speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the North American Construction Group earnings call for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity for analysts, shareholders, and bondholders to ask questions. The media may monitor this for call in listen-only mode. They are free to quote any member of management but they are asked not to quote remarks from any other participant without that participant's permission. The company wishes to confirm that today's comments contain forward-looking information and that actual results could differ materially from a conclusion, forecast or projection contained in that forward-looking information. Certain material factors or assumptions were applied in drawing conclusions or in making forecasts or projections that are reflected in the forward-looking information. Additional information about those material factors is contained in the company's most recent management discussion and analysis, which is available on CDAR and EGDAR, as well as the company's website at nacg.ca. I will now turn the conference over to Martin Farron, Executive Chairman.

speaker
Martin Farron
Executive Chairman

Thanks, Kenzie, and good morning to everyone. Well, after almost 25 years of doing quarterly and annual earnings calls, This will be my last one. I could not be happier that our great team of employees marked my final quarter as CEO with solid performance. In particular, they impressively met or exceeded all of our important goals in relation to safety, free cash flow, and diversification. 2020 was a really challenging year, and I'm very proud that we were one of very few companies so in control of our business to reset and beat financial guidance in an operating environment dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With that brief introduction, I will hand these quarterly calls over to Joe, but will remain on today to answer any questions directed at me. Beyond that, I will be actively supporting the executive team for the balance of the year. Jason will start us off here today with financials, and then Joe will provide his outlook for the future.

