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Minerals Technologies Inc. (MTX)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 24, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Minerals Technologies First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator instructions] As a reminder this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Rick Honey, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Rick Honey

Analyst

Good morning. Welcome to our first quarter 2015 earnings conference call. Today, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Joe Muscari will provide some insights into our first quarter performance, as well as an update on the integration of the three businesses acquired last May. He will then turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Doug Dietrich, who will give you a detailed report of our financial results for the quarter. Before we begin, I need to remind you that on Page 8 of our 2014 10-K we list the various factors and conditions that may affect future results. Statements related to future performance by members of our management are subject to these cautionary remarks and conditions. Now I’ll turn the call over to Joe Muscari. Joe?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Thanks Rick, good morning everyone. Today I’ll be providing a general overview of our financial performance and recent accomplishments, the inroads we’re making in integrating the new businesses acquired from AMCOL and then give you a closer look at our direction and progress to grow through new product development and innovations. Despite the challenges we faced with the Energy Services business related to low oil prices and the client utilization in the steel industry, we achieved earnings per share for the quarter of $1.07, which is 84% higher than the first quarter of 2014. This jump in earnings punctuates just how accretive the AMCOL acquisition is to us. We saw strong contributions from all three acquired businesses, and this growth was also aided by the synergies we've achieved – expect to continue to achieve. Doug Dietrich will go into more detail on the synergies, but it’s fair to say that we are well ahead of the targets we set and there is more to come. Overall as another testament to the value of the acquisition, our margins have improved by 20% over the prior year, and during the quarter we paid down $40 million of debt, which is a key point of focus for us. As you can see from this slide, the accretive effects of the acquisition are quite pronounced relative to our historical earnings, the acquisition is clearly transformational, not only in terms of the two excise change, but more importantly and as we’ll touch on later, we have a stronger foundation upon which to grow as we, wasn’t our base of both organic growth opportunities, as well as potential acquisition candidates. Let’s review some of the highlights from the first quarter, our Paper PCC business and our focus on growth in Asia especially opportunity laid in China…

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Thanks, Joe. Good morning everyone. Let me take you through our first quarter consolidated and business segment results. This is the third full quarter results post-acquisition for our five reporting segments; Specialty Minerals, Refractories, Performance Materials, Construction Technologies and Energy Services. I’ll highlight for you the key market and operational elements of our results in each of these segments. Our first quarter earnings per share from continuing operations were $1.07, excluding special items, it’s an 84% increase from the $0.58 recorded last year. Our earnings were slightly higher than $1.00, $2.05 range we communicated on the fourth quarter call, due to higher operating income in the Performance Materials segment and foreign exchange gains included in non-operating income. Reported earnings this quarter were $1.01 per share, which included special charges of $0.06 related to acquisition integration costs. Our sales for the quarter were $453 million, which was 85% higher than the first quarter of 2014. Foreign exchange had a negative impact on sales of about 4% or $18 million. We saw year-over-year and sequential sales growth in a number of our minerals-based product lines, which were offset by lower sales in Energy Services and Refractories segments. Operating income excluding special items increased 121% to $63.3 million and represented 14% of sales, which is 20% improvement in operating margin over the 11.7% in the first quarter of last year. EBITDA for the quarter was $90 million excluding special items, which equals 19.9% of sales. Cash flow for the quarter was $20 million. First quarter is typically the lowest cash flow quarter of the year due to a number of annual one-time cash outflows that occur only in this period. Each of our five business segments generated positive operating cash flow for the quarter, however we made over $15 million in incremental tax…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Moore of CJS Securities. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Daniel Moore

Analyst

Good morning.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Hi, Dan.

Daniel Moore

Analyst

Let me just start by saying congratulations on the progress that you’ve made, it’s hard to believe that it’s only been a year or less than that, since you bought AMCOL. Maybe just focusing a little on Energy Services, obviously, I think it’s fair to say that the 10% operating margin given near-term headwinds is more than reasonable. Q2 you talked about it being down, can you give us perhaps a little bit more color you expect to maintain profitability and if they are sort of a near-term target margin in mind, given those headwinds continue?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Dan, we do see a little bit lower coil tubing sales continue to decline from where they were we saw in the first quarter. As Joe mentioned, we’re making – continuing to make adjustments in that business to remove costs, or goal is to sustain that type of margins we saw in the first quarter albeit with the lower sales that could be resulting in lower total operating income.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

I think Dan the challenge we have and others who are in this segment is just visibility. There is different points of view looking out right now that relate both to the price of oil in terms of where it may settle out, what it’s going to do through the quarter and to the third quarter. There is one point of view that suggest that there could be some settling in the second quarter, potentially the bottom is there, but it's really a question of visibility and uncertainty around the market, and I think that's why we’re being a little bit cautious with our outlook for the Energy Services business.

