speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity for analysts and shareholders and bandholders to ask questions. The media may monitor this 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 the participants' permission. The company wishes to confirm that today's comments contain forward-looking information and the actual resource 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 EDGAR as well as on the company's website at nacg.ca. I'll now turn the conference over to Joe Lambert, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks Jennifer. Good morning everyone and thanks for joining our call today. I'm going to start with a brief overview of our Q1 2025 operational performance. Beforehand and over to Jason for the financials and then I'll conclude with the operational priorities, a review of our growth opportunities in Australia and infrastructure markets, our expanding bid pipeline, our backlog and our outlook for the remainder of 2025 before taking your questions. On slide three, our Q1 trailing 12-month total recordable rate of 0.34 improves upon our Q4 results and remains better in our industry-leading target frequency of 0.5. We continue to advance our systems and training with key focus on human and organizational performance principles commonly called HOP and look to continue the trends with our ultimate goal of getting everyone home safe. On slide four, we highlight some of the major achievements of Q1. While we struggled to overcome the weather impacts to our business, we were able to achieve some meaningful accomplishments. We expanded our heavy equipment fleet in Australia by over 10% boosting capacity to meet growing demand. In Canada's oil sands, we achieved an impressive 68% equipment utilization rate in the quarter with February peaking at 70% reflecting our focus on operational efficiency. Early stage development and heavy civil infrastructure work began at a major copper mine in New South Wales positioning us for long-term value in the critical mineral sector. The Fargo project continued to advance surpassing 65% completion with final construction now underway in Q2. Financially, we reached a new milestone with trailing 12-month combined revenue hitting a record 1.5 billion. Our discipline management approach kept administrative costs at .9% meeting our internal targets. Additionally, our parts and components supply and services agreements with Finning delivered a full quarter of impact, effectively combining our in-house capabilities with their expertise to drive improving cost and equipment utilization. Moving on to slide 5, you can see that the Q1 utilization of 68% was the same in both Canada and Australia. Our Canadian fleet improved to our best quarterly utilization since the winter of 2022-2023 and while we expect Canadian utilization to drop modestly in Q2, we also fully expect it to then trend back up, approaching our 75% target by year end. Australia took a major hit in Q1 due to rain impacts, but we remain confident in our ability to hit our target range of 85% in late Q2 to early Q3. With that, I'll hand it over to Jason for the Q1 financials.