speaker
Jason
CFO

Thanks for those comments Martin and good morning everyone. Given a unique call here today, I'll start us on the safety content on slide five. As is often stated here at North American, no financial outcome is worth celebrating if our safety culture or safety performance has been compromised. Although yet again, we did achieve the industry benchmark for safety excellence for the sixth year in a row, We did see an uptick in incident frequency in 2020 and are refocusing our efforts as the macro environment and operating protocols stabilize. As Joe will touch on later with our 2021 priorities, we will be doing everything in our power to make sure everyone gets home safe. Slides six to 11 provide a summarized view of 2020. But as with past protocol, These prepared remarks will focus on the quarter to avoid repeating commentary from previous quarters. And as such, we'll begin the financial review on slide 12. Revenue for the quarter of $137 million was $53 million below last year's Q4 as we continue to recover from the widespread impacts of COVID-19. The majority of the $53 million variance relates to the strong quarter we had in 2019 at the Fort Hills mine prior to their decision to temporarily reduce the operating capacity at that mine. The year-over-year variance represents a 28% decline in revenue but is trending positively when compared to the negative 60% and negative 43% posted in Q2 and Q3 of this year. The corridor enjoyed fairly standard fall and winter weather conditions and the revenue achieved was largely as expected. The resiliency of the oil sands mines remains strong and as access restrictions and safety protocols become more routine and predictable, we will continue to see our productive operating hours and utilization increase. As Joe will explain later, the 58% operating utilization achieved in Q4 is trending in the right direction from the low of 24% in Q2. While, of course, critical to our results, reported revenue inherently lends itself to the programs where we directly provide our own heavy equipment and where we provide the labour force. Equity-accounted interest, being primarily NUNA, as well as our external maintenance and mine management contracts do not factor prevalently into the reported revenue figure. but are strong contributors to EBITDA and particularly drive the 35% of adjusted EBIT that we generated from outside the Fort McMurray region in 2020. Furthermore, our strategic contribution of heavy equipment to these joint ventures is also increasingly becoming an important part of our business. Therefore, we expect our reporting to adapt slightly in Q1 2020 as our diversification efforts continue and we look to accurately represent this to the readers of our financial statements. Moving back to reported results, gross profit margin of 17% reflected a solid operational quarter as mentioned by Martin in his opening comments. The key drivers of the margin were effective utilization of our fleet as well as discipline cost constraints that remain in place. The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy Program continue to support margins, and I'll touch on that later. With regards to cost constraints, Q4 was particularly impacted in a positive way by lower third-party costs, which has been a focus of ours. Lastly, margin was positively impacted by the mine management contracts, which provide strong returns. These positives in the quarter were offset by continued cost impacts at the Millennium Mine, as we continue to stabilize the equipment and labor performance of the complex operating conditions and the increasingly large heavy equipment fleet we have at that mine. Included in gross profit margin was depreciation, which was 19% of revenue for the quarter. The depreciation percentage in Q4 was higher then our expected rate given the continued higher proportion of larger equipment operated when compared to a typical three month period over the past few years. When stepping back and looking at the full very unique year of 2020, depreciation of 18% of revenue was higher than our historical run rate primarily due to this higher proportion of larger or ultra class equipment operated when compared to a typical fleet which includes smaller support equipment. Straight line depreciation on fixed assets during the low revenue quarters of Q2 and Q3 also contributed to the percentage increase. And lastly, the inefficiencies caused by poor haul road conditions, particularly in Q3, resulted in higher than usual operating equipment hours, which of course drives depreciation. General and administrative expenses in the quarter were $6.3 million, equivalent to 4.6% of revenue. This spending percentage was consistent with the trend in 2019 and was achieved through continued cost discipline and the complete halt in late Q1 of all discretionary and non-essential spending that has remained in place. Adjusted EBITDA of $46.2 million was consistent with Q4 2019 under, as we all know, a very different macro environment. Adjusted earnings for the quarter of $0.36 was consistent to Q4 2019, which generated $0.38. Interest specifically continues to trend nicely as the 3.7% rate and the $4.2 million cash expense in the quarter compares favorably to the 4.8% and the $5 million incurred last year. We continue to benefit from both reductions in posted rates as well as Competitive Equipment Financing. We provide slide 13 one more time for clarity to close out 2020 and as disclosed in detail in our financial statements, net income for the quarter includes $6.6 million of wage and salary subsidies received under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy Program. Consistent with past practice, these subsidies are presented with their correlated Employee Expenses in Project and Equipment Costs and G&A Expenses. These subsidies reimbursed us for a portion of the wages we paid and greatly aided our efforts in retaining workforce. As noted in the slide, the program reimbursed us for approximately 20% of the all-in employee costs, which in turn allowed us to maintain 20% of the headcount level we may have otherwise had to reduce either temporarily or permanently. From our perspective, the program has worked effectively and positions us well as we move forward here into 2021. Moving to slide 14, I'll summarize our cash flow. Net cash provided by operations of $63 million was produced by the business and includes a positive impact of $18 million of working capital changes that bolstered free cash flow. Similar to 2019, Cash from our joint ventures was collected in Q4 and was a primary driver in this working capital change. Sustaining capital of $26.7 million was dedicated to major component replacement in the heavy equipment fleet required for the stronger than expected recovery. As indicated, this spending level was required earlier than anticipated as we prepared not only for the strong finish to Q4 but also in preparation for the full year of 2021. Moving to our balance sheet on slide 15, liquidity of $148 million reflects our upsized credit facility that was extended on October 8th. EBITDA generation and positive changes in working capital had the correlated and desired effect of reducing our debt levels. On a trailing 12-month basis, Our senior leverage ratio as calculated by our credit facility agreement was 2.0 times which is well below our covenant of 3.0 and reflects our intentional capital allocation in Q4. To close out the financial review on slide 15, I'll briefly touch on our current debt structure. The three-year extension in October of our $325 million credit facility provides the stability and low-cost financing that we require over the next three years. As the slide highlights, we don't have a required financing decision to make until 2023. With those financial comments, I'll pass the call over to Joe.