Daniel Moore

Analyst

Fair enough. And in switching gears to Performance Materials, the margins kind of jumped off the page to me, are high teens margins in that business sustainable?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Well let me turn this over to Gary, who is the – Gary Castagna who is the business unit head and he's got the best historical perspective of what the business has been able to do over time, Gary?

Gary Castagna

Analyst

Hi, Dan. In terms of the performance of the quarter it's really been on that trend line as we finished last year in various notes part of course is the cost structure changes commensurate with the acquisition, and as well as really the focus on from the growth areas that we have brought in over the last few years, principally the Asian base metal castings business, the household and personal care are areas that we’ve focused on in the last couple of years, also in Asia. So the combination really of both the cost structure, as well as where the growth in the product lines has come from is added into the improvement in the margins.

Daniel Moore

Analyst

Excellent. And one more I’ll jump back to queue, perhaps for Doug, I think I heard you say $200 million in free cash flow this year, is that right? If so, we’re approaching $6 a share in free cash. How much – does that include all of the remainder of the sort of working capital benefits that you hope to glean from AMCOL or is there still perhaps a little bit less to come?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Yeah, you know, I think there is still some working capital work to be done, I think we still have some benefits to gain, we haven’t been through a full cycle as you know. What I projected was about strong cash flows, $300 million in operating cash flows, we’re seeing CapEx right now at about $80 million to $100 million. I’d give you approximately $200 million depending on what CapEx was.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Zekauskas of JPMorgan. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

Good morning. It’s Silke Kueck for Jeff, how are you?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Hi, Silke.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

I was wondering if you could tell us about your headcount versus the end of the first quarter, and whether all of the identified headcount reduction have been completed or whether they are need to be done and also whether there are remaining cash flows that are still there related to restructuring accrual you’ve taken in 2014?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Headcount at the end of the quarter is approximately 4,500 people, Silke. We still have a restructuring liability on the balance sheet is about $11 million. Those will be funded probably over the next 18 months, some of them are longer-term items associated with the closure of the facilities that will happen throughout the year; 4,200 employees, Silke at the end of the quarter.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

How many more [indiscernible] through the course of the next 18 months?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

It’s probably about 300, about – so about 100 people, Silke, but that number you know as we’ve gone through with coil tubing we’ve made some major adjustments in coil tubing over this quarter. So right now we have about 100 people remaining of the total to come out.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

Do you think with the coil tubing admission, just maybe more to come beyond the 100?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

We’ll see how coil tubing plays, I think there is some other areas that might become affected, but right now that’s what we have line of sight to.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

And I had a question regarding the components of the cash flow statement led to like the negative free cash flow in the quarter, is that something, can you just like identify what the items are, like what working capital was, and what the other outlays were? And that’s look like a seasonal thing that we will see every quarter in the first quarter going forward?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Silke, the first quarter if you look back in our history, MTI history and AMCOL history, the first quarter has always been very low quarter seasonally. AMCOL prior, former AMCOL was even lower than our cash flows, so it’s not a typical to see this low cash flow in the quarter given the changes in income as it goes through the fourth and first quarter. The big issue we have in the first quarter is really the one time payments that go out in the first quarter, which are not typical in other quarter's; compensation payments, we make tax payment, there is a lot of funding of that goes out in terms of matching, there is number of payments that go out in the first quarter that lower operating cash flow. This quarter we actually had an extra interest payment funded due to the timing of debt, which is about $4 million. So the first quarter is typically low, but when you look at those one time payments, it's – we were at a pretty high level of cash flow adjusted we’re up in the $80 million range if you would apply that to a second quarter and that's why we see with the earnings growth and continuing working capital reductions our projected $90 million for the second thing, and we see strong cash flows for the year, $300 million in operating cash flow.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

