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Primoris Services Corporation (PRIM)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 3, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to Primoris Services Corporation Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year Financial Results. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'll now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Kate Tholking, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, Ms. Tholking. You may now begin.

Kate Tholking

Analyst

Thank you, Manny [ph]. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Our speakers for today's call will be Brian Pratt, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Primoris Services Corporation; and Pete Moerbeek, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made during today's call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including with regard to the company's future performance. Words such as estimated, believes, expects, projects, may, and future, or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Primoris does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, those discussed in this morning's press release and those detailed in the Risk Factors section and other portions in our annual report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2013, as updated through the quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2014, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As we announced in this morning's press release, starting in the fourth quarter of 2014 and through to today, the company's management, independent outside counsel, and the audit committee of the Board of Directors have spent considerable time and resources reviewing and analyzing various issues relating to the methods used by the company's subsidiaries to recognize revenues, and estimate contingencies for ongoing projects. The review is not yet completed, but based on the results to-date the Company does not anticipate any adjustments to its previously reported financial results. The company is unable to determine at this time whether the results of the review will indicate that its internal controls over financial reporting were operating effectively, or the impact of the review on the company's annual report on the internal control over financial reporting, included in the Form 10-K. As permitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission rules, the company is extending the filing date of its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, until March 17, 2015. We will unfortunately not be able to provide any more information on this issue today. I'd now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Brian Pratt.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I expect you've all read this morning's press release, and that accounts for some of the new callers who have dialed in today. I'll get into the details in a minute, and Pete will give you the numbers, but let me start by saying that I'm very disappointed with our fourth quarter results. Everyone here at Prim is likewise disappointed. There are no mysteries as to why we failed to perform up to our expectations; and believe me we're taking the appropriate steps to make sure we live up to our expectations in the future. But don't make the mistake for a moment of thinking we are not fundamentally the great company you are all confident enough in to invest. The year we became public, in the 2008, our fourth quarter revenue was $151 million. The most recent quarter, it was $486 million. Over the same period, we've entered into new markets, expanded our geographic reach, successfully acquired companies, and now have, by my perspective, a good quality backlog in excess of $2 billion. I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished, and yet obviously very disappointed in the most recent quarter. There were highlights in the quarter, and I'll get to them, but I suspect many of you are anxious to find and understand the areas where I feel our results were not as we had hoped. I'm going to start with the five areas where we experienced some unexpected performance issues. First, I want to discuss ARB Underground work. Our revenues were basically flat compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. The work released by our customers was lower margin work. We also absorbed some training costs associated with the new camera inspection, work which is fundamentally a new kind…

Peter Moerbeek

Analyst

Thank you, Brian. For Primoris, this past quarter was very noisy with many moving parts and less than great results. At $0.17 per fully diluted share on 488 million of revenues, we showed a 61% in decline in quarterly earnings, compared to the 2013 quarter and a 9% decline in revenues. Brian has mentioned the margin reductions in ARB Underground and James Heavy Civil, the revenues and margin reductions to the ARB Industrial in Rockford and the settlement of the NTTA lawsuit. Separately, each of these would not have caused our shortfall but add them together and our overall gross margin for the fourth quarter was 10.2% compared to 13.9% in the fourth quarter 2013. I will expand briefly on the North Texas Tollroad Authority lawsuit. We were one of the parties sued in February 2012 for work that was done by James Construction in 1999, some 10 years before James was acquired by Primoris. The suit alleged that one retaining wall had shifted and that at least six more walls could potentially shift. While we believe that Primoris had many adequate defenses we also concluded that due to minimal insurance coverage, the NTTAs planned jury trial which would request damages far greater that what could be realized through a settlement. And the continued direct cost and impact on senior management and economically mediated solution was the best alternative. After completing almost 18 months of mediation the parties agreed to a settlement in February 2015. The Primoris portion of the settlement is accrued at a total of $9 million of which $3 million was accrued in 2014, with $2.5 million in the fourth quarter. Below the gross margin line, our expenses in 2014 fourth quarter were remarkably similar to those in 2013. Selling, general & administrative expenses for the quarter…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Lee Jagoda of CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Lee Jagoda

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Good morning, Lee.

