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Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to BWX Technologies' third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the company's prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Mark Kratz, BWXT's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Mark Kratz
Thank you, Matt. Good evening and welcome to BWXT's third quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining me are Rex Jevedin, President and CEO, and David Black, Senior Vice President and CFO. On today's call, we will discuss certain matters that constitute forward-looking statements. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in the safe harbor provision found in today's earnings release and in the company's SEC filings. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to GAAP measures, and the quarterly materials that are available on the BWXT website. With that, Rex, I'll turn the call over to you.
Matt
Thank you, Mark, and good evening, everyone. Before I begin with a business update, I want to address the COVID-19 pandemic and share with you my thoughts about the future on that topic. We say at BWXT that we are people strong, and we see that value expressed every day across the business and the actions of our employees. And I want to thank them for their commendable efforts during the last 18 months through this awful pandemic. We've all adapted to new protocols to keep everyone as safe as reasonably possible and to protect our business. We deliver critical materials, components, and services for national security, clean energy, nuclear medicine, and nuclear environmental remediation. And these missions simply cannot be derailed by COVID-19. In compliance with federal executive orders, associated contract changes, and safety regulations concerning COVID-19, we are requiring all U.S. employees to be fully vaccinated. While this new hurdle may create some disruption to our business, either directly or through the supply chain, I fully expect our company, and our nation for that matter, to come together again over the next few months to stop this pandemic so that we can go about the business of fulfilling our shared and deeply important mission objectives. Now onto the business update. Earlier today, we reported third quarter earnings of 76 cents per share, our strongest quarter year to date as we executed well across all business lines. The nuclear operations group continued to reliably perform for our customers and to generate cash. The third quarter was no exception, achieving several important milestones and generating in excess of 20% operating margins. However, pandemic headwinds have remained persistent and were particularly acute during the first third quarters this year, aligning with the pre-vaccine and Delta variant surges in cases. While the business continues to perform, we've been unable to maximize shop volume hours and productivity due to lower headcount from COVID-related absences. Despite the pandemic headwinds, we are focused on delivering BWXT's high consequence systems as we continue to ramp into more Columbia-class content. At the same time, We are finishing up the last remaining work on aircraft carrier refueling, which will be absent from the business until the Navy begins preparing for Ford-class carrier refueling around the turn of the decade. We are encouraged by AUKUS, the new trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, announced in September. At the center of the agreement, the US and the UK will help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, and the US will share nuclear propulsion technology with Australia just as it has with the United Kingdom since the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defense Agreement. While it is early in the process and not part of our strategic baseline, BWXT stands ready to support the US government's contribution, whatever that may be. We look forward to engaging and learning more over the next 18 months as the Nuclear Powered Submarine Task Force determines the responsibilities and capabilities of the nations who are parties to this agreement. And the other government-focused segment, nuclear services, secured a flagship win last week with a $21 billion environmental management contract at DOE's Savannah River site. This was a key strategic success that validates our growth thesis of achieving market share gains in this segment. It is our aim to build on this success and receive future DOE service contract awards. Nuclear services also extended its track record for good award fee performance scores as reflected in operating income growth in the third quarter. The company's commercial operations in NPG are exhibiting good growth, up over 10% year-to-date, driven by a combination of higher