Earnings Labs

Astec Industries, Inc. (ASTE)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Jul 26, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Astec Industries Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Steve Anderson, Vice President, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, you may begin.

Steve Anderson

Analyst

Thank you, Rob. Good morning and welcome to the Astec Industries' conference call for the second quarter that ended June 30, 2016. As Rob mentioned, I'm Steve Anderson, and also on today's call are Ben Brock, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Rick Dorris, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and David Silvious, our Chief Financial Officer. In just a moment, I’ll turn the call over to David to summarize our financial results and then to Ben to review our business activity during the second quarter. Before we begin, I will remind you that our call this morning may contain forward-looking statements that relate to the future performance of the Company and these statements are intended to qualify for the Safe Harbor liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. At this point, I will turn the call over to David to summarize our financial results for the second quarter. David?

David Silvious

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

All right. Thanks, Steve. Thanks to each of you for being with us this morning. Net sales for quarter were $294.4 million compared to $268 million in the second quarter of last year, an increase of 9.9% or $26.4 million increase in sales. International sales were $52.2 million this quarter compared to $72.4 million last year in Q2, a decrease of 28.9% or $21.2 million. International sales represented 17.7% of Q2 ‘16 sales compared to 27.4% of Q2 ’15 sales. The decrease in international sales compared to the second quarter of last year primarily in Europe, Canada, Russia and Africa and Australia. And those decreases were offset by smaller increases in South America and Japan. Domestic sales for the second quarter were $242.2 million compared to $194.6 million Q2 last year, the 24.5% increase or $47.6 million increase. Domestic sales were 82.3% of Q2 ’16 sales compared to 72.6% of Q2 ’15 sales. Part sales for the second quarter were $63.8 million compared to $67.4 million in Q2 last year that's 5.3% decrease or $3.6 million degrees. Part sales were 21.7% of quarterly sales this quarter compared to 25.2% in Q2 of ‘15. For the quarter, part sales increased in the infrastructure group and decreased in the aggregate mining and the energy groups. Foreign exchange translation impact on sales was $3.4 million that is to say that if rates this year were equal to last year's rates, part sales would have been $3.4 million higher. On a year-to-date basis, sales were $573.1 million compared to $556.8 million for the first half last year at 2.9% increase or $16.3 million increase. International sales were $96.7 million compared to $151.1 million first half last year, a decrease of 36% or $54.4 million. The decrease year-over-year occurred Canada, Australia, Africa, the Middle East,…

Steve Anderson

Analyst

Thank you, David. Ben Brock will now provide some comments regarding the second quarter of this year's operations. Ben?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Stifel

Thank you, Steve. Thanks to everyone for being in our call today. As we commented in our earnings release this morning, we were pleased with our second quarter results. While the headwinds of lower oil and natural gas prices, the global mining slowdown and the strong US dollar persisted and challenged us and two of our three financial reporting during the quarter. We were able to secure and ship orders as a result of the passage of federal highway bill in United States which allowed us to earn a good result in the quarter in our traditional business areas. We were also able to recognize $18 million in pellet plant revenue during the quarter. As David mentioned, our earnings per share were $0.79 per share versus $0.51 per share in the second quarter of ‘15, which was an increase of 54.9% and our second quarter sales were $294.4 million versus $268 million, an increase of 9.8%. Year-to-date sales of $573.1 million versus $556.8 million for an increase of 2.9% and again as David mentioned our EBITDA year-to-date was $68.9 million versus $55.4 million. EBITDA was up again in this quarter as our companies maintained stronger gross margin versus last year and our product mix included more special project work than last quarter, so we were pleased with our team's efforts to keep gross margins in range with last quarter's gross margins. Higher capacity utilization rate in the infrastructure group and some of our aggregate group companies once again helped us on our gross margin. Our backlog at June 30, 2016 was $364.4 million, which was up 58.8% versus last year. Our backlog remains strong mainly as a result of $122.5 million pellet plant order that we announced during the first quarter. The pellet plant backlog is in the infrastructure group…

Steve Anderson

Analyst

Thank you, Ben. Rob if you would open the queue for questions, we'll be glad to take those now.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Stanley Elliott with Stifel.