speaker
Jason
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide 7, the headline EBITDA number of $100 million and the correlated .5% margin were both negatively impacted by the weather in Australia and Canada, which Joe mentioned and will be reviewed in the next slide. We included a comment here about our steady growth since the second quarter of 2024, which was our weakest revenue quarter post the McKiller acquisition. We generated $330 million of combined revenue in that quarter after absorbing a 25% reduction in Canada from the first quarter. Since that time, our combined revenue has been steadily climbing and the $392 million of revenue this quarter represents an overall increase of 18%. But importantly, when just looking at Australia and Canada, it represents a 25% increase in just three quarters. And when looking one level further, the Canadian operations posted an encouraging top line of $178 million this quarter, which is impressively 45% higher than the second quarter of 2024. Moving to slide 8 and our combined revenue and gross profit, McKiller Group and DJI Trading, which we combine as Heavy Equipment Australia in our results, were up $24 million on a quarter which was impacted by heavy rains in February and March, and during which McKiller posted equipment utilization of 68%, their lowest mark since acquisition. The reason for the quarter over quarter increase is due to the 25% increase in fleet capacity since March of last year, with 10% of that increase coming since year end. This top line positive variance was further bolstered by higher revenue in the oil sands region, and as previously mentioned, was importantly and significantly up from the fourth quarter. Our share of revenue generated in the first quarter by joint ventures was consistent with last year as higher scopes in the Fargo Mori project were mostly offset by lower scopes within the Nuna Group of Companies, as well as the discontinuation of the break supply joint venture. Before getting into the weather, our reported combined gross profit margin of .2% was impacted by unusually high early component failures in Canada, which we have adjusted for in the adjusted EBITDA margins. Excluding these abnormally high component failures, which we have addressed through the reorganization of our component supply approach, overall combined gross profit was approximately 14%, and Canada's gross profit margin was approximately 8%. As mentioned, the weather significantly impacted gross margins, with the dual impacts of lower top line revenue, not covering overheads, and the increased costs incurred during idle time. In Australia, the consistent rain resulted in poor utilization as equipment remained parked for significant amounts of time, particularly at the Carmichael mine, and this was compounded by increased costs incurred for site cleanup and dewatering activities. In Canada, February was the month that had the most serious impact on operations, with the extreme cold requiring both equipment to be idled for extended periods of time, as well as the incurrence of costs to keep personnel and equipment warm. All told, it is estimated, based on historical precedent, that the weather impacted gross margins by between 5 and 7% in the quarter. Moving to slide 9, Q1 EBITDA essentially matched last year as the revenue increase was fully offset by operational challenges. As mentioned, the .5% margin we achieved reflected the weather we were required to operate through. This margin level is not indicative of where we see our business operating at, with cumulative EBITDA margins since the McKellar acquisition at 29%, which covers over $2 billion in revenue and an eventful 18-month time frame. Included in EBITDA is general administrative expenses of $11.1 million in the quarter, an equivalent to .3% of reported revenue, which is below the 4% target we've set for ourselves. Going from EBITDA to EBIT, we expensed depreciation equivalent to 16% of combined revenue, which is much higher than the 14% posted in 2024 Q4 and reflects the high idle hours incurred in Canada, particularly in February. Again, this 16% is much higher than our expected run rate moving forward, given we've been at approximately 14% since the McKellar acquisition in 2023 Q4, and we fully expect 2025 to finish in that range. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter of 52 cents reflects the steady EBITDA performance, but was significantly impacted by the $11 million of increased depreciation, which is equivalent to 30 cents per share. Interest in taxes were generally consistent with last year, and the average cash interest rate for Q4 was 6%. Moving to slide 10, I'll briefly summarize our cash flow. Net cash provided by operations prior to working capital of $76 million was generated by the business, reflecting EBITDA performance net of cash interest paid. Free cash flow usage was impacted by our front-loaded capital maintenance programs, as well as a $25 million draw on working capital accounts. Moving to slide 11, net debt levels ended the quarter at $867 million, an increase of $11 million in the quarter, as the free cash flow usage and growth spending required debt financing, but was mostly offset by the $73 million of debentures that were converted into shares during the quarter. Net debt and senior secured debt leverage ended at 2.2 times and 1.8 times. Of notes, in subsequent quarter end, we issued $225 million of .75% senior unsecured notes, which had no impact on net debt leverage ratio, but decreases pro forma senior debt leverage to 1.3 times. ROIC of 10.6%, as at March 31st, decreased more than a percentage point in the quarter, as the high depreciation and capital spending in the quarter, with normalized levels having resulted in an approximate 12% ROIC. As we get the full trailing 12 benefit of the increased Australian fleet, and with the Fargo project achieving certain financial milestones, we expect to see a trend back to our company target of 15%. With that, I'll pass the call back to Joe.