revenue from commercial nuclear power and BWXT Medical. On the commercial nuclear power side, business and opportunities remain solid, supported by the well-managed execution of sizable life extension projects across the Can-Do fleet. Beyond that, we see additional clean energy opportunities materializing in small modular reactors. As I mentioned on the last call, we remain well positioned in this market as one of, if not the only, nuclear manufacturer in North America which produces large nuclear qualified components. We are excited to support the market as our forward thinking Canadian customers select partners to help them harness the benefits of new, safer, and more efficient nuclear technologies which they plan to deploy by the end of the decade. At BWXT Medical, the Technetium 99 generator project progressed well across all work streams during the third quarter as the testing phase ramps up. We successfully irradiated the first MOLLE targets at the Missouri University Research Reactor, and they were delivered to our facility in Kanata at the end of August in preparation for hot chemistry testing. I mentioned on the last call that we are utilizing E-beam accelerators for terminal sterilization in the radiopharmacy production line. This quarter, all of that equipment was received and installed, and we will be commissioning that equipment soon. Lastly, we successfully completed the factory acceptance test with OPG for the reactor access equipment that will be installed on the commercial reactor at Darlington. Related to that development, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has approved OPG's license amendment that permits installation and operation of that equipment on the Darlington reactor. Lastly, we have begun to ship the first components to the OPG site, and some of the early equipment has been installed. So overall, the project is tracking well, and the team is focused on a number of critical testing milestones to complete before we produce reference batches and make our submission to the FDA in the near future. Beyond the Tech 99 generator project, the medical business is taking strategic actions and laying the groundwork for building a world-leading nuclear medicine manufacturing business. We regard therapeutics as the most interesting part of the nuclear medicine business and currently manufacture one of the leading products in that market called TheraSphere. We recently increased production capacity for that product, which is BWXT Medical's largest as measured by sales volume. Meanwhile, our longer-term automation initiative announced earlier this year is progressing to plan. We are pleased to manufacture this finished product for Boston Scientific and are encouraged by recent strides they have made with the FDA, which expand medical indications addressed by the product, stoking future volume increases. And lastly, for BWXT Medical, we entered into an agreement with Bayer for the development and production of Actinium-225 and related partnership opportunities. Actinium-225 is a powerful radioisotope used in targeted alpha therapies and is one of a handful of nuclear isotopes that can potentially deliver radiation directly to cancerous tumors by combining it with tumor seeking medical targeting vectors. We are excited about the possibility of radiotherapeutic treatments and look forward to engaging with Bayer and other big pharmaceutical companies to co-develop these important products. This relationship is further evidence that our strategy of partnering with big pharma on drug development while occupying a crucial niche in the market as a global go-to isotope supplier and contract manufacturing partner is working and will enable growth in the burgeoning nuclear medicine therapeutic segment of the market. I'm well pleased with the progress we are making across the board in the execution of the core business. while simultaneously building for the future in a number of exciting initiatives, including micro reactors for space and national security applications, advanced nuclear fuels, and nuclear medicine. That said, given the ongoing pandemic headwinds, as well as unfavorable government contract award timing that I mentioned earlier, we are narrowing 2021 earnings guidance to the low end of the initial range of 305 to 320 per share. We maintain strong conviction in the long-term growth of VWXT, which is underscored by the fact that we returned more than $166 million of cash to investors through strategic share repurchases in the third quarter. We will continue to look at deploying cash towards opportunistic share repurchases going forward to meet or exceed our medium-term capital deployment commitments and other objectives. With that, let me turn it over to David to discuss third quarter results and other financial matters.