Lee Jagoda

Analyst

So Brian, as you look at your end market breakdown, roughly 80% of the expected 2015 revenue comes from state municipal utility natural gas downstream in petrochem as well as power; can you briefly comment on each of these markets and the potential growth opportunities for '15 and 2016?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

So I'll take your rest of the call. The utility business kind of rocks along as it has. I think we're making more and more in-roads. The Aevenia acquisition is going to help us quite a bit because they are up in one of the areas we're not in. It's kind of the no-man's land of the flyover country, but there's some great opportunity out there for Q3 and them. And we think that along with the work in California as they finally get their PSEP [ph] programs going is going to be pretty exciting. PG&E finally says they're going to start their build out on their El Dorado [ph] replacement, which we've been waiting for, and we've got a lot of administrative help builds around the promise of starting this, which they promised last year and they didn't get started, but it appears this year it's going to be a good promise because we're already start to see some of that work. The Gulf is really still popping down there. This Sasol project which none of the -- on our early announcement none of that was predicated on the GTL, it was all predicated on the new ethane cracker. That we think is going to be an exciting market for the next couple of years. Sasol will go on for every bid at two years, if not three. And we anticipate -- we announced the first purchase order of $290 million. Our work is substantially more than that we're going to perform, but Sasol want to keep the purchase orders under $300 million, and then they'll renew it as the time comes. So that along with a lot of other work is going to continue to be really exciting. The LNG business hasn't fallen off a bit. And now…

Lee Jagoda

Analyst

All right. I mean just one quick follow-up related to margins; you took five or six different write-offs during the quarter and detailed them pretty well, do you expect any additional margin headwind in Q1 or in 2015 for that matter based on any of the things that you've already disclosed?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

We're pretty aggressive when we see a problem to try and find the bottom. We didn't do that well in the third quarter on that job in West Virginia, but if it rains in the morning for that crew, we are out a couple, $3 million for one day of rain. So it's pretty hard to see a hit on jobs like that, and project where you're going to end up. The crystal ball broke on that one; otherwise we'd have probably recognized a bigger loss in third quarter. It wouldn't have changed our year's numbers obviously. But on this big pipeline work you never can tell, because you pay those guys five or six hours, whether they work or not as a minimum, and if it rains in the hills of West Virginia you can't work for a couple of days because the ride away gets a sloppy. You're going to get somebody hurt if you go out there and try and work. So we don't anticipate any more, like I say, we're pretty aggressive at trying to find the bottom. Our mantra around here is, "Only bring me bad news once." So I don't anticipate it, but I'm not perfect. Obviously, based on this quarter's numbers, you can tell.

Lee Jagoda

Analyst

Okay, very good. I will hop back in the queue. Thank you.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Lee.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Tahira Afzal of KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

Hey, folks.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Hey, Tahira.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

Well, I guess my first question is, Brian, in your prepared commentary you said fourth quarter is not really reflective of the earnings power you really see in your business model. So buying weather, or even taking weather on a normalized basis into consideration, what do you see as your quarterly earnings power run rate, given your end markets remain intact. You seem to be trying to address some of these issues. Is it supportive of the consensus estimates out there, or should we be thinking about some cushion at least on the margin side going forward?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

We don't give guidance, Tahira. I mean, I appreciate the effort to try, but we just don't give guidance. Well, we remain very bullish on our prospects over the next, three, or four, five years. I refer to this as the perfect storm of nickels and dimes. We have a whole lot of crap hitting the fourth quarter that it was pretty ugly, but it was all those small items, but you got to deal with all of them, you got to recognize all of them. The guys are, like I said in my last comment, they're the best at what they do, and nobody can touch us in terms of our ability to make money, and execute projects well. So I'm very bullish on this next year, and the following year based on what I see in the pipeline business, which is a major component, in the South East with -- in the ship channel, with the industrial work that's going on, and the utility business which are three pretty mainstays for us. So I'm very optimistic, but I can't give you guidance, you know that.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

