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CECO Environmental Corp. (CECO)

Q3 2019 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 6, 2019

$75.07

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the CECO Environmental Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.I would now like to turn the conference over to Matt Eckl, Chief Financial Officer of CECO Environmental. Please go ahead.

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Thank you for joining us on the CECO Environmental third quarter 2019 conference call. On the call today is Dennis Sadlowski, Chief Executive Officer; and myself, Matt Eckl, Chief Financial Officer.Before we begin, I'd like to note that we've provided a presentation to help guide our discussion. The call will be webcast along with our earnings presentation on our website at cecoenviro.com. The presentation materials can be accessed through the Investor Relations section of the website.I'd also like to caution investors regarding forward-looking statements. Any statements made in today's presentation that are not based on historical facts are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on certain estimates and expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.Actual future results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. We encourage you to read the risks described in our SEC filings on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018.Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to update or publicly revise any of the forward-looking statements that we make here today, whether as the result of new information, future events, or otherwise.Today's presentation will also include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures. We've reconciled the comparable GAAP and non-GAAP numbers in today's press release, as well as the supplemental tables in the back of the slide deck.And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dennis.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Good morning and thank you for joining us on this fall day for our third quarter call.Off the top, I'm excited to say that our market leading execution drove impressive bookings and strong profitability in the third quarter. Our investments are paying off, our management team continues to lead with vision, discipline and focus and we anticipate a continued trajectory towards our aggressive 2021 financial targets that will likely produce significant upside for our shareholders.This morning, Matt and I will be emphasizing our disciplined execution because it's the cornerstone of implementing our 4-3-3 operating strategy, and responding to a low carbon economy with sustainable and clean solutions for our customers. In other words, this is one of the reasons that CECO's team is able to go head-to-head and beat the competition and win high quality work in our end markets.You'll also be sensing my confidence and enthusiasm about what lies ahead for CECO, because the shape of our future can be seen in the record backlog we achieved during this past quarter. It is our bookings and backlog that are the greatest predictor of the future and our results in these two areas have been strong.Continued opportunities in our large and diverse end markets provide potential for our team. And our healthy balance sheet offers us the flexibility to seize investment targets that can improve our future. As you know, our backlog is based on customer wins and I'll highlight a couple of these this morning to illustrate CECO's value proposition and market differentiators.I’ll now begin the CECO's performance customer wins for the third quarter as well as our near term market outlook, and then I'll toss the ball to Matt for the financial details. Following Matt’'s full report out or recap our path toward generating top tier returns for…

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Thanks Dennis.Let's jump into the details. Starting with Slide 10 which breaks down orders and revenue. Looking at orders we exceeded triple digits by hitting an exceptional 115.7 million as was the case last quarter our orders are fueled by the strength of our Energy Solutions segment. Energy orders were up 20% sequentially and 38% year-over-year, as a team is winning sharing and recovering Power Gen segment, and vigorous midstream oil and gas segment.Industrial orders came in at 19 million, which was up 5% sequentially, and down 18% year-over-year. Industrial’s was principally muted by delays in customer CapEx decisions have returned us back to our typical quarterly range of 18 million to 22 million. The good news is that the pipeline remains healthy. I also add that our industrial segment contributed nicely in Q3 with 27 million in revenue and increase of 23% year-over-year and 34% sequentially driven by strong backlog execution.The Fluid Handling segment orders declined for the second straight quarter at 7% sequentially and 12% year-over-year. Dennis already touched on the continued market softness in the oil and gas and auto segment and a brighter outlook in 2020 aquaculture markets. Our third quarter revenue increased to 85.3 million and uptick of 5% albeit down 2% year-over-year.Three months in 2019, our mix of incoming orders is tending to be longer cycle, especially in refinery, which tempered our sequential revenue growth. I remain confident that our revenue trajectory will be positive for several reasons.First, our bookings have been strong. Second, our backlog is at a new all time high, and actively converting as we progress on customer milestones, and our internal operating metrics are meeting or exceeding our expectations. And finally, with our asset-light business model, we have substantial capacity to execute projects.And with that perfect segue I'll turn to…