Stanley Elliott

Analyst · Stifel

Hey guys good morning congratulations and thank you for taking the call. Quick question, could you help us with the orders, when you are looking at the infrastructure business, how much of that business is book and ship in the quarter and may be - or otherwise could you help us frame that how long the typical lag is for between booking and sales?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Stifel

This is Ben, Stanely thanks for the comments on the quarter. On the infrastructure group depending on the division, our backlogs are pretty strong, so some of those orders on asphalt plants potentially could ship in 2017 now. It’s very active, we thought we would see a little bit of a slowdown in the summer when the bill came and we start getting orders because customers could be working and they’re definitely working, I have seen a lot of customers during the quarter but the activity has remained fairly good during the summer. We got a large order last night on our asphalt plant. So, I would say that on the mobile definitely could be in this quarter late third-quarter to early fourth quarter on the asphalt plant would be shipping first quarter next year.

Stanley Elliott

Analyst · Stifel

Help us from a historical standpoint, once you have the highway bill or once we see on a multi-year bill, in my memory serves that you see really good trends for probably 2 to 3 years from the signing of a highway bill, is that - am I correct in that assessment or maybe if you can help me out with that?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Stifel

You are correct, and when you look at the funding ‘16 through ‘20 and it depends on who is writing that number down but in general it is about $1 billion a year change from ‘16 to ‘17 and about little over maybe close to $2 billion from ‘17 to ’18. So the funding increases there and it's in place which is nice. And it helps our customers slightly spending on money on larger CapEx and we’re seeing it.

Stanley Elliott

Analyst · Stifel

Last one from me, on that 80 million potential wood pellet order, would there be opportunity for additional add-on, additional lines from that or does that seem to be pretty square?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Stifel

I think that one is pretty square, but I would say we’re talking to probably as many as ten people with five of them being pretty serious. So, it's not the only one and that’s we think can happen in the next 12 months or so. And we can deliver the whole 80 of that next one next year if it came soon enough. But it had to be pretty close to the end of the year for us to do that.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mig Dobre with Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Mig Dobre

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Good morning everyone and I guess I agree with the gentleman prior this was a pretty nice quarter with very good margins. I guess, my question Ben is I'm trying to flush out a little more as to what's going in your infrastructure segment and I'm looking at your orders of call it $99 million and these orders seem to be a little bit below what we've seen in the past six months in terms of core infrastructure orders, so excluding the wood pellet plant and a little more in line with order pace that we've seen in 2015 before the passage highway bill. So I guess I'm trying to understand here what's really going in the market and how you guys are thinking about the demand going forward in terms of not only just seasonal slowdown or acceleration but really the sustainability of the bump in demand that we've seen after the highway bill passage?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Thanks Mig, this is Ben. Demand in the coating activity I can just say is very strong and the plant that we got last night was a very large plant, it’s asphalt plant and we, you know, it's pretty consistent and we have more customers coming in this week on asphalt plant. So, and then on a analysis side, David has looked at a little bit at the backlog, he may have a comment on it but we have – I feel really good about infrastructure side, the Roadtec backlog is very strong but they may be picking up just a little bit of market share, we are transitioning there on the distribution side from west US to the east to a dealer model, which is really what that product should be sold through. And so we've been able to sign some tier 1 dealers in the Northwest and California that we’re very excited about. So, well it’s more in California and the Rocky Mountains not in the Northwest, I'm sorry, we had another dealer that we signed on that aggregate on size in the Northwest I'm sorry about that but feeling really good about that got a tier 1 dear dealer in Wisconsin, so I think for Roadtec the future is very bright.

David Silvious

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Yes Mig, this is David, just to give you a couple of numbers. On the backlog in the infrastructure group, if you take out all the pelletizer business out of that particular group, and compare it to the prior year, we are talking about an increase of backlog of $81 million and that is about 175% increase without any pelletizer business. And I think as we have described back in the highway bill was in the process of being passed that we thought there would be an initial surge and then a bit of a low and then picking back up. And again, there is seasonality built into where we are right now as well.