And if I can last question, so some of the guidance for the second quarter seems conservative because obviously I understand the issues from the Energy business and on the steel side Refractories business, if you look out for the year, which business do you think you have best ability in and which – in terms of improvement going throughout the end of the year?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Look I also mentioned our minerals based businesses, I think some have some strength to them. I think with North America metalcasting, the paper is always subject to European and North America paper declines, but sure that we’re bringing on two satellites in the third quarter in China, plus ramping up the first one in North America, so that should continue strength for us throughout the year. Construction Technologies is moving into their highest seasonal period in the second and third quarter as is our Performance Minerals business. So I think our mineral-based businesses we have a pretty good line of sight to some strength throughout the rest of the year, the uncertainty as Joe mentioned is in Energy Services and the continued where the price of oil is and on and offshore activity and in Refractories. Right now we’ve seen utilization rates continue to decline in April, should that stabilize that may help, but right now we’re not seeing that happen.

Silke Kueck

Analyst

Thanks very much. I’ll get back into queue.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Al Kaschalk of Wedbush Securities. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Al Kaschalk

Analyst

I want to start on the Performance Materials, please. I think during the quarter you had an announcement with Glencore, and then you commented in the presentation materials that the exit plan is progressing as it relates to chromite in South Africa. Just a little bit bigger-picture question here. This from a business standpoint is to facilitate – or the moves you're making, I believe – are to help facilitate supplying your materials to customers. If I recall correctly from the AMCOL days, this piece of the business was not performing exceptionally well. It was under a rework that took the write-off. So the question here is, a, could you elaborate on the benefit of this joint venture or agreement, and then, b, sort of a follow-on to an earlier question, benefited to having in the margin for the quarter, particularly going forward?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

I would describe it this way the issues that were part of the past, the plan with the – agreement with Glencore is really designed to get that totally behind us and get that business segment up to a much better level, a sustainable profitable level, and it’s something Gary and his team have been working on in recent months and it's going well. I’m going to let Gary talk about this a little more because I don't think this is other than those who covered or followed AMCOL before are that familiar with, but Gary perhaps you could give a little more color to what's actually happening and where we’re going with it.

Gary Castagna

Analyst

Yeah, the history there is that clearly the operating risk associated with mining and processing everything to do with South Africa and relative to competitive position in the industry, certainly had left the results in the past to be volatile and generally underperforming. So as Joe really again said here, the design if you will of the transaction is really to enable us to retain what we do really well out of this, which is really on the backend of the marketing distribution and the application expertise that we've been known for in the us steel casting industry. So what we have is a much more stable cost structure that enables us to move on and be able to continue to just exit out of the operational manufacturing and ultimately mining that goes on in South Africa. So benefit is not there yet, but it will likely come further down the road, Al, as we get fuller implementation of the agreement with Glencore.

Al Kaschalk

Analyst

I appreciate that color. Your product is going to be supplying customers primarily in the Asia geographic region or where is the targeted?

Gary Castagna

Analyst

It’s actually a global agreement with – in specific parts of each of the geographies of the region, so for instance in Latin America, North America, and all across Asia, we've got essentially a global footprint in that in the agreement with certain provisos in areas where Glencore will have other representation or other plans.

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Al, this is Doug. I’ll add on to that. Part of your question was what impact was in the quarter, seen in the quarter. There was very minimal benefit in the quarter from chromite, but that’s something that will – as we work with Glencore will probably benefit later in the year as it ramps up again, while the chrome goes to the steel industry. So there's some impact there. So probably later in the year, we’ll see more of an impact from that.

Al Kaschalk

Analyst

Just the second question and just if you put the stuff back, I think, Doug you had provided a reconciliation from Q4, I’m sorry Q4 of 2015 to Q1 of 2015. And this may go to more of a broader question, but if I look at the acquired business contribution and I think back to AMCOL standalone I think about the aggregate where they were running at. It seems like the business season is healthy from a top line and therefore an EPS contribution as it was performing, and that’s before of course synergies. And I realize a big piece of this is probably Energy, but could you maybe just address some of the areas that may be still challenged, particularly from the top line perspective.