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Thanks Matt. Nice job, telling a good story.Before opening up the call to your questions, I want to turn to Slide 17 and offer some thoughts on the drivers for delivering top gear shareholder returns. We now have two full years under our belt implementing and executing our 4-3-3 operating strategy proven to be a well-designed blueprint for transforming how CECO does business and focusing the organization on winning share and creating value.In assessing our successful third quarter, it's easy to see a direct link between the 4-3-3 operating strategy and the results of our key performance metrics. Quite simply, the operating strategy has made us more agile and efficient in winning share against our competitors and resilient in dealing with everyday market forces.As I said before, it's positioned as well in the marketplace. The 4-3-3 operating strategy remains our blueprint and will adapt our plans as needed to address and respond to changes in the scope and scale of the opportunities ahead of us. Our end markets remain strong and healthy with two growth engines. The first is the classic one of industrial expansion, which is subject to the influences of economic cycles.The second is the developing low carbon economy, which is driven by the constantly increasing social and regulatory imperative for industrial and commercial customers to seek sustainable, clean, safe and efficient solutions.Product innovation has strengthened our organic capabilities and sharpened our competitive edge, as evidenced by the two customer wins I discussed earlier. We know that constant innovation is important. And that's why we reinvigorated our innovation effort with new leadership and reinforced our China, Dubai and India design engineering hubs.And we recommitted a new product development but we now have more than a dozen product concepts with allocated R&D dollars to explore and develop. Going forward,…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today will come from Chris Van Horn of B. Riley FBR. Please go ahead.

Chris Van Horn

Analyst

So I just want to jump into the backlog if we can and get a sense of the timing of some of the new awards and where the backlog stands today. And maybe if you don't mind, do you see the margin profile shifting dramatically on some of these new awards and what's in the backlog right now?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Chris, thanks for asking great question. When we look at the mix of orders, they have shifted to be more long cycle in nature. If you look at the market outlook page or pie chart that Dennis mentioned its specifically in refinery and midstream oil and gas in the last two quarters, we've seen a lot of growth.And so they often have a little bit longer revenue recognition cycle than we would typically have. As a project driven business growth and backlog dictate future revenue. And with the sequential improvement in bookings that you saw on last two quarters, one should expect that revenue growth in Q4 will be on par with Q3 sequential growth. And we should see that to continue to grow in 2020.You know, as a side note, that customer project delays that we noted in Q2 that you probably hinted on are progressing on time and on budget, we feel really good about execution. But still I pay slower than we would prefer. In general, I'll tell you the pipeline is really strong. The backlog is healthy and the margins are in line with our historical averages.