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks, Jason. On slide 13, we highlight our 2025 priorities. These priorities remain unchanged. Safety is our social license to operate and our moral obligation to our employees and will forever be our highest priority. Equipment is our largest, most controllable cost and high utilization drives return on capital and financial performance. Geographic and commodity door education is both our growth engine and opportunity to engage underutilized assets and increase the stability and consistency of our business. Customer satisfaction, especially with our Queensland and Alberta markets, in which we have worked continuously for many decades, is what drives our expectations for 100% renewal rates in those markets and opportunities to increase scope with expected increase in client production and customer service forecasts. As we have grown, we have also relied on expanded and upgraded systems to increase our management information, cost monitoring, and ability to enter new markets such as unit rate work in Australia, which we have had recent success with our win and smooth start-up of the copper mine in New South Wales. Lastly, we continue to look to improve and expand our internal maintenance skills, both to improve our internal costs and also to expand our revenue streams through external customers. As I have stated previously, we believe our in-house component rebuilds, whole machine rebuilds, telematics, and strategic partnerships with OEM dealer will provide increasing opportunity for external maintenance sales. I don't have a slide specifically on tariffs, but this is as good a place as any to clarify. We have had two vendors identify increases in cost due to tariffs. One is a U.S. engine manufacturer who would advise of a 3% to 4% increase due to tariffs, which isn't far beyond normal expected annual increases. The other is a U.S.-based tire manufacturer for our ultra-class truck tires, which has a 25% tariff increase in price. While we are researching other suppliers, there are limited ultra-class tire manufacturers. Overall, we expect the tariffs to potentially raise our internal costs less than one half of 1% over the next year or so, should the tariffs remain in place. We continue to monitor the potential impact of U.S. tariffs, but at this point believe it's negligible. On slide 14, we highlight the growing civil infrastructure spent in our key markets of the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Aging infrastructure, energy transition, climate resiliency, and tariff threats pushing nations to seek more resource independence are all driving what we believe is a vastly growing opportunity in the civil infrastructure markets. We see the desired speed for development also lowering the risk for contractors. The growing opportunity and lower risk is why we believe we can build our infrastructure business to about 25% of our overall business in the next three years. We have a new executive member starting with us in a couple of months, and she will be leading our infrastructure business in what we see as an exciting area for growth. Stay tuned as we provide more information and analysis on this expanding infrastructure market over the summer. On slide 15, we highlight what we believe is our biggest organic growth opportunity going forward, and that is our continued expansion in Australia. The Australian contractor marketplace is massive and growing. Western Australia in particular is 50% of the active mines in the entire country, and we have less than a 1% share of that market. We have just started to see initial tender packages and budgetary proposals coming out of Western Australia, and believe we will begin to receive RFPs in late Q2, early Q3 for 2026 project starts. Slide 16 highlights a strong bid pipeline of $15 billion with a massive increase of around $4 billion in our upcoming infrastructure opportunities. The addition of a major equipment operator labor supply tender and oil sands, continued strong activity and diversified resources in Canada, and a couple of major opportunities for early renewal, extensions, and expansions with our existing Queensland clients in Australia. We have had a 100% success rate in renewals with our Queensland clients and look to continue that trend. Moving to slide 17, with the Q1 typical quarterly backlog consumption, our pro-form backlog now sits at $3.2 billion and is a decrease of about $300 million from our year-end 2024 backlog. With the previously mentioned activity level in our bid pipeline, we expect our backlog to hit a record $4 billion mid-year this year and demonstrate increasing geographic and resource diversification. On slide 18, we have provided our outlook for 2025 with unchanged key metrics from year-end. We believe we can make up for the Q1 weather impacts in both Australia and Canada over the course of the year and expect the summer construction activity in North America will be busy, particularly in Q3. We also expect that the growth assets we have added into our Australian operations will be fully operational by the beginning of Q3, providing what will be another busy second half of our year. Lastly, regarding capital allocation going forward, we have been active in our NCIB, having purchased and canceled 250,000 shares since inception to quarter end, demonstrating our commitment to shareholder-focused allocation. We have increased liquidity with our high-yield raise, which gives us confidence to continue investing in our NCIB and provides us funds should we need to settle or remain convertible debt with cash, which is now a current liability. The high-yield also provides additional funding should we need letters of credit for future infrastructure bids or fund other high-return investment opportunities. Q1 weather dragged down our start of the year, but we see great opportunities, improved financial performance, and continued shareholder-friendly investments going forward. With that, I'll open up for any questions you may have.