All right. So let me try it another way then, Brian.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

I wouldn't expect less, Tahira.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

You've clearly had a good book to bill in the fourth quarter. You're ending the year with a backlog that's kind of similar to what it was in 2014. As you look at 2015, I would assume at least you should see a flat revenue line, but given there's a lot of stuff in your backlog, as you said, that probably moves more slowly in 2014. Should we at least directionally expect revenues to be up? And maybe from thereon I can try to model it down on my own.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Well, Heavy Civil is finally peaked, but they peaked on the work in late -- mid to late year. So that work should be above the normal run -- last year's run rate. Pipeline work, I think, Frank, he's got the one job, which is $137 million, and he's got short listed on several more. Some of them are for 2016 starts, but several of them are for this year's starts. So I would hope pipeline would exceed the long haul stuff that Rockford does would exceed last year's run rate. We think -- we spent another -- we're planning on spending another $16 million, $17 million on equipment for Q3, so that would indicate that we see growth for them. We don't spend that kind of money if the top line is going to be flat, we don't need to. We think the work on the West Coast, Tim is going to remain -- the industrial side is going to remain pretty flat. Hopefully they'll have a little higher margin in the work based on the work we did for the solar guys that didn't pay. That certainly knocks the hell out of your margin line, but I think PG&E will be up substantially because of their thrust to replace the [indiscernible] services. And I in Southern California the utility down there we were for had a fairly difficult time getting off the ground on their PSEP program, so we expect that to be expanding. Then you add the small pieces here and there, and I think, in general, I see a fairly significant growth for the year. But that's as close as you're going to get with me to any guidance.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

Well, that's good enough. Thank you folks, I'll jump back in the queue.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Thanks Tahira, and thanks for following us all these years.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Jason Wangler with Wunderlich. Please go ahead.

Jason Wangler

Analyst

Hey, good morning, Brian.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Hey, Jason; another guy in your industry you follow that didn't perform well, huh?

Jason Wangler

Analyst

It's just far from the course, so you're all right.

Brain Pratt

Analyst

[Indiscernible].

Jason Wangler

Analyst

Under that [indiscernible], I was curious, you mentioned the long haul stuff to obviously make a lot of sense, just the timing, and the permitting, and everything. For that stuff at least for now should be unaffected. But as you go down to the shorter term stuff, whether it's gathering lines, and more closer to the wellhead are you seeing much difference there, maybe even as you get into '15 right now, or are you still seeing a lot of work that needs to be done?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

It's pretty early to tell. Some of these guys has spent all the money, and pun intended, it's working in the pipeline. We just see the end of it. We don't see the start of it as much as -- well, it's not as overt to us. So, we're still seeing quite a bit of stuff come through on the upstream end of it, but some of that may be guys that have already drilled up prospects, and been waiting to get into queue to ship it. If it's drilled they're going to ship it. But a lot of it is environmental, and mitigation, and growth. All these pipelines a lot of -- what Robert does is short projects, relocations, and stuff like that around subdivisions that are getting built. But if you're looking for us to be a canary for you on the upstream side, we really can't do it, but we still see a good amount of volume of workforce out there. I don't see it being much more competitive than it was in prior years, because to be honest with you, anybody that would get into the business with the uncertainty right now is not playing with a full deck. But I want to make something really clear. On the long haul pipelines most of -- you don't go out and build $1.5 billion or $2 billion pipeline based on the fact somebody might drill a well. That production is there, it's committed to those guys that are building them because they have take or pays and their throughputters are going to pay whether they put any oil, or liquids in it, or gas in it at all. So those are pretty sure bets. And we see a couple, three years of blow and go for that kind of work. We have clients that are asking us, as we speak, to put up letter of credit to make sure we're going to be there for them in '16, because they think the long haul business is going to be that busy. Some of those are utility based clients that are trying to nat gas, cheaper nat gas into places that it doesn't currently serve in the capacity they need. But we're seeing a lot of push in that business, and I see a lot of solid work for next couple or three years.