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Well I think you’re looking at on a quarter basis two areas, first is construction technologies and I tried to highlighted, it’s hard to give you a year-over-year comparison because we don't have or have published last year first quarter, so I’m giving you more sequential, but there similar. Construction technologies had some very large projects in Saudi Arabia last year, they contributed to the top line, which didn’t occur this year and they had a project in the fourth quarter that gives you the sequential decline. So I think, you know but the business unit has some very healthy prospects and a pipeline in terms of large projects to come through and we see a number of them lined up for the second quarter and throughout the year. So we do see a healthy top line for the Construction Technologies and you’ll see that probably more in the second and third quarter because those are the seasonal period. The other area that you have to note is just Energy Services with noted the 47% decline just in coil tubing that’s a significant impact on revenue in that segment. I think from a margin standpoint though the three business units together combined 15% operating margins is much healthier than what I think they’ve seen historically in the business. So the revenue has been impacted, I think you’re seeing the profitability improve in that business, and remember that 15% operating margin is on a fully allocated basis, so if you are looking at historical AMCOL results they did not have that corporate allocation in that margin now they do, so that 15% is fully absorbed on their cost allocation. So I think the productivity is significantly improved over the past 10 months.

Al Kaschalk

Analyst

Fair enough. And then, thank you for that Doug. And one follow-up if I may, on Energy Services are you willing to share sort of a spread or the mix of business between the three or the major service lines as a percentage of that segments revenue, obviously about filtration and coil tubing, could you share with us a little bit of where the current mix of revenue is?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Yeah, obviously we don’t publish the product line revenues. I can give you one piece, offshore sales contributed about 60% of the revenue in the quarter was offshore versus 40% onshore. I’d say the well testing and filtration businesses are probably about 60% of the revenue of the business unit and the majority of that is offshore. There is some other smaller offshore nitrogen business et cetera, some coil tubing. So that gives you an idea about 60% of the revenues come from filtration and well test and the majority of those two businesses are offshore. The other 40% are pipeline nitrogen, and the coil tubing business and that's really primarily onshore revenues.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

And also another way to kind of maybe look at this and think about it, as you look at it historically is that the least profitable part of the Energy Services business is being impacted the most. So that what that basically what we have happening is a product rationalization process that's happening right now that at the end of the day is going to end up being better for the business it could end up with less revenue for the long-term, but it's going to be more profitable because the coil tubing business historically has been marginal at best for Energy Services, so that’s just another factor to keep in mind.

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

And in the quarter Al, the majority of – the profits came from our offshore businesses, kind of as we predicted they would be more stable in the downturn we’ve continued with filtration and well test work, it’s been relatively strong so far.

Al Kaschalk

Analyst

I appreciate that and obviously one quarter isn’t the trend. And I would think as you rationalize the business that a 10% EBIT even in sort of the environment we’re living with high barriers of entry technology, we could actually see that climb higher as a percentage of segments revenue.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

It could – little bit few more, absolutely spot on.

Al Kaschalk

Analyst

Look forward to seeing that improvement. Thanks a lot guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rosemarie Morbelli of Gabelli Company. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

Thank you and congratulations on a great quarter.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Thank you, Rosemarie.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

Following up on Energy; your filtration and well testing is the part that has the highest margin and did the best, but as I understand if I am correct those are long-term contracts, are you seeing some of those contracts being completed and what is the backlog looking like in terms of new contracts in this environment, so we continue to see progress in that particular site?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Actually Rosemarie, there really aren’t long-term contracts in those offshore filtration and well testing businesses. What they really are, kind of longer duration projects. So number one, they’re very qualification on those type of projects, is very strenuous and so – and especially with our filtration technologies being able to operate with those technologies that differentiate us in an offshore platform is very, somewhat unique. So what that allow us though is some of the projects in especially in deep water they run for several months, I think we’ve had a number of projects that have run close to a year. So there are some barriers certainly that we take advantage of, but it's more just long-duration projects than they are kind of contracts, you’re qualified by the of the customer to operate on that platform.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

