

I guess the first question, going back to Subsea. If I look at the guidance for '18, $2.5 billion of revenue that's already scope for backlog and $1 billion of Subsea service, so it kind of implies about $1.5 billion of other booking turnovers. What would the growth rate for that component of the guidance look like just for '18 over '17?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Yes. You're right. As you can see on the 2018 guidance chart, we're certainly looking at something in the range of about 10% to 15% over our prior year for that portion of the inbound. As Doug mentioned earlier, we've got a high degree of confidence in the level of activities. And depending on the timing of those projects and whether they are what we call them book internal or whether they're smaller-type awards, we can turn those pretty quickly.

Marc Bianchi

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks for that, Maryann. I guess that would also kind of imply that you get to a book-to-bill that's around 1 for 2018 as well. Is that - did I get my Math correct here?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

That is in the range of possibilities, yes.

Marc Bianchi

Analyst

Okay. And then just last one on On/Off, with these Yamal reimbursables, as you move into that, can you help us think about the margin there relative to the rest of the On/Off business guiding 9.5%? If you're getting some reimbursable, is it going to be above that level?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

So, as we look at our margins going into 2018 and the Onshore/Offshore, as you know, we are managing more projects than just Yamal. We are reaching critical milestones in several of our key projects and obviously Yamal being one of those as well. When we talk about our reimbursable scope, we do quite well with our performance on reimbursable scope, we have in prior years. And it would be our expectation as well for 2018 that we would be able to do that. We do have the, as you had seen from the backlog scheduling, a high degree of our 2018 revenue for the Onshore/Offshore segment sitting in backlog. And there is a big portion of that, that is Yamal as well. So, I think the question was asked a little bit earlier around the portion that is reimbursable scope, et cetera, I just want to be sure that we provide good color and clarity around that. So again, you can see that backlog that is sitting in our scheduling for 2018, and a nice piece of that is coming from our Yamal project. So, we have a high degree of confidence. Again, when you look at our performance in 2017, we continue to execute well. We're reaching milestones well. We're achieving the cost in our project portfolios as we expected, and we see clear line of sight to be able to continue that for 2018.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Rae from Redburn.

Michael Rae

Analyst

I'm very sorry. It's, as well, on Yamal. But I just want to get this right. So, the reimbursable, I understand it's not the backlog. But when I look at the $5.3 billion to $5.7 billion of onshore revenue guidance for 2018, for modeling purposes, are you saying that you want people to take a view on that range and then, on top, to add a portion of Yamal reimbursable? That's the first question.

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

So, yes, a lot of the revenue for 2018 is with Yamal is associated with Train 2. And we do have a lot of that, as I mentioned earlier, currently in our backlog. So, to the extent that there is continued activity around that reimbursable scope piece, we would see that as potential improvement to 2018. But a lot of the work associated with Train 2 is in our backlog today.

Michael Rae

Analyst

Okay, that's clear. And the second question also for you, Maryann, is just that I can see below the line you're taking these charges through interest, which I assume also relates to Yamal. So, my question is when you guide to $50 million of interest in Q4, presumably that excludes any further evaluation of Yamal. And so, I'm just wondering can you give us any steer on what any additional charge might be in Q4 and what could it be in 2018?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

You're absolutely the correct. When I guide to the fourth quarter interest expense, I am excluding any additional interest associated with the movement of the Yamal contract. And at this point in time, we are not - we have no guidance with respect to Q4 on that. And just for the sake of clarity, when we talk about 2018 as well, I mean, obviously, we haven't provided that. But we are not forecasting, at this juncture, any incremental. That would not be included in our guidance.

Michael Rae

Analyst

Okay, okay. But it could happen obviously? It's just that you don't present that information to the market yet?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Yes, that's correct. If you go back in any 1 of our 3 quarters, I should say, prior 2 quarters, we have not provided a forecast on that. We provided interest expense to be what our normal interest expense, net interest expense would be. Correct.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael LaMotte from Guggenheim.