Chris Van Horn

Analyst

And then you're obviously seeing really good award wins here. Maybe could you comment on the competitive landscape? Are you seeing your smaller competitors exit? Is it your differentiated product? Is there a price component? Is it all of the above and any detail you could provide there?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, so yes we have competition in nearly every part of our field. And it's a mix of small agile competitors with a localized approach, along with a few larger players who have similar reach to what we have, we don't think there's anybody who really pulls together the full package. And so when I think about our competitive landscape, I mentioned in my remark, refinery - we are clear number one, we get recognized for that, we get called in early, we work closely with all the refiners all over the globe, it's a great position to be in around.Power Gen is our largest and market segment. I think I mentioned in the last few calls, that the fact that we were seeing the green shoots that bring back new gigawatts into the market, signs from GE and Siemens and the big players that there are beginning to see some incremental unit demand and those things started to materialize in the quarter for our competitive positioning has been exceptionally strong. And we have seen at least one competitor fall by the wayside in North America.So, our strength, our longevity, our technical capabilities is still shining through in that market. Even with it down, overall segment and competitive nature. I think about industrials. It's really about pulling together the value proposition of being a solution provider with a number of different types of air quality improvement, air pollution remediation opportunities and being able to put those together in a way in front of a customer that demonstrates value, the deficient that is executed on time and on budget. So we like where we're at, teams executing well and my optimistic they'll continue to do so.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today will come from Jim Ricchiuti of Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Why don't I just pursue this longer-term cycle in ordering and backlog that you're talking about. Can you define that a little more in terms of what how you would define this longer cycle order that you're seeing?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, Jim, thanks for the question and I'll - let me acknowledge, first off that historically we would expect to see a faster conversion of orders and backlog to revenue if you take somewhat of a historical mix. However, as we mentioned in '19 here, we've seen much stronger orders in the last few quarters that have a longer cycle nature.Now I think we've communicated with fairly transparently that when you think about our three reporting segments, fluid handling and filtration, it's a shorter cycle, kind of a 30-day order to full revenue type cycle, 30 to 45 the industrial segment and more mid-cycle, so six to nine months from order to full revenue. And those are averages. Things can go up or down from there. And our energy segment has always been the longest cycle, usually 12 to 15 months from an order date to full revenue. And when I say full revenue, at times we can begin to see revenue the month after order receipt.So as you look at the mix of more energy orders this year, that's one of the larger contributors to just the shifting out in terms of conversion of orders and backlog into revenue. And that's the most natural part of what we're seeing.A little bit of what I would call maybe unnatural was in the refinery segment we mentioned last quarter as well. We have a couple of projects, larger projects that combined would have had a $5 million to $7 million of revenue at the time we anticipated additional revenue through the end of September that had been pushed out into the fourth quarter and towards the middle of next year based on the customer being late with design changes, we thinking a few things on their process, and those then adding back to us to make changes before we could get everything released to fabrics.So again, we're executing all of our projects on time, on budget, and at the same time you're seeing a slower conversion of orders to revenue.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful, Dennis. And actually you answered the next question I had about these project delays. So these delays you see part of that being - beginning to be resolved in Q4 and then the balance in the early part of 2020.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes. And the one I mentioned had two large milestones. One milestone originally was for October of this year and the other milestone was September of next year. And they've decided to take both shipments in the latter part of next year as a result of those needs. And they rebalance their site schedule for that. So in that case, you see a sizable shift towards spread out through the latter part of next year on several million of backlog and future revenue.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. The final question for me is just in light of some of the concerns folks have had about slowing macro, particularly as it relates to the industrial markets. I'm wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about that. You alluded to some of that in the fluid handling portion of the business, but just looking at the industrial markets, where are you seeing some signs of possible softness?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, in the third quarter - beginning of the third quarter, you see a mixed messaging coming from a lot of the industrial customers including those who have been reporting, this last quarter earnings as well. With signs that, you know makes them a little bit uneasy about do we plough ahead with all of our growth investments, our growth capital and a lot of times we're tied to investments and expansion and growth, capital et cetera.And so it's in that area where we've seen continued visibility on projects. Our sales pipeline actually continues to go up which is a positive side. But we've seen delays and people pulling the trigger and making those decisions a bit based on their own our customers view of you know, certain uncertainties out in front of them.At the same time, you look at ISM with the manufacturing PMI indicator, which dipped below 50 a month ago and then again below 50 is a sign of a little bit rougher period, in industrial manufacturing in the US, and that broadly stated, is our target customer zone. And so while we are getting visibility while we are seeing opportunities while our sales pipeline is actually growing, we have seen those things mute a little bit of the decision making on projects in the last 45 days or so.And think that environment will continue to be challenging, which is why we're stepping up our efforts to make sure that we win here even in a bit of a slowing market. Food handling, we have three very focused niche target segments, and one is beginning to show good signs again with some larger project activity and aquaculture. One - has a lot of end market tie to automotive which is - past the peak of the investment cycle, and the other it says around oil and gas and it's been somewhat muted. You see that from other people in the space as well with pumps.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today will come from Amit Dayal of H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Just going back to maybe you know Matt's comments earlier did you indicate Q4 would be relatively flat to Q3?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