So any of those long-term contracts coming to completion and are there any replacements that you have that are waiting on the sideline?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Maybe another way to look at this or least as we look at it and I’d ask Mike Johnson to jump in as well. As you think about the spectrum of types of drilling and you move from onshore to offshore and then within offshore you have shallow offshore and you have deep offshore. The company, the Energy Services business is well positioned in the deep offshore and that also is the area that is being impacted the least with regard to the drop in oil prices. And as you think about projects, I’ll use the of the Saudi Aramco project for us that’s starting up in May, this is something that a new contract, I think we announced that earlier in the year. It’s an example of a position we will have in Saudi Arabia supplying Saudi Aramco that is designed because we also have a partner there to be long-term, and so – and it will be a series of contracts and work with Saudi Aramco. And in this particular case is in the region where you know Saudi Aramco is actually continuing to invest. So even during this very severe downturn, you have parts of the world and you have companies that are going to continue to invest in drilling and fortunately we’re very well positioned in some of those parts of the world, it would be Brazil in spite of the troubles that Petrobras has had, we’re well positioned there. We have other positions in places like Malaysia, Nigeria, that are being less impacted, in fact the impact is less right now, it’s around 5% or less from a relative standpoint. The biggest impact to us, as Doug mentioned is on the onshore, which we've been responding to and making the adjustments downward from an organizational and workforce standpoint as quickly as possible.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

That is very helpful, thank you. I was – then moving over to the paper side, the overall – when we talked last quarter, the overall decline in tonnage was 130,000 tons, you gained 50,000 tons with your new satellites leaving a decline of 80,000 tons. Are we with new satellites ramping up, are those coming on stream by the end of this year or maybe earlier if you could give us a better idea for the timing. Is that’s when we actually start overlapping the decline in Europe and North America with the growth in Asia?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

I think, I mean right, you know we’ve been kind of projecting at the end of this year you’d start to see the true, probably with some movements, probably early next year you’ll start to see growth, let’s keep in mind we have added 100,000 ton satellite here in North America, we will have by the next 18, 24 months, 900,000 tons of capacity in China, which is approaching 50% of what we have installed in North America. So with that kind of growth you’re going to see some of the timings of the satellites as they come online and as you see the ramp-up so volumes through those satellites it’s probably going to be somewhere around the first quarter of next year. And again that depends on kind of what we see in terms of volumes of paper consumption volumes in North America and Europe, that’s always a factor that we’re conscious of could happen between now and then. But I think you have it right, probably early next year you’re going to start to see the volume and revenue growth come through.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

And looking at North America, I mean, you obviously seem to be making progress on the FulFill application. So would – is anything like this happening in Europe and would that be enough to offset to a certain degree, the structural decline?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

It does, so you know, a FulFill contract here in North America, FulFill E contract here in North America will generate somewhere 15% to 20% additional volume out of the facility. And so as we see some of the larger contracts in North America and Europe that does help offset some of the decline. It has an eclipse, it hasn’t eclipsed it yet, but it certainly offsets significant portion of it.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

And I’d also add, having just come back from China where recently I had a chance to meet with the CEO of Sun Paper and signed this recent agreement, but my observations from the trip were that the, although the China paper industry, you might see some consolidation with some of the smaller players is – actually the industry is quite healthy, and its focused on continuing investment in more modern mills, but also in investing in technologies that allow them to move up the quality curve for paper, which bodes extremely well for us. So I think right now we have somewhere between 12 and 14 additional targets for satellites in China alone, so what Doug described as what will be coming on in 2016 or the total capacity, we’re going to be adding to that in the coming years.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

In India, Joe, anything happening? You haven't talked about the paper in India lately.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Yeah, India is very healthy. Again, they are going through some growing things. We have solid position there and with additional potential there as well, I'll let DJ talk about that a little bit. But India offers us some really unique opportunities for growth, not only for paper, but for the Performance Materials business, specifically the metalcastings where our position is relatively small, and I may have mentioned this before, but the size of the foundry business in India is almost the same size as the U.S. where we have a very strong position. So part of our game plan, part of Gary Castagna’s game plan with his team is to take the position we have there and grow it as fast as possible because the value equation we have that has worked extremely well in China is going to work extremely well, we believe in India also. DJ you want to talk about the PCC?