Jason Wangler

Analyst

Now, that's helpful, and I think you're right. I see that there's still a lot of catch-up to be played, at least certainly this year, or even the shorter haul stuff.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

And we just can't see it from our end of the pipeline. I know the drilling has slowed down. I watch guys like Matador, which is a great company, and people like that. And they're drilling fewer wells, and trying to find ways to do it cheaper. So ultimately the upstream work will slow down, it's just a matter of when.

Jason Wangler

Analyst

Right. And then if I could ask you maybe just -- obviously the different issue as far as the cash generation from the operation side. Do you see, obviously hard to tell, but as we look into this year, do you see that maybe flipping back, and maybe have a pretty solid year as far as generating more cash than you would think on a steady state just given the '14 was a tougher year with a bunch of different issues, or how do you see that playing out?

Peter Moerbeek

Analyst

Yes, certainly -- and I was trying to say that if you take -- if had collected the [$63 million] we would have had a great cash flow from operations from '14. We fully anticipate getting back to the $85 million to$100 million range where we were a couple of years ago. We're not counting because it's so totally unknown on whether we're going to get any money out of the two contracts with whom we're fighting. So for us, when we look at it, there's no reason that we can't get back to the numbers that we were. Having said that, it also will depend a little bit, and it's not cash flow from operations, but obviously overall cash will depend a little bit on what we do on the acquisition front. But there's no reason we cannot get back to the $85 million to $100 million range that we were in the last couple of year.

Jason Wangler

Analyst

That's helpful, thank you. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Adam Thalhimer of BB&T Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Hey, Adam.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

The Rockford and the Sprint jobs, are those done now?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Yes, the Sprint job, which I hope the client is listening, they have not filed any countersuit so they're running out of time on that. But we build for the retention which these -- they have illegally held. And, in Texas, that draws penalties of 1.5% per month, plus legal costs. So if you're listening, guys, you need to pay that. But, yes, the Sprint job is done. The -- everything complete. We've completed the entire punch list. The only thing remaining on the Mark West job in West Virginia is the final cleanup. The pipeline is operational, tested, and tied in -- I don't know if they're actually operating on it or not. But because of the weather, and the sloppiness in the hills you really can't do the final clean-up. So that's all that's remaining, is the restoration and clean-up.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Okay, and then on the Belton jobs, do they have the rights of way now, I'm just wondering how quickly the East margins can come back?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Well, you have two choices with these guys. They typically don't procure their rights of way until they get their numbers, and their bids are in. And they know you're going to be within budget, and then they go out and procure the rights away. And it's problematic because when you're trying to get utilities to move pipelines and stuff, they live in their own world, and they're not in a hurry to move your pipelines. And so what you end up doing, you have two choices. You can wait, and fight them, and build ill will with them by waiting till every price of right of way is cleared. Or you can go with what's called an LNTP, limited notice to proceed. And if you go with the LNTP you end up with a hodgepodge, hop around kind of job, which makes it a lot tougher to manage and complete, rather than going from one end to the other. So it was mixed bag for us. Some of it we found okay to do -- take the LNTPs, and some of them we didn't. So I hope that answers your question. And in this case, it had impacted us. Now, we think we're going to recover a lot of that, if not more than that on claims with the state, but there's uncertainty with that, and we try and view things in a conservative way. So we're not recognizing aggressive numbers on claims.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Okay. And the Sasol job, how should we think about that, because you've given some revenue numbers, and you've given us a timeframe. Is it even recognition over that timeframe for a quarter, or how should we think about that?