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks, Jason. On slide 18, You'll find our operational priorities for 2021. This slide summarizes our 2021 objectives, and I will walk through the objectives at a high level, get into some brief detail on the slides that follow, and finish up with our outlook, which as a spoiler alert, remains unchanged from what was presented back in October. Our number one priority as always is the health and safety of our workforce. We continue to maintain rigor, and our COVID protocols and have made these a part of our standard safe work procedures, including social distancing, masks and other personal protective equipment. Likewise, we're always looking to target zero harm in all areas of the business. And as outlined in our recently released sustainability report, we'll prioritize the progress and achievements of our ESG goals. Our equipment utilization priority links closely to our diversification objective, as we seek gains in utilization of the smaller end of the fleet which is uncommitted and underutilized in oil sands. The diversification objective is reflected in item four where we expect to continue the momentum of synergies of our NUNA group of companies as evidenced by the recent contract win at the Ontario Goldmine. With this diversification focus, we expect to continue to meet our oil sands customer needs with high utilization of our large fleet while at the same time and David Brunetta. We will also continue to pursue diversification in low capital intensity growth areas such as the US mine management contracts and major earthworks infrastructure projects. These contracts generally have fleets provided and as such don't affect our utilization calculations. but they do offer low to no capital entry and diversification into other commodities and regions. The operational priority items three and five relate to our continued push to vertically integrate equipment maintenance and expand on our external maintenance services. We will be expanding our Atchison maintenance facility with construction starting in late March and we'll complete the expansion in early Q4. The expansion includes four new shop bays, a new cold storage building and a full rooftop solar array which we estimate will supply about 15% of electrical demand. This expansion will also reduce our demand on maintenance labor in the field and provide more external maintenance service capacity. Last but not least on this slide is item six where we will continue to keep tight controls on our SG&A spend and ensure our administrative costs are necessary, effective and efficient. Moving on to slide 19. This is a new slide in our deck and shows our quarterly fleet utilization going back to 2015. A couple items I'd like to point out here. In the Q1 2015 to Q4 2018 period, you'll notice the high variance between quarters with consistent high usage in Q1, generally followed by Q4, then Q3, and lastly by Q2, which is most impacted by spring breakup and was quite exaggerated to say the least in 2016 with the wildfires. As we progressed our strategy, made the competitor fleet purchase and acquired the NUNA interest in late 2018, followed by the used ultra-class fleet purchase, we've been able to continue to post operating utilization above the positive trend line for all of 2019 and into Q1 2020. In 2019, we still had a bit of a Q2, Q3 trough, but not nearly as exaggerated as previous years. Obviously, the 2020 COVID impacts totally blew us off course, but you will see that we began to get back to normal in Q4, and we expect to get back to the 2019 pattern going forward with high utilization in Q1 and the more consistent utilization throughout the year. We also believe our increasing diversification and Countercyclical Summer Works, such as the recent award of the Ontario Goldmine, will continue to lessen the Q2 and Q3 troughs and provide more consistent and overall improved fleet utilization. Simply put, our goal is to keep that trend line sloping up and keep putting quarterly dots near or above that line. Flipping to slide 20, this is also a new slide in our deck and one that showcases why we push so hard for vertical integration in our maintenance business. As you can see, the component remanufacturing vendor partnerships we have developed over the last several years have enabled us to significantly lower component costs. A couple items of note that you can't see in this simple quantitative price comparison. One is that the partnerships we have today actually have better warranty and lower risk than our previous suppliers. Secondly, these lower costs, lower risk components from our partnerships combined with our highly skilled and cost-effective shop labor are the main ingredients in how we can do whole machine second life rebuilds for about half the new replacement costs. The economics are pretty simple to figure out, which is why we continue to add maintenance capacity, such as a component remanufacturing we completed last year and the expansion to the main shop we will do this year. With these facilities and a strong resource industry, we are confident our external maintenance business will rebound back to the level we were at in 2019 and continue building. These next two slides, 21 and 22, highlight the two main areas that drive our confidence in our diversification success and have led to the recent increase in EBIT target from 40% to 50% by the end of 2022. The bid pipeline slide 22 shows the increasing demand and the expanding opportunities in other resources and geographic regions where commodity prices are as strong as we've seen in many years. The contractor demand we are seeing isn't just for new mines, but we're also seeing several mine sites looking to contract mine satellite deposits to fill excess processing capacity. What's exciting about these type of projects is that they're generally have a high success rate in that the economics for incremental production are usually compelling and the barriers to expand existing sites are lower than establishing new mines. So in summarizing my long-winded story, demand in other resource areas is high, and we expect that demand to remain high. The second part of the story highlighted on slide 21 is what drives our confidence that we will win our expected share of this work. Obviously, the recent award to our JV of NUNA is the most tangible confidence builder. Similarly, we have a major Earthworks project that both NUNA and NACG had individually expressed interest in bidding, and the client recently suggested our combined team would be seen as a stronger submittal. So although less tangible, that feedback from clients likewise reinforces our confidence. Lastly, but probably most importantly, we simply believe in our strategy and that a safe, low-cost, experienced contractor with strong indigenous partnerships, an extensive and well-maintained fleet, and a commitment to sustainability will have significant competitive advantage to win these tenders. Moving on to the next slide, which is also a new slide in the deck, this slide highlights our recently released Inaugural Sustainability Report. This slide includes our three key focus areas and provides a new update on our shop expansion solar usage, but I would recommend reading the full sustainability report to all of our stakeholders. In future quarters decks, we'll use this slide to show the progress we have made towards our sustainability goals. I also kind of like the idea where we highlight safety in our first slide and end on sustainability before giving the outlook, which I will now do on slide 24. As briefly mentioned earlier, our outlook remains as presented in October. I won't revisit the details, but I'd highlight that the $70 million midpoint for this year's expected free cash flow is equal to about 20% of our net debt of $386 million and is a similar percentage of our current market cap of $360 million. Therefore, debt reduction and share buybacks are likely to be high on the list of capital allocation priorities with growth capital being allocated to the highly accretive shop expansion. I'll now hand the call back to Kenzie for the Q&A session.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone. If you wish to withdraw your question, you can press the pound sign. Once you have completed your questions and would like to return to the queue, please press star 1. After a brief pause, we will begin the Q&A section. Our first question comes from the line of Aaron McNeil with TD Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