D.J. Monagle

Analyst

Glad to Joe. Thanks Rosemarie. Just to give you some dimension on India and kind of comparing it versus what Joe is saying for China, for thinking that there's an immediate 12 opportunities, 12 for 14 that we’re pursuing in China, we probably have half that many that we’re pursuing in India. It tend to be a little bit smaller, but we've made great strides there with the presence of our brand, our reputation is growing, and also FulFill is starting to make some inroads in India as well. So we've established a good relationships with some key papermakers. We see that overall that market is not as big as China, but it seems to be a steadily growing one, and we’re well positioned to take advantage – continue to take advantage of the growth.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

Thank you. Doug, when you talked about your target of reducing debt by $160 million to $200 million in 2015, is that still a good target? Do you think you can do better than that, given the strong cash flow generation?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Actually I’ll refine that a little bit, we’re targeting about $180 million this year, Rosemarie. I think we’re going to try to do better than that, I think that will – we’re going to be looking at opportunistically taking some dividends into the U.S. to fund even more debt payment than that. Right now we’re looking at about $180 million, those dividends will affect our tax rate a little bit, but our focus has been making sure that we use all of our free cash flow around the world to pay down debt.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

And on that same vein, are you going to update the synergies above that $70 million, which you are going to reach way ahead of schedule?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Actually Rosemarie, we’re working on that, but actually we are – we have scheduled an Analyst Day at the end of June, and our plan will be at that point in time to provide further insight, only to the to the synergies, but also as we’ve talked about in the past we’ll be sharing some long-term targets across all the business unit, so I would invite you to join us on that day and we’ll have an opportunity to talk a little more about the future and provide some more dimensioning around what we see for the company.

Rosemarie Morbelli

Analyst

I would not miss it for the world. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Eugene Fedotoff of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

Thanks for taking the question. I actually have just a few follow-ups. First, I guess on the paper business in North America and Europe, I believe the closure of two paper mills, you should anniversary that in the second quarter this year. Do you expect any – continuing consolidation in the paper market, do you expect any further mills closures in North America or Europe this year or maybe next year?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

So your first question yes. The anniversary will be after the first quarter on the Docelles mill and Courtland mill, we did have some volume in the first quarter last year. Right now, we know one of paper mill closure, actually it’s conversion and ash down one of their paper machines will convert, not the mill in total, but that will be in 2016. So we don't right now see anything this year, remainder of this year.

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

Okay, a follow-up on the energy, what percentage of that business – thanks for providing the breakdown between offshore and onshore. What percentage is U.S. versus international for energy business?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

That’s probably around 85% is more domestic, domestic base. So it’s highly concentrated North America onshore and U.S., Gulf of Mexico. The 15% international is really offshore, primarily offshore. That’s in Malaysia, in Scotland, Nigeria and in Brazil.

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

Okay. And just a follow-up on that, then, I'm looking at some industry data we are seeing in the U.S., the rig count for offshore they had declined significantly just recently. Is that a concern?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Where the oil price is, it’s a concern, but right now, we haven’t seen. We have continued with some, like I said, long term projects with our filtration business offshore and offshore deepwater and well testing particularly our deepwater well testing has performed very well. Our revenues in deepwater have actually almost doubled from last year first quarter.

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

Got it. I'll just try to ask a synergy question differently, I guess. $70 million run rate that you probably will hit by the end of the year, and that was your three to five year target, so the integration, is that going much faster than you expected or there are just more synergies then you initially thought there would be?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

I think it’s a combination of things, I wouldn't have enough time to enumerate them all, but it really is, a, management dedication and focus throughout the company, you know on achieving the target condition that we have for the acquisition as fast as possible, some of that is you know identifying additional areas for savings, but it also speaks to in extreme degree of the tight cooperation, it’s a difficult period for the company. We've been able to not only maintain the stability of the businesses, but actually grow in some areas as well as lay the groundwork for future growth. So it really is a combination of many things coming together, the management teams of each of the former AMCOL businesses have been – are on team, and they've been on the team from day one, that's been a major factor. We have a strong lead team for the integration led by Jon Hastings. So it's all of those things together. And then moving as quickly as we were able to identify that we could move, and so we've been able to bring it to the bottom line as fast as possible, which is the idea.

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

Got it, thank you for this color. And just a last question, Doug, for you, I think, and I'm sorry if I missed if you talked about it. The $3 million reported in other income, can you provide a little bit more color what was in it?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

I’m sorry, $300 million for operating cash flow?

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

No, no, it was $3 million you reported in other income in the quarter.