Mig Dobre

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Right. And I appreciate your comments, David. I guess, the nature of my question was really more along the lines of, I understand that your backlog is up, but it seems to me like the backlog was really up because of what happened in the fourth quarter and the first quarter, rather than what happened this quarter and I don't mean to be splitting hairs here, but I’m trying to understand through demand versus seasonality, but I guess you answered that. In terms of the back half of the year, can you kind of help us think through the way revenues would flow and I appreciate the wood pellet detail, but should we expect revenues basically to be flat to up sequentially from the first half in infrastructure?

David Silvious

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

In infrastructure, it will be flattish. The third quarter is always the tough quarter, because people work in and we will have equipment build that will creep in the fourth quarter and the fourth quarter will be better than the third on the infrastructure side. And that will hold true, probably through all our groups and it always seems like we’re in, I hate to say, hand to hand combat here in the third, but I mean, the third always feels like that, like it’s a grant, but we do have the backlog coming into it and so I think it will be a better third than last year. I mean, we only made $0.10 a share last year in the third quarter and the year prior, we only made $0.08. So from $0.08 to $0.10, it’s probably -- on a percentage basis, it still didn’t make us feel very good and so we have an opportunity to be better in the third this year.

Mig Dobre

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Sure. And then maybe my last question, David is, this one is for you, in terms of again in infrastructure, is that kind of your revenue outlook or best guess for the back half of the year, how should we think about gross margin here, given your absorption dynamics and also maybe if you can comment on raw material cost impact in the back half?

David Silvious

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

On the gross margin for the back half, I think you’re going to see in that infrastructure group, it will be relatively flat.

Mig Dobre

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Flat year-over-year or sequentially?

David Silvious

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Sequentially. They are operating at pretty good efficiency in that group right now and so taking more cost out of that process would be a challenge. Again, product mix has a lot to do with it, but as far as the gross margin goes, I’d they are going to be pretty good going forward on the gross margin compared to where they’re now.

Mig Dobre

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

And material costs?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Well, I believe I will talk about that here, but this is Ben. The material costs, steel is the one that's the big one that everybody is watching. We’ve just been -- in the last three weeks, we've been to every single division physically in the North American side and the steel mills would like to raise steel 12% to 15% on us right now, but we’re hedged, we’re in pretty good shape through the end of the third and then we’re keeping a close eye on it and we’ll see if we want to lock in in August, but we will have to adjust prices for what we see. We don't think it will be that high, but we think there will be some increase coming out, at the same time, we're doing a pretty good job on the purchase side on the other items, so we’re in good shape for the moment with keeping an eye on August.

Mig Dobre

Analyst · Robert W Baird. Please proceed with your question

Appreciate it guys. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Schon Williams with BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Hi, good morning. Just wanted to talk quickly on the financing for Power Flame, was most of that put on the revolver or you’re going to take part of it out of cash or?

David Silvious

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

It will be all cash. We had 68 million in the quarter, so it will be all cash.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

And margins on that business, are they equivalent to the corporate rates or energy segment?

David Silvious

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Yes.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

All right. And then I wanted to talk about the timing of the second Highland shipment, it is 18 million this quarter, and it was kind of slightly below the guidance last quarter of 20 million, just wanted to just get a sense of how are things kind of ramping up, and I don't know if that's maybe related to the expansion that's going on in Chattanooga right now, can you just talk about kind of, as we get into kind of full ramp up mode on pellets through the rest of the year, I mean do you feel pretty comfortable with the schedule that you put out there?

Ben Brock

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

We do, Schon. This is Ben. Part of it is percentage completion at site two, so we were in good shape on. So it could be that we are, it’s around 20 million. We've got weather, it depends on it, rains at times at Arkansas or not, that can slow us down, but in talking with our guys last week, we’re starting to say that's in pretty good shape outside. So we feel good about the schedule as it stands right now.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

All right, that's helpful. And then energy had a particularly good top line this quarter, I mean sequentially, you don't see these kind of pickups going into the spring, I mean, you do get to see more pickup, but this was quite robust, I'm just wondering can you give a little bit more color maybe, was there anything specific driving that and are those levels sustainable going forward?

Rick Dorris

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Schon, this is Rick Dorris. Heatec had a good second quarter, heaters has had a good year so far and that continued in the second quarter and GEFCO, we started building from -- or doing some fabrication for some of the other divisions at GEFCO, so that helps them a little bit and CEI was about flat with last year, year-to-date.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

In CEI, I thought there were some expectation that maybe that would be picking up here?