Brain Pratt

Analyst

It's going to ramp up quick. Once they finally announced they pulled out all the stops. Our contract is for the relocation of some of the conflicting structures on the site. There's a canal, and a water conveyance system, and some other stuff that has to be moved off the site. And then it's to bring in the dirt, I believe the number was 18 million yards of dirt which has to be moved from offsite. So the numbers get pretty large, and they go pretty quickly. It's pretty hard to get two dirt guys on the same site. So we have the dirt by ourselves. And then that's what James Heavy Civil, with Jonas Beatty's group -- he's a great kid. And then there's another slog of work about the same size that Conrad has the JIC for the concrete structures that go on the dirt. That's a similar size to what Jonas has with the dirt. And then they had placed the pile driving contract with a third-party private company, and apparently they couldn't tend the contract term, so we've actually taken on some of the pile business. Originally, when we estimated the job we thought there was about a little less than $600 million worth of work there. That being said, I'm not sure what the work will truly come to in the end. They've added scope, from what I see, but the concrete structures are nebulous, I can't get my hands around what the structures will run. And I think the schedule is two and a half years. So if that helps everybody model it, I hope it does.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Okay. And then, Brian, last quarter you talked about you are looking at one job aside Sasol and one smaller on the Gulf Coast and you remain bullish about the prospects there. So, can you give us an update on the specific opportunities that you are looking at on the Gulf Coast? A – Brian Pratt: No, I really can't. I mean I get a report every Tuesday night with everything we are looking at, and I don't even print it any more, we have to kill half the trees in Minnesota. So it's just -- I know everybody seems to be a little skeptical about it. But we are not seeing any slowdown at all, what we are seeing is a lot of issues. We got one client that -- he came out with some hand sketches. It looks like he did among the hood of pick up, and and it was some structures. And then when we finally got the engineer drawings they were entirely different. So the prices we gave the guy were just -- they weren't even in the same universe by going in. And then we're seeing these guys particularly some of the foreign entities that kind of operate that way world-wide. We are seeing a lot of these guys be rather stingy on dealing with some of those cost overruns. And so, we have decided to be selective on who we work with and get more aggressive on our contract terms. A lot of these guys are guys that we worked for 20 to 30 years. So it's hard to get too aggressive with them, but it just seems like I am spending a lot more time trying to collect money than I hoped for and I warned those guys about this and that's going to be -- our challenge is managing expectations and collecting these bills. I just didn't think it would be this bad, and I think part of one of the reasons is there is just a whole lot of uncertainty over the prices they accrued in that gas, which causes a lot of these guys to be hesitant because even the petrochem guys would be in tar with the same brush.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Okay. Thanks for the color. A – Brian Pratt: You bet.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Mike Shlisky of Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead. Q – Mike Shlisky: Good morning. A – Brian Pratt: Hey, Mike. Q – Mike Shlisky: Real quick, I want to ask about some of the training you have mentioned you had in the quarter at ARB. Is that all with at this point, and I guess I either way I mean could some of your folks see some efficiencies here at the very offset as they just got these kind of skills, are they still developing their life skills in that area, and is it going to be a first quarter margin impact there? A – Brian Pratt: Well, our normal first quarter margin impact is gross margin, it relates to revenue. There just isn't enough revenues normally. But utility, you know, by the time, they wipe the sleep our of their eyes from Christmas and holidays, they are just kind of a slow starting up. This is a fairly large contracted TVs. Well, when we out these gas services in for customers like PG&E and SoCal gas, we typically drill them in with a big drill. Fundamentally, we will monitor not at all little bobcat or something. The net drill is really powerful. And it has a tendency to drill to about anything that it runs up against. And that's not good when you drill through a sewer line or something like that. So in essence, what we do is we go in and camera the hole, before we insert the service to make sure that we haven't drilled to something we are not supposed to. That can be very problematic. And over the years we have grown in hundreds and thousands of these services as has PG&E and their crews and…

Operator

Operator

And the next question is from Dan Mannes of Avondale. Please go ahead.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. A – Brian Pratt: Hi, Dan.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