Mark
Thanks, Rex, and good evening, everyone. Starting on slide four of the earnings presentation with total company results, third quarter revenue was just shy of a half a billion dollars, down 4% compared with the third quarter last year, driven by fewer commercial power outages in the nuclear power group. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was about flat on lower revenue, resulting in 70 basis points of margin expansion, driven by more favorable contract adjustments and increasing depreciation expense. And third quarter earnings per share were down 4% to $0.76 as a result of lower operating segment earnings, higher commercialization costs related to the Tech 99 generator line, higher interest, and a higher tax rate. Those headwinds were partially offset by a lower share count and higher pension income. Year-to-date consolidated revenue was down 2% and earnings were down 8% per share. Third quarter and year-to-date EPS bridges can be found on slides 5 and 6. Moving to segment results on slides 7 and 8, the Nuclear Operations Group generated $387 million of revenue, consistent with a prior year period. NOG operating income was $79.5 million, up 16% versus the prior year period, as we recognize more favorable contract adjustments. As expected, NOG operating margins strengthened to 20.6% in the third quarter. Year-to-date, NOG revenue is down about 4% compared with the same period in 2020. Year-to-date operating margin remains strong at 19.1%, despite COVID-related operations inefficiencies and other supply chain disruptions related to planned capital equipment installations as part of our multi-year NOG campaign. In the nuclear power group, third quarter revenue was $83 million, down 23% compared with the third quarter last year, driven by lower field service activity due to the timing of planned outages, which was partially offset by higher medical isotope demands. NPG operating income was down primarily from a significant decrease in government funds received to offset expenses related to COVID, which totaled $16.6 million in the third quarter last year. Year to date, the NPG segment revenue is up 11%, but operating income is down about $10 million, primarily driven by the significant decrease in COVID wage subsidies. Lastly, The Nuclear Services Group generated $10.3 million of operating income in the third quarter. Both third quarter and year-to-date operating income is up about $3 million compared with the same respective periods last year, primarily from better contract fee performance. Moving to 2021 guidance on slides 9 and 10, as Rex mentioned, we are now narrowing 2021 EPS guidance to the low end of the initial range due to COVID headwinds and unfavorable contract award timing. We now expect earnings of 305 per share on revenue that is flat to up 1%. We also note that this narrowed guidance does not anticipate that COVID headwinds worsen in the fourth quarter or any significant disruptions due to government vaccine mandates set to take effect in December. 2021 CapEx is pacing a little quicker than we originally thought, and so we have updated capital expense to about $280 million, a true peak as we continue to anticipate this starting to revert back to maintenance CapEx levels by the end of next year. We have also narrowed segment guidance. NOG is now expected to be down about 1% driven by COVID disruptions. NPG has been revised to 9% growth given performance year-to-date with slightly lower operating margins of about 12.5%. NSG income has been narrowed to about $25 million, given delays in anticipated ward timing. We have also updated our expectation for corporate unallocated costs and share count, given our recent repurchase activity. Turning to slide 11 for an initial 2022 outlook. We see the opportunity for solid underlying growth from operations going into next year. We anticipate about 3% consolidated revenue growth with all segments contributing. We also expect nuclear service contract awards dependent on their timing and success, with the recent Savannah River Award a positive step in that direction. These tailwinds are partially offset by some modest incremental investments in the BWXT medical business and increasing depreciation expense. Net-net, we expect underlying EBITDA growth from operations to be in the mid to high single digits, which is aligned with our medium-term guidance. From an earnings perspective, growth from operations is anticipated to contribute 10 to 30 cents per share, with new contract awards representing the majority of the variability in that range. EPS will also benefit from a lower share count, which is partially offset by higher interest expense, and lower other non-pension income. These tailwinds would have resulted in earnings of about 320 to 340 per share for next year prior to any pension changes. However, the enacted American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, included provisions to help corporations defer pension funding through utilization of discount rates that are higher than current interest rates. Given our funding status, the adoption of higher interest rates for CAS results, and a reduction of CAS recoverable pension costs that we had previously expected to maintain in the P&L through 2024. Although CAS pension income is rolling off quicker than previously anticipated, we remain confident in our EBITDA growth guidance, as we had always contemplated this as a future headwind in the latter half of our medium-term framework. With our actuarial update, we now anticipate a $17 million pension headwind in 2022, which would negatively impact earnings by about 15 cents per share. This results in an initial 305 to 325 EPS outlook for next year. We have provided an updated pension outlook on slide 12. As a reminder, the FAS-CAS differential was reported in segment operating income primarily in the nuclear operations group. In conjunction with the provisions under ARPA, we do not anticipate material FASCAS benefit in the future years in operating income. And with that, I will turn it back over to Rex for closing remarks.
Matt
Thank you, David. We look forward to sharing more details about BWXT, its unique capabilities, competitive positioning, and our strategic growth plans and financials that feed into our medium-term outlook at the BWXT Investor Day in about two weeks. You'll hear more about the investments we have made in our core defense markets as well as other adjacencies where BWXT's nuclear technologies can offer differentiated solutions in global security, clean energy, nuclear medicine, and microreactor power and propulsion applications. These investments position us well even in a flatter defense budget environment as we continue to manage the business over a longer-term horizon. We believe our strategy and forward thinking will enable meaningful long-term shareholder value as we strive to maintain industry-leading performance that you have grown to appreciate as shareholders of this unique and durable company. With that, operator, let's open the line for questions.