Rick Dorris

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

We do expect it to pick up for the second half.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Okay. And that would be cement plants?

Rick Dorris

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Yes. Concrete plants. Yes.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Okay. All right. And then maybe just one last one if I may, just any thoughts on, I know you mentioned R&D picking up at some point, I'm just wondering maybe like the SG&A levels as we go into the back half and do you feel pretty comfortable with the $44 million, $45 million level or is there any kind of pluses or minuses we should be thinking of in the back half?

David Silvious

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

I think we’re in a good space from SG&A. If anything, I would hope we would come in with a little bit of a downside surprise on that, but we’re working hard to hold that steady and with the volume that we’re running, there are additional costs, so we really target the percentage, we’d love to be at 15.

Schon Williams

Analyst · BB&T Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question

Okay, great guys and congrats on the quarter.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Morris Ajzenman with Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Morris Ajzenman

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

Good morning, guys. First question, aggregate and mining, both on the revenue and on the backlog, can you give us some more granularity and kind of breaking the plot as best as you can, aggregate from the mining group? And then secondly, a similar question, the energy group, if you can break apart, energy from concrete, Heatec, et cetera, if you could kind of give us some sort of more granularity within each of those two divisions?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

Sure. Morris, this is Ben. Mining in the group typically might be 15% of the group and where we are struggling is in South Africa, our Osborn Group is profitable. And then Brazil, as I mentioned on the call, is looking like a pretty tall mountain that we’re going to be there when it turns around and it's an investment we've got to size down and actually we’re slightly profitable in part of the quarter. So, and we’re looking for other products that we can build on that facility, maybe not even just for Brazil, like we shift an asphalt plant to Argentina, we’ve got a few others quoted for out there, for around Brazil. So the Telsmith group’s sales in combining mining a little bit as well, and they had a really soft first half and they’ve picked up, they have more work now, so it feels a lot better there. On the energy side, right now, the concrete is, we’ve got the two plants going there right now, that will go to a customer late this month or first week -- first couple of weeks of August, which is a fairly large order, around $7 million altogether, so that will show up. That alone we can help in the second half, they would meet that criteria immediately on concrete plans, but they have got pretty good work otherwise, and they’ve picked up a few asphalt type orders and asphalt rubber blending type prospects. So right now, I’d say concrete is not significant next year, for CEI, $10 million to $20 million range would be pretty achievable. I know that’s a wild range, but they are coming in new to the industry and Fusion plants that are referenced in my comments is a smaller ready mix plant. It’s a fairly simple process with newer style controls and those retail in the neighborhood of $450,000. So we are not talking it's going to take a lot of units to move that needle for the company, but present it would be good man-hours and a lot of work. I hope that answers your question. That's kind of where we’re on it.

Morris Ajzenman

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

Just as a follow-on back with the aggregate and mining, can you give us a little more impression on the aggregate side of the business, where we were in the quarter and how it looks going forward?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

On the portable and track mounted side, it’s stayed steady, flat, but still steady and the project work, the larger quarry work has lagged what we were hoping it would be quicker that like we said in the last call, we now think and in my comments today, back half of the year for the, or probably near the end of the year for the highway bill to help that group and so -- it's just come out again a little slower with the highway bill than we would like, that, get quoting activity there now, since the 1st July, that doesn't, we haven’t earned the orders yet, but at least we've got more quoting activity. Actually, we’ve had some more details on it, but it feels a little better now and this is 25 days to go.

Morris Ajzenman

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

Last question, I don't think it had any major impact for you, but BREXIT at the end of June, have you seen any fallouts or any rebounds or any impacts at all from that?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

No, we haven't seen any impact at all. We’re keeping an eye on the labor side and for our Telestack Group in Northern Ireland, which is in the UK. So for the moment and we talked with them within the last couple of weeks about it and it was not an over concern about anything for them. So the other concern for us when that happened was the pellet business of course, because that’s, most of the driver for that business right now is the UK, talking with our customers, that are doing business there, they do not think that will affect what they are doing.

Morris Ajzenman

Analyst · Griffin Securities. Please proceed with your question

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from William Bremer with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question.