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. And should you wish to cancel your request, please press star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Adam Tallimer from Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.

speaker
Adam Tallimer
Analyst, Thompson Davis

Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning, Adam. Can you help us a little bit thinking about seasonality for the rest of the year? I'm curious how you guys think Q2, my trend versus Q1 from a top line and an EBITDA perspective.

speaker
Jason
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I can take that one, Adam. We actually see top line and EBITDA being quite consistent with Q1. The oil stand is seasonally slower. It's less of an impact in our more diversified business, but we see utilization of the oil stand coming down a little bit. But with lower depreciation, we see on the EPS side a nice increase in Q2. So top line and EBITDA consistent with Q1.

speaker
Adam Tallimer
Analyst, Thompson Davis

Great. And then, Joe, can you just expand? You talked about a new hire on the infrastructure side and just maybe what you're seeing for large infrastructure bidding in the U.S. and Canada.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yeah, I mean, predominantly what we're looking at recently has been a big increase in P3s in the U.S. The ones we're looking at, there's a couple of dozen actually. It's all around energy transition and climate resiliency. So there's quite a few pumped hydro projects. We're seeing quite a few dam construction, levee raises around flooding. We see a lot of water retention in the western U.S. And so we really just got into the business development side of this, which is the big ads you're seeing. Those are all P3 projects. About half of them are the U.S. Corvette engineers. And yeah, we've got what we think is a great leader for that business and our overall business development starting here at the beginning of July. So we think those are great opportunities. We also see them as lower risk in the form of contracts that are coming out. So most of the stuff you'll see on our bid chart is actually from the P3 conference in Dallas in the U.S. And that's really what's driving that part of the business.

speaker
Adam Tallimer
Analyst, Thompson Davis

And is that in your $4 billion backlog expectation by mid-year? Or would that be later than mid

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

-year? That wouldn't be in this year at all. They're longer lead times. They'd be more in the 2027 kind of range on average. You know, if you look at that bid chart, the two that are the furthest to the right on the bid pipeline are both flood protection jobs from the Corps of Engineers. There is some potential for some earlier, but that's kind of the timeframe we're looking at is around 2027 for most of these to kick off.

speaker
Adam Tallimer
Analyst, Thompson Davis

Perfect. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Gus.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thank you, Anna.

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Jen Gibson from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jen Gibson
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just first, I wonder if you could quantify the financial impact of the rainy weather in

speaker
Mary
Analyst

Australia in Q1. Yeah,

speaker
Jason
Chief Financial Officer

we put it at about 5 to 7% of girls' profit margin in Australia. Was your question just on Australia, John?

speaker
Jen Gibson
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Yeah. I guess it's what a normalized quarter would have been absent the severe weather impact.

speaker
Jason
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, so, you know, we're kind of in the $10 million range in Australia. You know, they're normally at about 25% gross profit margin. They came in at 16 or 17%. So, you know, that kind of order of magnitude.

speaker
Jen Gibson
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Okay, great. And then second, your oil town's work continues to improve. I guess what's changed here is the new contract structures are just a bit of a pickup from some work that was delayed last year.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I think, you know, it's a very similar top line, I think. We're getting a bit more efficient in the operations there. You know, Q1, we had a big hit on the cold weather. When it gets extremely cold, like in that minus 25 or colder, you just got to leave equipment running because if you turn it off, it's very difficult to get them started again. You know, other than that, I think we're seeing very strong demand. Q2 is usually our weakest quarter in oil sands. And then, you know, we think we're going to finish strong there and look forward to the projections for next year. We think with production continuing, the increase in oil sands and material movements will follow. And we see modest growth potential year on year in the oil sands as well.

speaker
Jen Gibson
Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Okay, great. Congrats on the solid quarter in light of some tough operating conditions. I'll turn it back. Thanks, John.

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Remy. Please go ahead.

speaker
Remy
Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. Hope you're having a good day. Joe and Jason and the whole team. Thanks for your time. I was coming through the financials and saw that the contractor services increased a good bit. Looks like from 59.6 million ballpark to 75.6 million. Comparing 2024 Q1 to 2025 Q1. How would you comment on that? What was the reason for the increase?

speaker
Jason
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, so that's all Australia driven and we're doing some new work in Australia that requires subcontractor services, particularly at that copper mine in Australia. As well as the rainy weather required some services to be brought into sites that we coded as subcontractor. So about 18 million dollars of that increase is McKellar related. And it is a kind of a run rate that we would expect to see. We do enjoy a margin on that subcontractor work. So it's all kind of part of the different scopes year over year.

speaker
Remy
Analyst

Okay, got it. And then my second question is, I think that you guys are doing an excellent job as far as management is concerned. But how do you respond to any investors who might be losing confidence in management's ability to execute based on, I guess, repeated issues related to climate and weather?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

You know, I think our job is to deliver results that we say we're going to get. And so, yeah, Q1 was down due to weather and we need to deliver it to the yearly guidance. And that's our expectation. I think any market is just expecting you to if you put up a number that you hit it or beat it. And that's our internal expectations as well.