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchstone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our . Our first question will come from Peter Armant with Baird. Please go ahead.
Peter Armant
Yes, good evening, Rex and David. Hey, Peter. Hi, Peter. Rex, maybe if you could just give us a little more color on sort of the persistent COVID disruptions. Are you having any sort of supply chain issues that you think are watch items that we should be thinking about going into 22?
Matt
Yeah, Peter, I would say that most of the headwind has really been internal. We had this large peak in Q4 and Q1, and on the worst days, we had several hundred people out, either sick or in quarantine. or out for deep cleaning. So we saw that peak then. And then in the third quarter, we saw this Delta variant peak out at nearly 200 a day across our North American plants. So we've seen that kind of impact. In the supply chain, not so much in the way of materials and forging and things like that that show up in long-lead materials, but we have seen an impact from these large capital campaigns, this large capital equipment related to the NOG capital campaign, where we've had trouble, for example, getting technicians into the plant to help us install equipment and things like that. And so what that's done is impacted volume through the shops and impacted some planned production capacity that we expected to be there as we ramped throughout the year this year. So those are really the two things. It's absences in the plant just from quarantine and from sickness. And then the large machine tool installation has been somewhat delayed by that.
Peter Armant
And then just as a follow-up on the Savannah River Award, can you maybe walk us through a little bit how that contract ramps up for you?
Matt
Sure. So to give you a little granularity on the timing, Peter, there's a period that leads up to debriefs. to the successful and unsuccessful offers, that's a couple of weeks. And that's followed by a five to 10 day protest period. And assuming we got through all of that in a reasonable timeframe, say in the next 30 days, then you could begin what's called transition, where it's a non-fee bearing part of the contract, but it does provide you with meaningful absorption. And those periods normally last from three to four months. So if things progressed, you know, sort of on a good timeline for us, and we were able to avoid a protest period, then you could see us getting into full production, if you will, late in the first quarter next year.
Peter Armant
Okay. And just one quick one for David. Just on the CapEx increase, can we assume that that amount that you've increased would be the amount that would kind of fall out of 22, or is this just a step up in broader terms? Thanks.
Mark
No, it'll be shifting in years. So we still anticipate that 2022 will still be a high CapEx year for us. At the end of 22, we will be reaching the run rate of what we call our maintenance CapEx of 3.5% to 4%. Great.
Peter Armant
Thanks so much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question will come from Pete Skibitsky with Alembic Global. Please go ahead.
Pete Skibitsky
Hey, good evening, guys. Hey, Rex, just another question on the impact of COVID. Do you guys have a sense of what percentage of the, you know, the factory population is vaccinated? I'm just wondering, you know, is it pretty low and that's why so many people were out and, you know, to what extent the mandate might impact your 4Q and into 2022 or You know, today there was news out that maybe there were some workarounds around the mandate, so maybe you could just maybe shed a little more light on all that.
Matt
Yeah, I'd be happy to do that, Pete. You know, we haven't been specific about broadcasting our vaccination rates, but they've been quite good, particularly strong in Canada, and really I'm well pleased with the vaccination rates generally in the U.S. plants. So we've got a bit of a gap there between the fully vaccinated and the unvaccinated, but it's manageable. um, in my estimation. Um, so I feel pretty good about that, but, but we're certainly going to have some challenges around, um, you know, getting all the way there based on the federal mandate.
Pete Skibitsky
Okay. Okay. So, so yeah. So there's still kind of a range you're thinking about for, for, for Q just from, from COVID risk.
Matt
Uh, so I, so we haven't really factored any, any of that, that additional COVID risk into our numbers. Um, But so we're hoping to manage through it in a reasonable way is the way I would put it.