William Bremer

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

Good morning, Ben, David and Stephen. Just want to get a sense on overall pricing, I'm not sure if you gave a little commentary on that as of yet now, and couple that with your capacity utilization of your brands, is it necessary, given what we’re seeing in steel to start adding up the price or is it based upon capacity utilization that you are able to possibly increase prices here?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

Bill, I'm sorry, this is Ben. We mentioned just a bit ago that we’re watching steel for sure, and we may need to think about pricing in August or early September, but sure we’ll be watching that hard. All of our purchasing managers are red alert watching that because that's a big thing for us. Utilization is good. Overall, it's up a little, we were seeing, 70, 75. I have to kind of say, we’re probably in the 75 range now as a company overall with infrastructure running 80 plus, aggregate and mining running in the 70, 75 range, depending on the group and energy at around 65. It's interesting. We’ve been very fortunate, but you can feel as good as you can feel in Chattanooga, Tennessee with our infrastructure group companies here, Astec, Heatec and Roadtec, you can feel maybe not as good, if you go to GEFCO, [indiscernible] which is flat to down a little. So, but we’ve been able to backfill some of the man-hours through the shop and the quality of work that they’re doing is very good. So that's encouraging, but we're definitely watching steel prices and I would say, we’ve had, we talked about last call, having just a little bit of pricing power, I think I’ve talked about putting your thumb and index finger almost touching and that was it. I think you can probably still have them together, but you could probably take them out about a millimeter. So we see a very competitive market, we faced international competition with where the euro is from Germany, they are pretty aggressive.

William Bremer

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

My next question is based upon just demands. Are there certain regions or states that you’re surprised of in terms of their underlying demand for your products?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

Without giving too much away competitively, I would say we have activity coast to coast and we have pretty strong activity in the Southeast United States. That could partially because our coverage is typically better closer to home, just because we started here, but we have good activity coast to coast.

William Bremer

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

And northern, so upfront in Canada, what are you seeing there at this time?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

We have pretty good activity up there for quoting and I don't know if they are getting comfortable with the currency where it is, that’s more east and west, quiet in Alberta, that clearly depends on oil sands, but we do have generally pretty good activity right now in Canada. Hopefully, the sales will follow, but the activity is good.

William Bremer

Analyst · Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question

Okay, thank you, gentlemen.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mike Shlisky with Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Good morning guys. Nice quarter. Ben, your commentary, assuming it was not positive around the oil and gas industry and that segment in general, but could you really tell us if you’re seeing conditions improve or perhaps worsen over the last two months and so last year?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

I think they are about the same. We have quoted some equipment, which is encouraging, because in the first part of the year, I'm not sure we’re, I asked Rick, what’s the comment, he’s closer.

Rick Dorris

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Yeah. The quoting activity has picked up some, but mainly in the Waterville part of their business, that part of their business has ticked up in the last couple of months and there is a little more activity there. Oil was still down, but a little better than it was.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Okay, got it. I also wanted to follow up on the last question earlier about your capacity utilization, so it looks like here, you are running about 80% of your infrastructure, [indiscernible] 100% and whether you had to add on additional capacity at some point, given the pretty strong orders you’re seeing?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Yeah. This is Ben, Mike. I would not anticipate 100%. They’re just always going to be some inefficiencies and when we do for on the shop, 100% is probably, it would be a great goal, but probably unrealistic. I think in our best ever, we’ve probably been 90% and I think depending on the division in the infrastructure group, we might be getting closer to that, we are adding on at Astec, Inc. Now, let's say they’re probably pushing that number. We’re adding on for drums, the drums for the asphalt that do the drawing on the aggregate and the drawing of the wood that they were building will handle the big drums for the drawing of the wood and it's also set up to build drums for asphalt plants and that's our bottleneck and we think between that and a couple of things we've done on our division, we can handle the demand that's coming out at the moment on the asphalt plant.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Okay. And just on the same asphalt plant, a lot of what you have mentioned that your order activity is sort of very nicely post the building pattern that you did in December, they will be kind of followed by some kind of low eventually and I thought I was wondering, I thought it was going to be somewhere around Q2, which is just great, but did what happened in Q2 which was actually very, very low or is that still yet to come or is it just not going to happen based on what's been going on recently in the asphalt market.