No, we were - I communicated Chris' question earlier that I think that you should look at what the Q3 to Q2 sequential growth was and it probably on par for Q4.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Okay understood, thank you for that. This backlog build that you're seeing is it mostly domestic or international?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

It's pretty global, what we're seeing lots of activity all over the globe, especially if you notice the up ramp in last two orders in backlog, mostly been in a newer global business. We have operations in Dubai, India, Singapore. And we see pretty much all refinery and power-gen work all over the globe. So a very good mix as of late

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Understood and do you foresee sort of this trend in sort of O&G and midstream remaining stronger relative to, your backlog mix going forward in the next few quarters?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, it would appear to continue to be active our pipeline of activity so - which we can really cut off and measure over the rolling 12 months outlook has continued to be healthy. At the same time, it's not evident that the projects that we want to close in the fourth quarter will generate sequential bookings growth on what we just reported, but I do see a pretty accurate and healthy market out there.Our team has continued to gain share, we're getting good traction in the process water arena of the end market as well which is something that - we dusted off our technology and have begun to demonstrate some good wins there as well. So optimism, little lumpy fourth quarter, will be difficult. I'd love the team to better what we just reported on orders. I'm not sure that the number of closings will support that.

Amit Dayal

Analyst

Understood, just maybe one last one from me, M&A related discussions, weren't really a big part of these calls, at least for the last few quarters. You've highlighted this again, this time, is there something in there and you know in terms of where you may look for M&A is it more services oriented with recurring revenue types of solutions or is it more product type of opportunities you're looking at?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

So I would say that, as we've improved the operating metrics as we've been getting traction and growth as we're getting comfortable with the execution and the consistency. And as we generate free cash flow. We've been very active in assessing what's out there and timing and kind of action, key target. Those key targets would likely, improve our environmental mission. So clean, safe industrial production, more efficient solutions and there's a host of things that go with that from more technology oriented to services and products.And so, we've been active in assessing what's out there, and I think we'll continue to be looking at enhancing the company's position, through targeted investments. Having said that, we've communicated our 2021 financial targets and those metrics growth, EBITDA margin return on tangible capital, free cash flows will also be important elements of any screen when we look at our targeted future investment.

Operator

Operator

And our next question today will come from Gerry Sweeney of Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Gerry Sweeney

Analyst

I wanted to focus a little bit more on natural gas, obviously very good orders, but I was just curious as to maybe how the sales pipeline looks, obviously I think GE, Mitsubishi, I think Siemens are applying and improving market. Are we going from green-shoots to maybe more sustained growth?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes well, I think what we see and have seen, throughout the year was more of those green shoots, and saw the activity coming and developing. And then a lot of things popped in the third quarter. And so you know, we had a nice bookings quarter, and we just finished. It does tend to be a little lumpy in the context of especially new gigawatts. And so, there is an outlook that that continues to look as if it's modestly growing over the midterm horizon.And that's what I think we are trying to represent within our slides here on market outlook that's what our pipeline shows. It's always a little lumpy in terms of exact execution. What will we see in any one specific quarter, but overall we see some demand improving. Matt, did you have anything to add there?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Yes, just take a look GE just announced recently. We track down Siemens will report here in the next few days. Mitsubishi is not fully out just yet with keeping results. You saw the big jump in Q2 on number of large gas turbines that went into the market. And I think we want some of those jobs. When you look at Q3, they claim that their orders were down 30% year-over-year and they said that you know, its timing on a lot of orders coming through.They are modeling for 25 to 30 gigawatts per year, which is at a four year trough and flat year-over-year that's why capacity of new gigawatts added. So nobody's giving a sign that the market is taking off. But I think green shoots have been seen. And we're hopeful that that starts to sprout even further. But nobody in the big players OEM bucket has come out and said, things are going to be rosy from here on now. So we're cautiously optimistic.