speaker
Aaron McNeil
Analyst, TD Securities

Hey, morning, everybody. Joe, it looks like you've introduced the 2021 Revenue Diversification Goal and bumped your goal in 2022. So I guess I'm wondering, can you hit these targets with what you have in hand or do these targets imply new contract awards? I ask the question because it looks like your bid pipeline only starts to contemplate diversified projects in 2022 and beyond. That would be slide 22. And your newly introduced 2021 figure is higher than your old 2022 figure, if that makes sense. So I'm just trying to get a sense of what might have changed over the last quarter. given that the overall 2021 guidance is essentially the same.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

What you see for 2021 is what we have in our forecasting right now. So there's no anticipation in that 45 of being awarded anything new or quickly. And the increase to 50% in 2022 is based on our expectation of winning some of those external or other area awards that we have highlighted on that bidding pipeline page.

speaker
Aaron McNeil
Analyst, TD Securities

Okay, maybe you can also walk us through how these diversified projects in the bid pipeline will ultimately be fulfilled. You mentioned the new joint bid in your prepared remarks just a minute ago, but I guess I've got a couple of questions. First, will the majority of these projects flow through NUNA or through a NUNA North American joint venture? And then if that's the case, do the project sizes contemplated on the slide, are they total revenues for the project or just North American share? And then second, my understanding is that you've essentially fully committed on your current own fleet. So how do you plan to finance or bid or operate these new projects?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

There was a lot of questions in there. I'll try and follow them. As far as the bullets on the bid pipeline, just catch me if I miss any of them. So those are representative of our share or our share of NUNA. I'd say roughly a third of them are what NUNA looks at individually. There's only one or two of those that have us looking at together with NUNA and the rest of them are by ourselves or with other partners. So we do have other partners, especially in the larger infrastructure work in that. And then as far as how we fulfill these, most of the infrastructure and mine management work has their own fleets, as I mentioned before. In general, the commodity areas we look at, be it iron, ore, gold, diamonds, coal, in other areas, in other regions, are predominantly our smaller fleet, which and a number of other companies. We have roughly 160 of those sized trucks alone and they've been significantly underutilized in oil sands over the last several years. There likely would be some add-ons here and there but we don't expect a significant amount of capital to pursue any of these at this point. The bid pipeline They don't all even go forward these jobs. They get deferred. The major infrastructure job we're bidding, we actually started it four years ago and it's pushed back twice. So they have different levels of success in going forward. They may run into permitting hurdles. But one of the things that I spoke to in the presentation that I was excited about is that the satellite mining and resources in other resource areas When you have an existing mine site where permitting is already in place and they want to do an expansion or you have an underground mine that has a surface deposit that they contract mine, those have great success going forward because they really have very little barriers. The land disturbance is usually in place. We're confident that the normal amount will flow forward out of this, but that also there'll be a little extra because of those type of bids that have satellite deposits in that. Did I cover them all off, Aaron, or did I miss any?

speaker
Aaron McNeil
Analyst, TD Securities

No, that's great. That's perfect. So that's all for me. Martin, as you know, I used to cover this company before you took the helm. And, you know, the way you've transformed this company is nothing short of incredible. So wishing you all the best in the future. And, Joe, congrats again on the new gig. So that's all for me. I'll turn it over.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks, Martin.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Our next question comes from the line of Tim Monicello with ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead, your line is open.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

Hey, good morning everyone. Maybe I'll follow up on Aaron's question first. I'm just curious on the satellite mine opportunities, what percentage of the bid book would be those types of opportunities and would also be the lower capital intensity mine operating contracts?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I'd say we're somewhere in, there's probably 400 or 500 million of that that we're looking at right now that are satellite mines of existing operations, and they're more of the near-term projects.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