Ben Brock

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Well, I think the quoting activity rolled a little bit that quote, the order kind of stayed fairly consistent on the point, which was obviously a nice surprise. If you’re going to be wrong after, would it be wrong, yes. But the quoting activity slowed as the summer came, but we’ve just been unfortunate [indiscernible] ready to do something. And that's been great. Now, the challenge of that is to the point earlier is, we’ve had some people take on lighter to stay with this, which has been -- which is doing great, but at some point, so far, I think there has been one deal that I’m aware of that we last see the delivery since December that they had to get in on, they had to start.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Yes. I think that was the other question I had for this particular segment was, is there the opportunity, is there a chance that some of your customers just will be able to wait as long as you’ve got, of course, you are one of the market leaders of course, but is there a chance that you might have some backlog at some point if you are keeping on coming in and the demand is actually stronger than you initially thought?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

I don't think anybody of you can’t find out our backlog that’s on hand, but we might not get orders or in order to, because they’ve got a project that they didn't anticipate getting that they need to point out for really quick, like a 8 to 10-week delivery and we are getting a lot of it here. That potentially can happen if DOTs come out with quick and make light work for the end of the year, that could happen. That being said, we’ll do all we can to see if we can get there, we’ll call everybody to see if we get there, we wouldn't just lay down, but that’s possible, because we are also not -- a lot of customer on delivery, we just can't do that.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Of course, sure. Got it. Maybe if I can squeeze in one last one here on the pellet front, you’ve got some new ones you mentioned, one was in the $80 million range, that’s -- I assume that that’s a smaller pellet than what you’ve currently got in the backlog. I guess maybe you can update us on the pricing and margin outlooks on what you’re quoting, is it similar to the $120 million now or is it better or worse?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

That's a smaller plant. That is the plant that’s going to, I keep going between my head [indiscernible] and we have all the install, so that's a big difference in the number between Hazlehurst [indiscernible] that big spread is installation freight, all the electrical that a lot of stuff that Hazlehurst would put forth, but we, this one is a two line plant where we have all in, everything, side work and everything if I remember what -- I think I’m remembering it right. So that’s more than just the arm. In fact, it also has wood yard in it, which is more equivalent to [indiscernible].

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question

Okay, sure. Got it. I will leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Nick Coppola with Thompson Research Group. Please proceed with your question.

Nick Coppola

Analyst · Thompson Research Group. Please proceed with your question

Hi, good morning. For wood pellets, can you just talk more about kind of at a high-level, your expectations for demand there, so beyond that next order that you just -- order you’re looking at, maybe in to 2017, what are your thoughts around demand?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Thompson Research Group. Please proceed with your question

This is Ben, with whom we are talking with, 1 to 1.5 of these plants in ’17 is our goal and what we’re working for and we would love to have it sooner than later. So it can balance demand and keep openings for asphalt plants. Our goal would be in the $100 million to $125 million range of revenue in ‘17 with pellet plants.

Nick Coppola

Analyst · Thompson Research Group. Please proceed with your question

Okay, that's helpful. And then can you just talk more about Power Flame and how that fits into your portfolio of businesses from a strategic perspective?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Thompson Research Group. Please proceed with your question

This is Ben and they are a company that we’ve known for a long time, I've known them, we purchased from them when I was a CEO, when I was 26 and I’m 45 now. So I've known them a long time, known their culture and then when you look at strategically what they bring, being in burners for that long and rebuild burners, we can trade ideas on the burners, we can get more familiar with the industries they serve and there are places where their burners go on and things that we potentially could see for other industrial applications for our growth. Some of the industries they go into that might tie in to some of the energy group companies or into the bio industries, they give us visibility into those industries that we don't have, being in all the things that they are in. We can help them we think with purchasing and benchmarking because they have a broader view of other companies that are doing similar things and I think between the two companies on the burners, so as mentioned earlier in my comments, our mission to being able to collaborate on that and some of the industries that they are in internationally, they do quite a bit of business in China and Russia and some of those industries, we can get a look into for some of our industrial equipment as well. We’re not necessarily, wouldn’t get too excited about the competitors to our customers and the burner business and that type of thing, but around what does go into might have some interest to us from the industrial side for growth in the energy group.