A couple of quick follow-ups; first, on the fourth quarter, can you just help me a little bit more on Rockford, you obviously know what your bidding pipeline look like. There wasn't a lot of long haul work, were you surprised, was there an absence of smaller work to do or maybe you just want a position where you wanted to be. I guess a little bit surprised by the step down there and I am just hoping that you are helping me out a little bit. A – Brian Pratt: Well, a lot of the work we've been doing in the Marcellus has been kind of quick hit gathering line stuff, and we see some more of that this year. We actually see some augmentation of that like this compressor station for Williams out there, but I see a smaller, and you know as it gets smaller, it gets more comparative. So thank God I think we are going to be busy on the bigger work. But that started winding down. There is still a whole lot of uncertainty in our markets with the price of oil and nat gas liquids. Nat gas bounced around on the bottom. So that's miscellaneous. We haven't seen those big changes. With that uncertainty, we have seen a lot of guys just kind of pull back and say, "Well, let's wait and see what happens," I think now that it somewhat stabilize, although you still have guys predicating oil is going to be at $30, we're seeing guys develop a little bit more confidence in their projects, but there just wasn't a lot of smaller quick hit projects like there was in previous years for Williams.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

Got it… A – Brian Pratt: And also, this little job we did in the hills in West Virginia, it was a bare, it took a lot of really our talented guys when you are hanging off the hills with wind cats and everything else, you can't say everyday Joe is up there to do that kind of work. So we were pretty occupied. It's a shame that we committed some of our best assets to a nasty job, but it would have been a lot worse had we not, and we might have gotten somebody.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

And I mean the last couple of years, Q4 has been pretty good, but historically winter hasn't been the best time for long haul work, but here you're in January you booked a big job in Texas; do we see maybe a little bit of different seasonality this year than we have seen in the past, given kind of a weaker Q4 and maybe a better positioning for Q1?

A - Brian Pratt

Analyst

Well, that's a tough question. I think a lot of it, you got so much noise in the oil markets, and a lot of what we've been installing has been oil although what we are looking to install this year, next year, and the following year has been more gas and gas liquids. But I think there is just so much noise with the [indiscernible] drop of oil that it just -- I don't know how you consort that out and kind of analyze third and fourth quarter. I think just a lot of people pull back, like I said, I hear -- I go on these earnings calls of our clients, and all I hear is a lot of talk about balance sheet perseveration and things like that. So I just see the big work there, it's funded, it's the pipe spot, although there is a bunch of pipe on the market right now. People are changing their minds about whether they want to install it, but there is so much work out there that's funded, that's contracted for throughput. I just see it as a bullish time for the next couple of years.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

Understood on the long haul side; another quick question as it relates to Aevenia, how [indiscernible] kind of oil field electrification, is that maybe one of the concerns on the business that things got a little slower in the Bakken?

A - Brian Pratt

Analyst

They have got some work up there, but the vast majority of their work is utility-based. So [indiscernible] drilling new sites and overhead lines and do well pads and stuff, it's going to slow down in that area. We actually use it as a positive, because we want to be there; this is a great footprint, entry point for us into that area, but the majority of their work was in other places besides the Bakken or the Williston as far as that goes to Southwest of there. We see some really good opportunities with our other offices to move in into other places and pursue that kind of work when it begins to rebuild again. But I'm not worried about any kind of [indiscernible] drop and their revenues. I think those guys, Mike, and those guys will handle it well up there.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

Okay. And then the last thing is on the energy segment, we were pleasantly surprised by the margin pick up, and I know you're disappointed that you didn't start up on Sasol as much as you wanted, but were the margins there, was that a function of the fact that maybe Sasol yet or are these the realistic margins, given how tight things are down in that area?