Okay, that's great. And then in past quarters, I guess through the downturn, it seemed like there was a number of projects in the oil sands that had been deferred. out of 2020 and into 2021. Obviously, commodity prices are a lot more constructive today than they were for most of the year. So are you starting to see those opportunities return?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

We haven't seen a lot right now, Tim, but that's not unusual. We usually don't see summer construction tenders until late February, even up to into April, because there's usually May, June starts So depending on the scope of that, often we don't hear about much until that kind of timeframe, end of Q1, beginning of Q2. Okay.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

I guess the upper end of your guidance for 2021, would that contemplate that work returning this year?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Not to any significant increase of what we've seen in the past. It's pretty much based on, you know, normalized 2019.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

Okay, got it.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

And then just last one for me.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

You guys talked a little bit about the Atchison expansion this year. Is that contemplated within the $5 to $10 million CapEx?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yeah, that's right in the middle of that, I'd say.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

Okay. If you guys win some of these other awards, do you think there's upside to that CapEx guidance for the year?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yeah, there's certainly, if there was some of these major bids that required, they might have some, you know, kind of some support equipment or maybe a unique piece of equipment that's associated with it. So, yeah, there could be, but it would also be associated with an increase in revenue.

speaker
Tim Monicello
Analyst, ATB Capital Markets

Right, right. Okay, great. That's a fantastic color. I appreciate it. Turn it back.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Fast with Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

speaker
Brian Fast
Analyst, Raymond James

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Just on the component rebuild facility, the chart in the presentation, I guess, really illustrates well the value add that you're achieving with that initiative. Are you now operating at full capacity at the facility and are the savings in average component costs exceeding your expectations?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

We are operating at our full capacity, what we expect it to. We've ramped up from when we started in February last year. We have more capacity if we wanted to put through it, but we'd have to get more external requests if we wanted to push more through. As far as what it's saving us and what it's doing, I think it's met or exceeded those expectations.

speaker
Brian Fast
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay, good. Thanks, Joe. And then I guess now that we hopefully have the worst of the pandemic behind us, are you starting to see those M&A channels open up or is that something that's on the radar right now?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

We're seeing some interest in activity. Obviously, it's very hard to do anything when it deals with hard assets like ours and traveling to see things or putting your hands on them is pretty important. So I think We've seen some smaller stuff and we keep our eyes open, always looking for something that's a creative and interesting and fits kind of our diversification strategy.

speaker
Brian Fast
Analyst, Raymond James

Okay, thanks. That's it for me and congrats, Martin, on the retirement and Joe with the new equipment.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks, Brian.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Our next question comes from the line of Maxim Suchet with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Hi, good morning. Morning, Max. I was wondering, going back to the shop expansion, is it possible to talk a little bit about, you know, how you think about payback terms on these investments in terms of, I don't know, it's like percentages, you know, like ROIC or time horizons, maybe any color on that front.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

That's, you know, the compelling economics I was talking about, Max, and this is very similar to what we saw in the remanufacturing facility when we built it. The paybacks are like three years. So it's pretty fast and I think because of the, we've had great success in filling our shop and getting skilled maintenance labor here to increase the hours and the throughput here. So we have high confidence we'll achieve that three year kind of payback in this expansion.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Absolutely, okay, no, that's helpful. And then do you mind maybe just commenting around the ramp up on the gold project, how that's going, you know, the conversations with the client, any sort of early issues, any learnings, maybe, yeah, any comment on that, please.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

As far as the Ontario gold mine, is that what you're talking about, Max? Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. I think typical of Most ramp-ups we've seen, especially given the parameters with COVID and that, you know, there's always a little disruption up front. Getting camps set up, getting lay-down areas, you know, there's always a bit of a scheduling, but nothing unusual. We expect, you know, it wasn't high activity levels up front, so the real high activity levels start up in kind of the April-May time frame. So we still fully expect to be and so on, hitting those project milestones at the same time as we had originally. Okay, that's helpful.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

And do you mind maybe just commenting a little bit around how we should be thinking about this winter work program versus maybe last year? Are the clients kind of back to sort of almost the same level of production activity levels or are we 10-15% below? granular directional color you might provide on that.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I'd say our level of activity is probably almost the same or maybe slightly lower, but not much. I'd say it's very similar to what we saw last year. I think the overall marketplace, the small truck side is about the same. The big truck marketplace is less, but we have more of it.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