Nick Coppola

Analyst · Thompson Research Group. Please proceed with your question

Okay, that's very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Sponheimer with Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Brian Sponheimer

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Hi, good morning guys. Thanks for fitting me in after 11 o clock here. Just on the original plant that you financed, what remains for you to get paid on the 60 million?

David Silvious

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Quite a bit.

Ben Brock

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Well, so they are working out their banking relationship -- their banking plan, ideas, because just getting the financing. So what we got to do is we've got to complete the retrofit and inflation of one particular line, all three lines up and running, which two of them are at their current design, which is the final design so that first line needs to be retrofitted and once that occurs, all three up and running according to spec and then the banks are all in. So it's a matter of timing more than anything.

Brian Sponheimer

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Okay. So of the original 60, you mentioned 20 million in the quarter, so 40 million remains, is that still?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Totally different project.

David Silvious

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Yeah. The 18 that we recognize in the quarter was on the Highland Pellets project and so there is almost all the 60 that do, I mean, we still have financed with Hazlehurst and more color on that, all three lines have run pellets at deduction, what we needed to do is be able to burn wood exclusively on each line and we would get a roll on that on our burners. So we’re replacing the burners and so the testing, proving that the lines will do, we said on times per hour is fine. The other two has the new burners on it and they are running. You got to get the third burner. I think you get financing on that plant without it and that's the rest of the story and I want to make sure everybody understands, we’re not examining, because there is no risk, we have met that and we are in good shape, but as far as how much money do we still have to collect, we have collected a little interest, we were just thinking about internally, it is about 60 million plus the interest.

Brian Sponheimer

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

And just on the Highland plant, that's just the times of the construction there?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

That's right. Yes.

Rick Dorris

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

And that's financing to employees and it’s just a matter of completing the various terms of the contract.

Brian Sponheimer

Analyst · Gabelli & Company. Please proceed with your question

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ryan Hamilton with Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Please proceed with your question.

Ryan Hamilton

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Please proceed with your question

Good morning, guys. Most of my questions have already been answered. I just like to touch real quick on the infrastructure group, could you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing as far as your customers adding capacity or are they just filling orders as needed?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Please proceed with your question

It is a mixture, Ryan. This is Ben. We’ve had some customers adding plants to their fleet, and -- but we also had consolidation of plants for bigger plants. So we sold some mega plants, what I call mega plants that would do 500 tons an hour plus and have 6 to 9 storage pellets on them. There has been quite a few mega plants sold this year, but the used market is strong and so we've seen as we’ve traded and sold and helped brokers and plants, they are not staying on the market very long either. And then we’ve had some people that were not in the business get in the business and so we’ve seen a couple of plant orders that have shifted this year and have gone to customers that were not in the plant business, but they were in the laydown business, they already, they had papers to pay that fall. So it's a fairly active market for three of those reasons.

Ryan Hamilton

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Please proceed with your question

Sure. Thanks for the color. And then I was kind of wondering if you could talk about, it's been so long since we've had such a straightforward highway bill and for how many extensions over the last eight or so years, is this happening as you would expect it to happen or are there things that are coming up that you say, well, this is different or unique?

Ben Brock

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Please proceed with your question

No, I think it's been about what we expected with the exception of being fairly consistent on the buying side, even though the quoting was down. It may be that we’re still down on the orders side, it just seems like it's more consistent through the summer and around mid-year, there was a mid-year asphalt association meeting a few weeks ago that we were able to spend a day and a half down and generally had the future very, very good.

Ryan Hamilton

Analyst · Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Please proceed with your question

Okay, great. Well, thanks again and great quarter.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve reached the end of our question-and-answer session. And I’d like to turn the call back to Mr. Steve Anderson for closing comments.

Steve Anderson

Analyst

All right. Thank you, Rob and everyone. We appreciate your participation in the second quarter conference call. Thank you for your interest in Astec. As our news release indicates, today's conference call has been recorded. A replay of the conference call will be available through August 9 and an archived webcast will be available for 90 days. A transcript will be available under the Investor Relations section of the Astec Industry’s website within the next seven days. All of that information is contained in the news release that we sent out earlier today. As Rob said, this concludes our call. So thank you and have a good week.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.