Gerry Sweeney

Analyst

And then taken a little bit of a step back when I look at the power segment sort of margins are better than they have been. I mean, especially from a couple years ago. Is this pricing, maybe some competition leaving or just more bundled services or maybe even I know some businesses have shifted some to industrial side as well. But just curious as to what we're seeing on the margin front?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Was your question - you said the power segment, did you mean our energy segment or you’re talking…

Gerry Sweeney

Analyst

I meant energy in whole, I just - in monocle power, so I apologize.

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Yes well, on any given period, the margin are reflective of largely two or three key drivers number one, our ability to be in front of a customer and demonstrate value. It is an intensely competitive marketplace. And in spite of that, our team has done a very good job of demonstrating the capabilities of value, staying with some of the longer cycle projects in order and being able to execute those.Number two is in project execution. As some of these are longer cycle projects, executing them well, getting the vendor base aligned, getting support from our vendor base is also been key. And then its mix across the board on any given period, we have a good mix of aftermarket Brownfield new projects that come from EPCs or OEMs that contend to be a little more competitive. And as well order from end users, where they really understand the value that we can bring and have preference.And so it's really a mix of executing well in the market that is helping us generate the overall margin mix that we've seen in the last several quarters.

Gerry Sweeney

Analyst

Then just finally on that front, if you do see me I mean to some additional growth, maybe - specifically maybe in the power side. Is there an opportunity just for better leverage or margin just to be leverage may be unabsorbed overhead et cetera. And I'm actually not sure if that's including the gross margin side or more just on the OpEx, but just curious on that front?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Yes, I think that what you've seen before and what we would expect is that we do get operating leverage on our SG&A. And while we've used out some G&A, we have reinvested quite a bit in sales and marketing and as well - more recently in innovation and product development related spend, that we think will also will be good for the long-term health of the company. And so that is where we get and how we get into the targeted margin range of EBITDA that we've communicated for 2021.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, because we don't have plants Gerry in that market, your gross margins are - a good reflection of our pricing and value proposition to the customer and in our ability to execute those through our third-party suppliers. So when you mentioned absorption, we don't have a plan to manage absorption. Instead, what we're doing is trying to get leverage on our SG&A which is where engineers and our project managers assessed.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today will come from Tate Sullivan of Maxim Group. Please go ahead.

Tate Sullivan

Analyst

Just a couple quick follow ups for me - I mean the $40 million nat gas order and you gave great context on that. And I think that's the highest quarterly number in at least the last two years. Can you comment on the domestic versus international mix in that number?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Let me give that some thought here for a minute Tate, but thanks for calling that out. Last year, it was an interesting year in that the market was particularly muted. And there were really were very few new call them gigawatts being added to the market. And so the wins that we got were largely Brownfield upgrades, efficiency upgrades, mission standards upgrades and the like, and the team really killed it last year on a very soft market.And so this year, I've been signaling and we teamed and got quite a few closings in the more than new gigawatts market. The things that we mentioned that come through with the likes of the GE, Mitsubishi, Siemens, wins that they previously announced. As far as domestic to international it really moves widely from period-to-period I am trying to work through my brain, you know maybe 50-50 in North America.I'm not positive if that's the number or not because of the - just the nature of the movement. We don't pay as close attention to that because most of our energy market is very global, in its representation, and its product is similar throughout the world.

Matt Eckl

Analyst

You're right 50-50 is probably a good representation Europe and America is being where they ended up being commissioned and installed. Asia had yet, because they don't have non-attainment zones, as much regulation on De-NOx and gas turbine aren't effectively used as much. They're more powered by coal, therefore steam turbines are being used and while we do serve those not as frequently as much. So it's been more 50-50 EU/U.S. as a white tape.