Pete Skibitsky
Okay. Okay. And I think I missed maybe what you guys said in the opening remarks about MPG. MPG, the revenue was a little bit light by my forecast in the third quarter, but you raised the full year guidance. Are you just seeing more outages crop up in fourth quarter at MPG?
Matt
Yeah, we've got a good, strong fourth quarter for a couple of reasons. One is We've got some nice material volume and profit in some of our higher margin contracts. And we've also got a bit of growth in the medical business in the fourth quarter. So we're expecting a good, strong fourth quarter in NPG and also in NOG, obviously implied in our guidance. And NSG typically delivers a strong fourth quarter itself. So I'm really kind of expecting good numbers across the board in 4Q.
Pete Skibitsky
Okay. Thanks, guys. I'll hop back in queue. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Bob Labig with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.
Bob Labig
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Rex, you mentioned, obviously, preparing for the FDA submission and talked a little bit about the technetium. Could you give us an update on where you are in terms of running the hot chemistry program? And what else is necessary to be done before you do submit to the FDA and if it's still on track for kind of December, January, as you've been talking about?
Matt
Sure, Bob. Yeah, we're going through cold runs right now in radiochemistry. That's to kind of shake out the equipment with, obviously, with non-irradiated material. Chemistry behaves the same, so it's a very instructive thing to do. We mentioned in the script here that we have all the equipment in for the terminal sterilization That was kind of the long pole in the tent. That E-beam sterilization equipment is now in and fully integrated, and we're going through checkout and validation of that. That's in the radiopharmacy line. So to kind of review the bidding, I always talked about four major work streams. There are other things, of course, but four major ones. The construction work stream is essentially done. The radiochemistry line is done and going through cold chemistry runs right now. Radio farm line is just about fully assembled and ready to go into validation. And then the target delivery system, the reactor access equipment, we call it sometimes, was completed, integrated, tested, and is now being disassembled to take down to the reactor itself. So very mature in all four work streams. We'll start hot chemistry very shortly. That's just around the corner for us. In terms of the FDA package, I was sort of a little mushy in my statement around this the last time that we would submit it around the end of the year. We're sticking to that schedule. We will not get the FDA package in in 21, but sometime in the first quarter of 2022. So more or less on track. Got it.
Bob Labig
Okay, great. Thanks. And then obviously you gave the initial outlook for 22. What are some of the biggest swing factors from the NOG side in terms of your visibility into delivering on 22's expectations?
Matt
Feel very solid around what we're going to get from NOG, Bob. You know, we have organic growth in the 3%, 4% range in NOG. It just happens that the pension headwind offsets that on the earnings side. But we are entering into government fiscal year 22, so we have long-lead materials on the next Columbia ship set. So we'll have that tailwind, if you will. And we also have been building out the volume capacity, building out the production capacity across all the sites, as you know, for the last two or three years. And so we're nearing the end of that campaign and so should be able to produce a higher volume numbers next year. And that's what is in the plan for us. So higher volume plus long lead materials are both tailwinds for us. The headwinds are, as I mentioned in the script, we've got the reloads coming out. The last of the Nimitz reloads is really coming out of the business in 22. And although it's not profitable on the margin, the missile tubes are coming out. So that's a revenue headwind and an absorption headwind. And so those things don't go in our favor. but altogether feel confident about the NOG picture for next year. Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator
You're welcome. Our next question will come from Michael Charmoli with Truist. Please go ahead.
Michael Charmoli
Hey, good evening, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe, Rex, just to stay on, you know, 22, I guess, you know, Maybe relative to some of the other defense guys, seems like, you know, some of the headwinds are more internal for you guys. And maybe I would have expected, you know, next year that this seems like internal timing. And if you're not really modeling or planning for anything to get worse, why aren't we seeing more of a NOG pick up next year? I mean, I wouldn't think a CR would have an impact. Certainly, your submarine programs are well-funded and well-supported. Is there any other conservatism built into that NOG outlook in terms of some of the challenges you're seeing now?