So is it the way that we should be thinking about this is greater market share? Is that how you see this?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I think there's probably a little less overall being done, especially on the big dirt side in the overburden, but we're doing more of that. So our numbers are very slimmer, slightly below, I'd say.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Great. and I mean obviously given the fact that you know the underlying commodity rebounded pretty pretty aggressively are you seeing any bottling with changes from the customer perspective you know desire to outsource to a greater extent or or maybe not just again maybe anything from from that perspective yeah I haven't had a lot of tangible feedback from the clients I think

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

We'll probably hear and see more of that as we go into the summer because that's usually when you see capital project work. It's starting up in the summer. So like I said before, I think we'll have more insight into that, Max, here in the next few weeks, couple months. Overall, I'd say there's a long-term drive. I think the overburden volumes will continue to increase. Obviously, the one mine that had closed down is reopening and is producing. So we think that's gonna start to create some demand in the future. And overall, I think that the barrels slowing are higher. So it's typically the more barrels you're gonna produce, the more material you gotta move.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay, that's very helpful. And then just last question in terms of M&A, and maybe that's the question to Joe and Martin. In terms of the type of potentially assets that you're looking at, I mean, obviously, NOA has performed extremely well and in a resilient fashion throughout the crisis. The type of situations you're looking at right now, I mean, is there a bit more of a sort of distress component attached to it? Or how should we think about what's potentially on the horizon, if anything, from an acquisition perspective?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I'll let Martin comment for himself. And my point of view, Max, is we're looking for similar businesses that fit our skill set. We're not in different, in diverse areas for commodity and geography. So I think anything that fits that that's accretive is something we would look at. We're going to be capital conscious too. But those are will be the areas that we'd look at. I don't think there's a huge amount of distress out there that I've seen anyways. I don't know if you have anything you'd add, Martin?

speaker
Martin Farron
Executive Chairman

Yeah, I'd just say that there's strong demand for every single natural resource right now, so that takes away distressed assets pretty much, yeah, because all the assets are needed for projects. So I think our M&A will be focused upon geographic diversification maybe, I could say that, but that's all I'll add at this point.

speaker
Maxim Suchet
Analyst, National Bank Financial

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much, gentlemen. And again, Martin, you know, amazing job and Joe, congrats.

speaker
Martin Farron
Executive Chairman

Thanks, Matt. Thanks for the kind words from everybody. I appreciate it.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Our next question comes from the line of Richard Danley with Longport Partners. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

speaker
Richard Danley
Analyst, Longport Partners

Good morning. On slide 19, The question is, with NUNA, how does NUNA change the fourth quarter utilization perspective? It would seem like you don't get the same kind of highs. You get higher second and third quarter utilization, but lower fourth quarter.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

This is all just our own fleet, Richard, so this doesn't have NUNA's fleet utilization. You are correct, and they're typically counter-cyclical to us. So their fleets, if we had their fleet in here, you would probably see more of highs in Q2s and Q3 for them.

speaker
Jason
CFO

And we'll be looking to add NUNA into this, Richard, so...

speaker
Richard Danley
Analyst, Longport Partners

Right. And their fleet is the 270 that you mentioned. That's right.

speaker
Jason
CFO

Right.

speaker
Richard Danley
Analyst, Longport Partners

Okay. And then I'm curious on the solar only part of the Atchison expansion. How much does the solar of that size cost these days?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

We're doing a full rooftop on the shop side of the facility. I think it's roughly an area of about a half million dollars. The economics of it are pretty good, and I guess it's fairly break-even or slightly favorable at today's rates, but if you expect future power rates to increase, which I think is a pretty safe bet, then it'll actually be a positive for us going forward, along with, obviously, the reduction in emissions by producing your own solar power.

speaker
Richard Danley
Analyst, Longport Partners

Sure. Are you going to own that, or are you going to lease that?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

We'll own it. We did the same thing on our remand facility last year, Richard, and it's performed very well.

speaker
Richard Danley
Analyst, Longport Partners

I see. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And Martin, sorry, I'm going to miss your colorful commentary on stock price and other things, but thank you for the past.

speaker
Martin Farron
Executive Chairman

I'll miss your great questions too, Richard, so all the best to you too.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Thanks. This concludes the Q&A section of the call and I will pass the call over to Joe Lambert, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks, Kenzie. My thanks to all of you for joining us today and for your continued interest in our growth and diversification journey. I'm very excited about our opportunities to advance our business in 2021 and what we all hope is a much healthier and more stable environment.

speaker
Kenzie
Investor Relations

Thank you. This concludes the North American Construction Group Q4 2020 conference call.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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