Tate Sullivan

Analyst

Okay, thank you for that. And then last from me, just on CapEx 2.5 million in the quarter. And Matt, I think you've mentioned a three year CapEx expectation before or can you, is that still in place or can you comment on that plan?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Absolutely yes so we've spent a $3.7 million year-to-date and you noted $2.5 million in Q3. And then we spent about $3 million in 2018. So we're well down the path of our three year strategies that caused seven of the $10 million over the three years that we've mentioned the majority of that being in our fluid handling segment. I mentioned this in the prepared remarks that you heard earlier. We are revitalizing our Indianapolis and Telford plants as we make a major investment in our pumps business.We think we have a great product. We just need to serve our customers faster, reduce our lead times and improve our quality. And we are right in the heart of that right now. But that would tell you that of that $7 million that we've spent so far well, over $4 million of that is tied specifically to the fluid handling and laying the pumps business.

Operator

Operator

Our next question today will come from Bill Baldwin of Baldwin Anthony Securities. Please go ahead.

Bill Baldwin

Analyst

Congratulate to you and your team for the fine job you've done and the progress you've made over the last couple of years since you implemented your new strategies and programs, very noticeable?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

Thank you.

Bill Baldwin

Analyst

Dennis you mentioned couple a minute ago, and I didn't liked it - if you can offer more color, you mentioned you're seeing more activity and I believe you said process water market. I'm not sure I got that first word exactly right. But in the water markets and you're gaining some traction, I think you indicated with some new products. I just was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the potential of that market - is it a meaningful market and exactly what you're doing there to gain traction that you're talking about?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, sure. Bill and I'll characterize this with a little bit of history here. We have some key products including an offering that sold under the [indiscernible] a market brand that does, oil and water separation. And we've also got the expertise to handle different types of process, water seepage, water separation in around the oil and gas markets.Last quarter, we included in our call and had a specific announcement on a large seepage water treatment facility order that we received in the Middle East. It was called out because, A) it was a very sizable win and so a nice reference for the company to be back in the water market. It was also called out specifically because it was one of those that has a long cycle nature and won't have much revenue until 2020.Having said that, we've leaned into those wins adding some people in a few key markets in China and in Dubai to make sure that we lean into the wins that we've gotten to continue to develop and dust off the technology that we have managed a few partnerships along the way this year as well. So yeah, it's a sizable market. We're slowly rebuilding our positioning in there through historical peerless technology and as far as the teams executed fairly well, and it's a part of why we are still optimistic and seeing a growing pipeline in our sales pipeline.

Bill Baldwin

Analyst

Thank you very much. Good luck.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Interestingly enough, some of that also like the rest of our business can generate a pretty good aftermarket, aftermarkets in area that we continue to have in focus, we spend time on, we have dedicated people. I think the mix of aftermarket this year is a little lower than what we had seen. That's based on some of the sizable project wins, but we are seeing follow on that come about as a result of the larger project wins as well that are add-ons to some of the existing wins that we've gotten in the last year and a half.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Tom Radionov of Corre Partners. Please go ahead.

Tom Radionov

Analyst

I just had a few follow-ups. One specifically on the guidance for the fourth quarter. Just wanted to make sure I understand, when you said sequentially, sort of the same trends as we saw in the third quarter, did you mean in terms of absolute dollars or in terms of quarter-over-quarter growth rates?

Matt Eckl

Analyst

So I'll start by saying we don't provide guidance. But I will go back to tell you what we - I did quote earlier and we did state that on a percentage basis you should expect that, you know, Q4 revenue should increase in line ideally with what you saw Q2 to Q3.

Tom Radionov

Analyst

And then just remind us in the fourth quarter, is there any seasonality that would impact your gross margins or EBITDA margins either positively or negatively versus prior quarters typically?

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes, Tom there's no real seasonality that I would describe that affects quite frankly orders directly or margins but with the project nature of the business, there is a mix effect on any given period of which jobs are moving faster, which product lines are moving better, how much aftermarket is coming through the system. And that's why we've had a range of gross margin, I think 32 to 34 that we think is a reasonable target for our team. And one that, we see as the range of expectation when we think about our planning.