A - Brian Pratt

Analyst

Well, probably 90, I'm guessing, but I make some pretty good guess because I study these numbers pretty hard; 90% or 95% of the work we performed down there was reimbursable. So -- and to be honest with you, Sasol sense the first portion of its heavy dirt, its a little different skill set. Those people weren't off making a bunch of money on this other work we're waiting for, because to be honest with you, as I said in my remarks, the team [indiscernible] year. How you get this work is you pre-qualify your team and if it's reimbursable and the clients willing to give you work, it isn't lump sum, you better give them a good team. And so, we set aside this team and they have to remain available because you can't put them a job that is going to conflict with the start of this project. And God bless Sasol, they struggle with some environmental stuff and they struggle with the GTL decision, but every month it was a well next month, next month, next month. And so, in essence we have that team set aside [indiscernible] other work. I think those margins should continue. The problem we have down there is you get done with these jobs and the clients [indiscernible] bunch of your money because you are spending it fast and it's going off the door every Friday because you are writing payroll checks for most of your cost, and they want to call back. And every one of them they go these seminars; I don't know who puts them on. They're probably the same guys who put on seminars for us on collecting. But they put these seminars on and now you can [indiscernible] money out of the contractor after the job is done, and you are still holding his money. And so, a lot of them come back to take another bite. And to be honest with you, Dan, that's why we just have to be so conservative and the way we reflect profit on these jobs until the better end, until that retention is received and the less payment is received, because I'm guessing 25% or 30% of these guys have come back and I asked for discounts.

Dan Mannes

Analyst

Got it. Great. Thanks for the color, Brian.

A - Brian Pratt

Analyst

You bet, Dan.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from John Rogers, D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

John Rogers

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Hey, John.

John Rogers

Analyst

Hey. I just want to follow up on a couple of things; first of all in terms of revenue the -- you talked about burning in 2015 -- it's about what billion [indiscernible] so you know what was that level at the beginning of 2014?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Well you're trying to make me think hard. Which [indiscernible] clarify and now what level are we discussing.

John Rogers

Analyst

I mean you gave us some numbers on how much backlog -- what portion of your backlog do you expect to burn in 2015 of your current backlog? And I just want to understand the visibility you have in the 2015…

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Oh, how we related the years?

John Rogers

Analyst

Yes…

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Yes we've made the same comment in start of 2014 where that it would been.

John Rogers

Analyst

Yes.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Hang on we got people pounding computers trying to check -- you got other question while we're researching here?

John Rogers

Analyst

Yes, because Brian I'm just trying to understand a little bit about I mean I appreciate your comments about the pipeline business and the market activity but I also expect that if we don't book that work fairly quickly over the next couple of months, it's all in the 2016.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Now as you know to be honest with you John, most of these big pipeline guys they will -- you kill what you eat, they did it and you know we did a 100 and -- gosh I don't know how much it was for BridgeTex, but we earned a lot of that off in 2013 and then a lot of that off in 2014, but we business jobs for enterprise in December January and started it in January. So they go pretty quick because these guys are ready, they spend a bunch of money on engineering rights of way and pipe and negotiating through puts and they want to get -- they don't want to get flowing in the pipe. So normally we don't have too much backlog in this time of the year. If we don't have it in the next couple of months now we're going to struggle in the later quarters of this year. But we're good in the tunnel work that has to be built this year.

John Rogers

Analyst

Okay. Okay.

Peter Moerbeek

Analyst

It's about 1.3 billion, John.