Michael LaMotte

Analyst

Doug, the average scope, the 18 large projects $14 billion averages, call it, $750 million a project. For the 30 or so that are in the high FEED pipeline, how much bigger are they relative to this 18 that you called out?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Yes. Michael, just as you would expect in the integrated EPCI just from the integrated FEED list, there's quite a wide range. Some are on the smaller side. Some could be in that average kind of range. But this is a - the important take away is that the integrated EPCI model is completely scalable. So, it's is applicable to the 1 well Subsea tieback as it is to a greenfield expansion. And we have previously shown the breakdown of our integrated feedback activity. And this, right now, about 50% greenfield, 50% brownfield. And we also showed you on by relative size, and that information is available, and we could provide that to you. So, you'll see it's quite applicable and can be appropriately distributed across the broad range. Clearly, in 2017, there was more brownfield tieback activity than greenfield project sanctioning. That being said, we were very excited to be part of many of the greenfield projects that were sanctioned in 2017. Looking forward to 2018, we're signaling that there's a possibility for additional large projects to be sanctioned, both from the opportunity list as well as iEPCI projects, some of which lie on that Subsea opportunity list that we shared.

Michael LaMotte

Analyst

And then just quickly on the dividend strategy. Do you anticipate following more of a European variable model? Or are you as fixed with steady growth model?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

So, thank you very much for the question of shareholder distribution. We were excited today to announce the commencement of the share repurchase that we commenced right at the end of last quarter. And Maryann gave an update on that, that $500 million of share repurchase that we expect to complete no later than the end of 2018 as well as the initiation of our cash dividend of $0.13. So, thank you very much. It's an important part of our total strategy. We've said we would deliver 300 basis points improvement on ROIC. That's obviously by delivering on the cost synergy side as well as some of the tax energy savings and then our shareholder distribution policy. We have said previously that we would initiate a dividend that we felt was sustainable through the cycle. And that's - and so that is the type of model that we have implemented at this time.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Robert MacKenzie from Iberia Capital.

Robert MacKenzie

Analyst

Doug, I wanted to dig into, perhaps, what you talk about in the press release and your prepared comments about investing in the development of next-generation subsea systems, hoping that I'm not trying to front run your analyst event, but can you give us any color on how that, how you see that scope, the technology changing, and how that might relate to recent developments like your compact manifold?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

So, Rob, we're all smiling here. And if you don't mind, we'd really like to showcase that. It's less than 30 days away. It's extremely meaningful. We're seeing significant market penetration and adoption, and we have a lot more to go. Yes, we talked about the compact manifold. We talked about the compact robotic manifold. We've talked about the expansion of the compact manifold family, and there's much more. And we're going to be highlighting that and showing that. This is real tangible evidence of the change that we're driving in the subsea industry. And we have a lot more to go, and we're going to share that vision with you and as you actually see the equipment and see the next generation of Offshore developments that we're going to be able to deliver now as an integrated company, TechnipFMC.

Robert MacKenzie

Analyst

Okay, I'll respect that. And I don't think surface has been asked much about yet, maybe I'll dig into that a little bit. In terms of your guidance, Maryann, for Surface Technologies revenue of $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion next year, how much of that would you attribute kind of the North American land pressure pumping business versus the other side of that segment?

Maryann Mannen

Analyst

Yes. Rob, so I'd say, look, the majority of the growth year-on-year, as I mentioned in my comments, we're relying on a fairly stable rig count within - you're kind of looking at the current rig count. We're assuming that we're going to see increased requirements associated with hydraulic fracturing. So, as you know, a big piece of that coming from our fluid control business as well on the international side. We're talking about kind of stable pricing, of course. But most of that improvement were relying on the strength of that fluid control piece. Obviously, there is growth in the surface wellhead on North America. But a good piece of that is, as you suggest, coming from fluid.