Matt
No, I don't think so, Michael. It looks like good organic growth to me. in that 3%, 4% range. And, of course, like I said, it's the Columbia continuing to ramp up, the second Columbia in the shop, you know, minus the reloads and minus the missile tubes. And so it's a pretty good-looking growth story from my perspective.
Michael Charmoli
Anything else on the Virginia class or how you guys are looking or anything you're hearing from the customer on how that potential third is going to shake out?
Matt
No, you know, we continue to model and to plan for two Virginias a year, and then the Columbia's layered in on their schedule and obviously Ford on its schedule. So we don't build that into our baseline and into our forecast, and so any third Virginia would be an upside surprise. Now, of course, there are interesting possibilities around this AUKUS program, so we could see what that holds for us. But again, early days on that, and we don't know what, if any, contributions we have to that program.
Michael Charmoli
Got it. Got it. And then just, David, on free cash flow, I know you've got the medium term target, you know, 85% or greater conversion, you know, based on one of your prior answers. I guess we get back to that. maintenance capex spend in sort of 4Q of next year. So any more directional color on free cash flow? I mean, it's a little bit better than this year, presumably, as some of that capex winds down. But how should we be thinking about free cash flow?
Mark
Yeah, so we're, you know, as we state in our medium-term guidance, we've given some ideas of what we're going to be giving back. 23 is the year where you will see a you know, demonstratively jump in free cash flow because you are going to the maintenance capex. So, you know, I, you know, it'd be a modest increase in 22. I mean, we're not going to provide what that is, but, you know, capex is going to be lower, but it's still very strong. Got it. Got it. All right.
Michael Charmoli
Great. Thanks, guys. I'll jump back in the queue. All right. Thanks, Michael.
Operator
Our next question will come from David Strauss with Barclays. Please go ahead.
David Strauss
Good evening. Thanks for taking the question. Good evening. The Savannah Award, can you talk about what your share is on that amongst the team arrangement, and what could this be in annual revenue for you as the program kind of ramps up?
Matt
Yeah, so, David, we don't typically disclose equity share for competitive reasons. And then on the revenue question, we don't generally do not consolidate revenue on these kind of programs because we're normally in a minority equity interest position, even if we're the lead equity holder in the joint venture. So we don't bring across that revenue, and frankly, we don't want to bring it across because of the margins that are associated to it. on the big management and operations jobs. Those fee pools are in the two, three percent range, and the environmental ones may be up to five, six, seven percent. So we don't consolidate those margins, sorry, those revenues. And so you can think about this as an EBITDA booster to the business. So the net effect of that kind of a business is to give us nice margin accretion when these large ones come in. So what you'll see is equity income across onto the books and nothing else.
David Strauss
Okay. And then the last question, you were talking about 85% free cash flow conversion on net income. David, what should a number look like as converting EBITDA into free cash flow? Do you think you guys can convert at a 60%, 70% level of EBITDA into free cash flow? once you get the normal kind of CapEx levels?
Mark
Yeah, I'd have to calculate that. So, I mean, I think that, you know, right now we'll just talk about the 85% of free cash flow in the medium to long term. But obviously, you know, from an EBITDA standpoint, your EBITDA is growing because you do have depreciation growing in the out years. Right. But, I mean, so we'll give – stick to the – free cash flow for a while and see how we go there.
David Strauss
Okay. And last one for me, you know, still kind of yet to be determined whether this R&D capitalization will actually happen. But if it does, what kind of exposure do you guys potentially have there, if any?
Mark Kratz
Very little.
Matt
Very little. Our R&D budget and the percentage of sales is pretty modest. Yeah. Okay.
David Strauss
All right. Thanks very much.
Matt
Thank you. Thanks, David.
Operator
Our next question will come from Ronald Epstein with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Ronald Epstein
Good evening guys. Um, can you give us a feel for, um, the MPV of, uh, the CASFAS or, or another way? I mean, are there any significant pension prepayment balance that you guys have?