John Rogers

Analyst

1.3, thanks. And then the other thing is that just in terms of the receivables that you're trying to collect the $63 million what's kind of the next steps in that process? I mean is this the -- is this if they don't -- is this going to stretch out for years or is -- are there any specific hurdles that might move that collection forward?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Well, it's a mix bag. We match our contracts with our clients and our venue and a part of our challenge is this you know all this work is governed by lean laws in counties and state laws. So you have 50 different jurisdictions you got to concern yourself with plus the international clients. Now with the solar guide in California, we chose to do international ICC arbitration there because we have a guarantee from the parent Company in Spain. So that's -- that can be as long a process as litigation and a bit more cumbersome because you're typically you're dealing with arbitrators a couple of them from -- that aren't U.S citizens, so that could take couple of years if they want to be hard hitted. The project in Texas where litigation on, it's a matter of who cannot -- who can extract the most pain. Now typically these guys will hold on to your money and they beat guys up trying to hold their money and you -- that doesn't hurt us. I mean yes we'd like to have it but if they want to give us a 1.5% a month penalty under Texas law, in lieu of paying us the $17 million or $18 million a year I'm all for it because we're not getting anywhere near that in our checking account or savings account. But that can take a couple of years. Most of these guys you know in 42 years I've litigated dozens of these things, and I've been to trial once. So it's a matter of preparing these guys and have them understand how weak their cases are. And then both of these two bigger cases we have somewhat smaller ones too. I think we're in pretty good shape. And one piece of good news that we got just recently on the; work in California, is that we received a bond for the -- we leaned the project and we received a lean a bond -- a lean release bond from [indiscernible] for a 150% of our lean so now we have the U.S. company on the hood we can sue also for a collection, and that gives us a lot more financial security that once we went there is money there. So it's a long process. It could settle tomorrow. I mean if they want to call, I don't sue guys without go all the way up the ladder, and I made two calls to the guys who runs BridgeTex and they remain un-returned, and David King made four calls to the guys at BridgeTex, and they remain un-returned. So if they want to start talking to us, we can get it resolved. Otherwise we're going to extract three pounds of flesh, because I don't appreciate the way that clients like this have dealt with this over the years.

John Rogers

Analyst

All right. Well, good luck with that. And then, one other thing, Brian, is with the acquisition that you announced this morning, I mean takes you into a little bit different market I would guess in terms of the electrical work, but you've talked in the past about sort of the next opportunities, and I would assume pipeline assets are pretty expensive at this point. What are the options out there now, especially if pricing is coming down?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

The options?

John Rogers

Analyst

Yes. I mean [indiscernible] Primoris obviously.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

I would read the attendance on these calls pretty religiously [ph] and you got guys that sign in as A, B, C, T, Y; but I see here a lot of competitors on these calls and they read our transcripts, I'm sure, so I'm not going to tell them which direction we're going. But we see plenty of opportunity for good-sized acquisitions, and they're outside of the -- what we consider the energy business, but they're somewhat energy-related, because that's what we understand. And we are seeing a lot bigger companies come available at reasonable pricing. We see a lot of guys in the $100 million to $200 million run rate, where the owners are little older and they don't want to wait for the next time when multiples are back to nine and 10. They want to do something now, because they don't know when that's going to occur. So -- and we beat the ground pretty hard, and once you bought a company or two and you make these announcements and people understand and they see how well you assimilate them and how well the employees like to be in part of Primoris and the managers, we get a lot of calls which you consider me, or have you thought about this guy or that guy. So we don't have to look in the normal places. We don't go to businesses for sale.com to find these things. And I think that's one of our -- Manny is supposed to be in here today. So maybe he has got something to look at, who knows?

John Rogers

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot. I appreciate the help.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Okay, John.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Tahira Afzal with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

Yes, Brian, I guess last question from me; you've seen two months of the first quarter go through, I understand this is seasonally a weak quarter for you, but given all the moving parts that impacted you in the fourth quarter, could you help us 42 months in comparison to -- on a sequential basis?

Brian Pratt

Analyst

I'm sorry, Tahira, you broke up. I'm just kidding. I can't give you any guidance, Tahira. I wish I could, but I just can'the, so -- you guys will just have to do your magic and figure it out.

Tahira Afzal

Analyst

Okay, thanks a lot.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

Sorry.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that is all the time we have for questions. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Pratt for any closing remarks.

Brian Pratt

Analyst

To our employees, I wish to thank you all for your hard work in 2014. You are truly awesome. To the rest of our stakeholders, I would like to thank you for your continued interest, support, and patience in Primoris. Good-bye.