Operator

Operator

And your last question comes from [indiscernible] from Morgan Stanley.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Doug, there's a lot of debate still in the U.S. about the viability of offshore relative to shale. And a lot of pressure on big oil companies as Chevron and Apache Anadarko, I mentioned a few, two kind of disposal Offshore assets and reinvest in shale oil since the tide is turning a little bit. So, I wonder whether you could, in summary, give us your view on how competitive the offshore market has become as a result of the cost reductions that are happening because of the drilling activities, but also that you are driving and particularly sort of with respect to what you mentioned on technology and architecture that you can now facilitate in terms of both cost reductions and, of course, time to first oil? So, could you just give us a high level of the extent that breakeven have been lower [indiscernible] a whole bunch of studies that you're doing? But how competitive how this become relative to other investment alternatives?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Well, thank you very much for the question, and I'll try to be brief, but it is a very important question. So, we have been working diligently for the past 3 years to look at ways to put together a unique value proposition that could sustainably improve project economics. And as you point out, the acceleration of first oil is actually more important than the actual cost of the development. So, the ability to be able to do both is what's really driving the improvement of project economics for our customers. So, we've given examples of the past. We are taking a subsea architecture that typically took 36 months to deliver at the peak of the activity, and I'd say about 28 to 36 months on average. And we can now deliver in 15 months. Further to that, we're now working with customers where they're working towards our industry specifications and using our standards and using our new integrated delivery model that we can deliver on the seabed installed and commissioned in less than 12 months, almost becoming a short-cycle business. That is a major, major distinctions from the way that Subsea has been viewed in the past. On top of that, some of the reservoirs offshore remains of some of the most prolific reservoirs that we have. So, you couple the prolific reservoirs with a much reduced delivery time and lower total cost of by removing unnecessary capital investment in terms of interfaces, et cetera, that's used today by going to an integrated approach with early involvement, with new technology and with a single company that can deliver an integrated model installed on the seabed, it's really driving change. We've seen that. We've seen the success that we had in 2017, and we anticipate greater success in 2018. As you point out, the overall breakeven on these projects have come down significantly. You heard our customers talk about breakevens on these projects below $40 a barrel. We certainly believe that at $50 a barrel, we can remain competitive with other alternative investment choices. One last area that's really - that's unique and that's really developing, we're seeing an emerging trend of independent operators backed by private equity money, moving into the development of these assets. So, there's always - the reservoirs will always be developed. They may be developed by different customers at different times in the cycle, but we're seeing very interesting trends develop. And we're at the forefront of that because of the unique offering of TechnipFMC.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That's an interesting last point you made there actually, Doug, because the prospect I get is, who's going to do this? Because again, [indiscernible] several Apache, Anadarko, I talked to all of them and we're going to de-emphasize offshore is with what happened with has rightly sold Norwegian assets to [indiscernible] it has fell? [indiscernible] BP rose 10%, so clearly some are diversion here in views. And I think your last point was very interesting because [indiscernible] a new set of hands or a new set of ownership for a lot of this, a lot of these assets that the incumbents seem very reluctant to do anything with in this kind of chase for this shale. So, could you elaborate a little bit on that very last point you made because I think that's quite important in terms of who are the new customers that you're talking to?

Douglas Pferdehirt

Analyst

Well, first and foremost, the incumbents are also moving forward developments, right? So, I want to be careful. I mean, as we've announced major awards this year from the likes [indiscernible] from the likes of ExxonMobil and Shell, there's going to continue to be the development such as meaningful part of their portfolio, the project economics and the project and schedule certainty is what was driving the overruns and driving the returns on those projects down. We are now showing in our integrated model that we can really improve not only the schedule but the certainty and the economics behind the project. But there is a transition happening. And it's happened in other parts of our industry, including onshore in the past. And we talked today about the finalization of the Hurricane Lancaster project as an example of that. We will have several more examples like that, that we anticipate inbounding and being able to announce in 2018 as we expand our customer base with the evolution of the Deepwater and the Subsea market.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions. I'll turn the call back over to the presenters.

Matthew Seinsheimer

Analyst

This concludes our Third Quarter Conference Call. A replay of our call will be available on our website beginning in approximately 8 p.m. British Summer Time today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for joining us. Operator, you may end the call.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.