Mark
So, so let me step back there a little for you. And first of all, I can give you the prepayment credits that we currently have. It's about $100 million. You know, obviously, you know, we talked at the beginning of the year and we were still assuming, you know, a four-year period of time. And now, you know, so that you could have calculated what we thought the prepayment credits were then and then, you know, what they are now assumed to be today. You know, the big difference for us is the fact that when we started the year, we weren't going to take advantage of the yield curves on the pension funding because we don't really have funding. We're pretty well funded. But the other side of that coin is that the government decided to take advantage of that yield curve on what they pay us. And so that does make a change in our funding. So when we got our actuary results here in the third quarter, we saw all of that next four years you know, push out quite a bit in time, the government now will be taking advantage of market returns and to help their funding. So that takes away from our funding. So that would be the biggest change. There was also some market returns in there. But, you know, the NPV, you know, the $100 million just depends on when we have the funding that has to go out to determine how that cash would flow. But we got $100 million in credits roughly.
Ronald Epstein
Got it, got it, got it, got it. And what's, you know, how should we think about the organic growth for NOC?
Matt
For NOG? NOG, did you mean, Ron?
Ronald Epstein
Yep, NOG, yep.
Matt
Yeah, I think, you know, we've laid out in the investor deck sort of a notional view of what that organic growth looks like. It's, you know, the growth signal that we have is around Columbia, And we've got that layered in into the future years.
Ronald Epstein
Okay. Okay. And then maybe one last final one. How do we think about the margin performance when you guys have a lower level of long-lead materials? Is it right to assume that on the long-lead stuff it's just lower margins?
Matt
No. When we have long-lead materials in the mix, it tends to be a good margin for us, and so that's a slightly better mix for us with long-lead materials.
Mark
So on the margins, I also want to reiterate the fact that, you know, for years we've been saying that our margins in the NOG business are going to be in the high teens with room for improvement for CAS-FAS reimbursement. So I reiterate that our margins in the NOG business will continue to be in the high teens.
Ronald Epstein
Got it. Okay. Thank you, guys. Thanks.
Operator
Our next question is a follow-up from Pete Skibitsy with Alembic Global. Please go ahead.
Pete Skibitsky
Yeah, thanks, guys. Just want to see if I can tie it up on the CAAS recoveries, David. So are we expecting now that, because I think your CAAS recovery, you plan on going to zero previously around 2024, 2025. Is that still the case, or does that change now and it stays around that $10 million to $12 million level for a longer period?
Mark
The CAAS expense, I think we forecasted in our next, or in our presentation, that next year, 2022, the recoverable CAS costs about $12 million. We do have some active plans, mainly hourly plans. So there will always be some active costs inside of CAS that will carry out into the future.
Pete Skibitsky
So... Is that $12 million? Is that a decent run rate to carry that out at for a while after 2022? Yes.
Mark
Okay.
Pete Skibitsky
Okay. And then... Rex, can you ballpark us on the Nimitz refuelings? I guess just a couple things. The Truman doesn't re-deliver, I think, until like 2029, 2030. Did you guys just build ahead for that? And I was just wondering if you could maybe ballpark for us the magnitude of the headwind from refuelings in 22 and maybe 23.
Matt
Yeah, Pete, we've never been specific about the scale of that because of some disclosure limitations that we have. But, yes, we've built ahead, and the last unit is coming through the shops right now. Okay, okay, okay.
Pete Skibitsky
Rex, we need to wait maybe a couple more weeks or so before we find out if we get a protest on the Savannah River.
Matt
That's right. It'll be – see, debriefs are within about a week and a half, I believe, and then there's either a five- or a 10-day protest period, depending on which agency – is involved in adjudicating protests. And so I think we'd have real clarity about a month from now.
Pete Skibitsky
Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Operator
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mark Kratz for any closing remarks.
Mark Kratz
Thanks. This concludes today's conference call. As a reminder, please join us in person or virtually on November 16th for BWXT's 2021 Investor Day. If you have further questions, please call me at 980-365-4300. Thank you again for joining us this evening.
Operator
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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