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

Oh, the $3 million. Those are foreign exchange gains that are not part of operating income. There are a variety of items, there are translation of payables and receivables in that, we had some are euro based liabilities here in North America that get mark-to-market, we had some U.S. dollar based small holdings for payments overseas that get valued differently. So, just a number of items that are throughout the balance sheet that get translated and in this month – for this quarter it translated into a gain.

Eugene Fedotoff

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jay Harris of Axiom Capital. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Good afternoon. I have questions on two areas. One area is Energy Services and then your primary product serving the steel industry. What do you think your options are with respect to this unused inventory of coil tubing devices?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Well there are number of options that start with idling, selling, returning, some are leased, some we own, you know as we consolidate to a smaller footprint Jay. And that's what we're working at on right now, that’s what we’re reviewing as we scale back.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Is there any opportunity either offshore or internationally to move some of this equipment into new service areas?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

I’ll let Mike Johnson who is on the call. Mike you want to take that.

Mike Johnson

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks, Joe. Yeah, Jay, there are some options, but with the decreased oil prices there is really not a lot of opportunities that we see out there. I think our best option is for us just to stack what we have now, and try to utilize and consolidated the land-based ones in Texas. That’s our plans right now.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Do you anticipate waiting until capital spending starts to pick up onshore again, or will you look – or do you think that's going to occur too far in the future and you'll be looking at some of the other options you just mentioned?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Our focus right now is to, you know the planning scenario is to assume it’s going to stay down for a while and get ourselves to a breakeven point, and depending on how fast we’re able to do that that will determine what other options paths we’re going to take.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Fair enough. On your business with the steel mills, is the growth in China and then opportunities in India, do you see that at some point in a reasonable future time period starting to make this a stabilized business and a growth business again? And if so, where do you put that on a timeline?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Actually China has had a very little effect on the company's bottom line for the last four to five, since we restructured our China operations in late 2007. We've been looking for a partner for China, have not found the right partner, so we’ve basically been in a, you know a sort of a low volume structure for running the operations there. We do have a very good operation in Japan, we have some linkage between the Japan operations and the China facilities, and we are still looking for a partner there, but Jay, China does not from a steel standpoint the challenge for the Refractories business has always been the value proposition, which we take a total cost of ownership to the market. The china market is not ready for that, and the company made a mistake back in early 2000's when it invested more than it should've. And you know, it's not something I see changing in the short term, but as I said, it has very little effect on the company.

Jay Harris

Analyst

And then, an accounting question. Is there an exchange rate, let's say with the euro, which would cause auditors to raise questions about write-offs?

Doug Dietrich

Analyst

No, Jay. I don’t see that’s the case we have, sustained cash flows on all of our operations that justify the asset holding values in those currencies. So no, I don’t think that’s the case.

Jay Harris

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Moore of CJS Securities. Your line is open, please go ahead.

Daniel Moore

Analyst

Thank you, again. I realize we are running late, but Joe, something caught my ear, which was the opportunity with Sun Paper, the discussions with filler fiber. Obviously, that could be enormous. In North America, it's proven challenging over the years to push adoption. Are the hurdles similar or different in Asia? And maybe just talk about your confidence, what's the same, what's different, what's the opportunity to really ramp up that by another 50% over time?

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Look I really have to restrain myself a little bit in this area. Part of what I came away with is Sun Paper specifically I think there is a willingness to take more risk, let's say than we've seen in the past from some of the western papermakers, and I'm not saying that in a negative way, it's just the nature of Sun Paper and its private ownership, it's run by a very farsighted strong entrepreneur who's gotten good returns on his investments over time, and he has been willing to take more risk, we've developed a large position with him. That – you know I came away from this trip with an even – I’ve always had a positive feeling from the investments who’ve already been making there and started, but this recent trip reinforced that. So a long-winded way to say, you know this could lead to more, but we have to be careful. It’s very early as I said in my remarks and we need to take a step at a time, but this has a higher probability than some of the others, let's say of finding of papermaker that would actually be willing to share in the investment risk with us.

Daniel Moore

Analyst

We'll stay tuned. Thank you.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And I’m showing no further questions. I’d like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Rick Honey

Analyst

That's it for the conference call today. Thank you very much for your interest in Minerals Technologies, and have a nice day.

Joe Muscari

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Have a great rest of your day.