Tom Radionov

Analyst

And just to make sure I understand on Page 7 of the presentation, the second large win, I sort of missed that, I apologize if you already mentioned, but did that impact from an order perspective, did that impact your Power Gen natural gas business or was it reflected somewhere else

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

That's a - what we referred to as a thermal oxidizer as well as some custom ducting and those product lines are within our industrial segment reporting. And based on the gas turbine exhaust system on Page 6 that was, it's been going to be installed on an LNG facility. That's a part of our energy segment.

Tom Radionov

Analyst

And so when I look at the down 18 order number in the quarter under industrial solutions, that's net of that new one.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Yes that win is included. And again what you see is a lumpish market. We've operated in a range of kind of $18 million to $22 million had a breakout first quarter, continued to kind of fell back into this 18 to 22 range of bookings, some of that again even while the pipeline building. I mentioned some of the market decision making, slowing down.

Tom Radionov

Analyst

And then last question, I'm just curious if you can compare and contrast for us, and I think you already gave some color, but incremental color would be helpful. Compare and contrast the competitive dynamics within the refinery business versus midstream oil and gas versus the Power Gen natural gas business. Just curious, obviously specifically within the natural gas business, there has been some pressure, curious if most of your competitors are still around and if they're being irrational or rational and how that compares to some of these other segments that that seemed to be doing better.And sort of a related question as well I'm going to throw it in, it's very nice to see some of these very large wins. When you look at your pipeline of potentially future work, like, are you seeing anything that's sort of a similar size or should we sort of think of this is more of one time in nature type of order book. Thank you again.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

So as a few questions in there, and I'll try and start by characterizing, again the competitive arena that we work in, and maybe focus it on energy, which is I think, where your question was. You know, in the refinery market, we are very strong number one player in cyclones and the fluidic catalytic cracking process, quite frankly, where the guy people come to us, we do have a few other competitors. They are good competitors. They are tough competitors, but we are very strong. We see most of the projects. We have good technical people brand support.If you are out on a refinery, people tend to refer to us by name [indiscernible] and so it's a narrowish segment and we are very strong within that narrowish part of the market that we're performing.The rest of the market that we refer to is very large and there are pockets where we have great strength and then pockets where we have great opportunity in terms of share and command for the market. Oil and Gas midstream has a variety of applications and there's a large untapped opportunity even where we are very strong have good recognition are on the approved vendor list or most of the major producers, most of the major pipeline players all around the world.And in Power Gen again, competitive arena market has come down a lot since the highs in late '16 and in the early '17 before the market dropped precipitously. And so the competitive landscape is tough. You know, the customers are tough. And at the same time, we really are the ones that stand tall in that market in the context of technology, in the context of execution.And we have seen as I believe I mentioned earlier, one player in North America fall to the wayside in serving that market. So, still tough market, we still have competitors, but our positioning continues to be stronger over time to longevity and the technical capability of our team.I think that was your question. You asked a little bit about, you know, does the $116 million, where does that fit in the world and I also believe that what I communicated earlier and what we're seeing, our overall sales pipeline, which is an outlook for 12-month closing, so anything that our sales team anticipates closing over the next 12 months has continued to grow at the positive signal, it's not so evident that the timing of where those things land will have growth on the exceptional orders value that we had in Q3. I'm not sure we'll see growth on that in the fourth quarter.

Operator

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time I'd like to turn the conference back over to Dennis Sadlowski, Chief Executive Officer for any closing remarks.

Dennis Sadlowski

Analyst

Okay, I want to thank you all for joining us on the call here, our CECO Environmental third quarter call. As we talked about, we continue to execute on our 4-3-3 operating strategy and delivered another clean quarter with sequential improvement on all of our key performance metrics. Thanks again and have a great day. Bye, bye.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. We thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect your lines.