NUE
#Okay, over the next two to three years.
Beyond that, we will continue to grow in that market, as we will continue to grow in all high-quality, higher valued and more importantly, system products.
I would start off by saying that we do think that the rate of growth in nonresidential construction, as we measure it in square footage, has slowed.
At the beginning of the year we were anticipating somewhere about an 8% or 9% growth over the course of the year.
Today, we would say that that number is probably closer to 5% or 6%, today.
So, we do see the rate of increase, the rate of growth, slowing as the year has progressed.
Now, when I look at our Business in particular, Nucor's business and our downstream businesses, which is frankly going to the nonresidential construction, we are feeling pretty good about our backlogs.
Our backlog today in all three of our downstream businesses, Vulcraft, Verco Building Systems, and Harris, our backlogs are the strongest they have been, the strongest they have been in a ten-year period, and when you couple that with the profitability that we talked about earlier, we've had a very good quarter for our downstream businesses.
Although we've seen the rate of improvement slowing, we still feel pretty good about our downstream businesses and their ability to complete in the construction market.
It's hard to take a look at ---+ that's a business that those products are long-term projects, some of them spanning several years.
So as you look at the length of time, it becomes cyclical.
The order entry rate becomes cyclical.
The shipping rates become cyclical.
It's hard to look at any one particular quarter compared to another particular period of time.
You've got to really look at the overall order entry rate and the backlogs and that what we use to track how we see the business performing.
I'll start with that one, but I would like to address both of them.
We are absolutely concerned about TPP passing in its present form.
Now, remember, all of us have not yet gotten a chance to take a look at the complete documents.
I'm not going to say whether or not we would favor it or we would struggle with it until we have an opportunity to read and study the entire document, which we have not had at this time.
That said, I will say that we are extremely, extremely disappointed that it's not ---+ that currency manipulation is not more strongly baked into that agreement.
At the end of the day, you can have all kinds of trade agreements and if a country manipulates its currency, it's guaranteed to have an unfair trade advantage.
And so we have ---+ what we are insisting on with TPP is that it does as it's promising to do, and that is to provide a more level playing field on which we can compete.
We at Nucor are absolutely convinced that if we were given a level playing field to compete upon we would compete successfully against any company or any country in the world.
So, we're taking a hard look at TPP before we come out with a definitive statement, but you are absolutely correct in saying that currency manipulation not being a part of that agreement makes us really struggle about the impact it will have on our Company, the impact it will have in our industry, the impact it will have on manufacturing in the United States, and the impact most importantly that it will have on middle-class Americans working hard to make a living and make a better life for themselves and their family.
You've got a little philosophical, so did I, okay.
Now, to infrastructure.
Once again I have to say that I'm disappointed in the administration and frankly in Congress in not taking advantage of what I consider a great opportunity.
Right now steel costs are down.
What a time to focus on rebuilding our infrastructure.
Energy, okay, how important is energy in going forward in the manufacturing world and for our country, frankly.
What a great time to be able to rebuild our energy infrastructure, our power grids.
Frankly, with the price of oil where it is today and the resulting price of gasoline at the pump, it seems to me like this would be a great time to be able to, and I know this is politically unpopular, but I'm not running for office so I can say it, okay, this would be a great time to put a little bump on the tax rate on gasoline and use that money to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure of this country.
What an embarrassment; 30, 40, 50 years ago our country was known for its infrastructure.
People came here to study how we build bridges and today you look at it and overall our bridges, our infrastructure as a whole just recently received a D+ and they were bragging on the fact that it wasn't a D, it was a D+.
We don't need infrastructure ---+ if we are going to have a manufacturing powerhouse of the 21st century, we need infrastructure that gets an A+ not a D+.
This is a great opportunity to rebuild our infrastructure.
I'm extremely disappointed that we continue to kick the can down the road on funding with three-month extensions after extension after extension.
I believe that there is something like 33 or 34 three-month extensions since 2008.
That's an embarrassment.
And I really hope that our leaders step up to the plate and do not miss this great opportunity to rebuild the infrastructure in this country.
But now, given the pricing that we're seeing a natural gas and that we expect to continue through 2016, we don't see any significant change in our drilling program.
There might be a couple of wells that we might have to drill in order to maintain the leases on the property and we would want to do that.
We've got some great property there and we want to maintain the leases on those properties.
Frankly, I don't see us changing our drilling program at this time.
And in terms of hedging, we feel confident that we see natural gas pricing remaining low for at least next year.
So, we're pretty comfortable with our gas position.
Can you repeat that.
I didn't catch the last part of that.
The wells are incurring a very small loss right now, but they are actually our cash flow positive.
So, it's not meaningful.
That was <UNK> <UNK>.
Okay.
Is that the end of the questions.
Okay.
Let me conclude by saying thank you to our shareholders for your confidence and your support.
Thank you to our customers, we truly appreciate your business.
We know that without you, there would be no us.
And I want to say thank you to my Nucor teammates for creating value for our customers, generating attractive returns for our shareholders, and building a sustainable future for all of us.
And most importantly, thank you all for doing it safely.
Thanks for your interest in Nucor.
Have a great day.