speaker
Remy
Analyst

Excellent. Thank you guys so much. Hope you have a good day.

speaker
Mary
Analyst

Thank you,

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Mary. Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Chris Thomason from CIBC. Please go ahead.

speaker
Chris Thomason
Analyst, CIBC

Good morning, guys.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Morning, Chris.

speaker
Chris Thomason
Analyst, CIBC

Last quarter, you put out a bit of guidance on the quarterly cadence of EBITDA. You kind of framed it as, you know, percentage of your guidance per quarter. Just wondering if you could reiterate that for us going forward?

speaker
Jason
Chief Financial Officer

Well, yeah, Chris, just as mentioned in a previous call, I think, you know, we didn't put that in Joe's shareholder letter this quarter, but we do see Q2 looking a lot like Q1 on the EBITDA perspective. I think as far as first half, second half, the way we see it is on the EBITDA anyway that, you know, about 55 percent being in the second half of the year with 45 in the first half. So that's kind of the cadence we're seeing right now. Q3 will be a little bit up on Q4. But yeah, you're getting into the ones and two percentages at that point.

speaker
Chris Thomason
Analyst, CIBC

Okay. And then just with respect to the guidance, when you set it back in December, these weather impacts would have been, you know, unforeseeable. And you talk about your run rate, EBITDA margin being about three percent higher than what you put up in the quarter. So, you know, that implies there's potential slack in the guide. So I'm just wondering, like, given the context of that, you know, how should we be thinking about the guide? Even the range, like, are you feeling like you'd be leading more to the lower end of the range after the tough Q1?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

You know, I guess it depends on how you look at the law of averages, Chris. I think, you know, we're expecting average weather becomes average weather. And I think that's a reasonable expectation. You know, if you project the weather in Q1 through the rest of the year, I'm generally, you know, two and three are, you know, we're obviously not running into idle issues even if we get rain in Q2 and three. You know, we had a colder Q1. Do you expect a warmer Q4? The law of average would suggest so. But, you know, I don't think we project our guidance with any kind of slack or anything else. We project the midpoint is what we think is our 50 percent probability number and the range where we think the volatility of that is. So, you know, I fully expect to deliver into the range. If we have worse than average weather for the year, we'll be in the lower end of it probably. You know, we go by the law of averages. We forecast on average weather. And so I expect we're going to be close to average when the year ends.

speaker
Chris Thomason
Analyst, CIBC

Okay. And then just touching on the weather, you know, looking at rainfall data in Queensland, it looked like April was still relatively high versus historic. I mean, significantly less rain compared to February and March. So I'm just wondering, like, you know, do you expect a bit of a gross margin headwind in Australia for part of Q2? Or is, you know, the general drying trend enough that you're not seeing those kind of impacts?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I'm impressed that you're following the Australian weather that closely. But yeah, April started with some rain continuing into it in Australia. Again, we think, you know, by the end of the quarter and by mid-year, those things will average out. It was just a late rainy season in Australia and a very rainy season. You know, they're measuring rainfalls in feet. That's just pretty crazy down there. But I mean, yeah, there was a bit of disruption to the beginning of April, but we think that'll work its way out through the year.

speaker
Unknown Speaker
Unknown

And

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

then we had a very warm April in oil sands. So even March, we had an early spring break up. So I think Q2 looks better in the oil sands side as far as not having to deal with the spring break up in Q2 because it all kind of occurred in Q1.

speaker
Chris Thomason
Analyst, CIBC

Got it. Okay. And then just touching on the oil sands. You mentioned that there was additional work at Millennium and then lower scopes at Port Hills. I'm just wondering if you could give us some color on what's driving that.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I think it was that quarter over

speaker
Unknown Speaker
Unknown

quarter.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yeah. You know, we've seen pretty consistent demand. We've moved some fleet between sites. You know, they recently had some scheduled shutdowns and turnarounds on specific sites. And those usually create some near term impacts and maybe some shuffling around sites. But overall, we're seeing strong demand for our services across the oil sands. And, you know, it's typically a Q2 low in the oil sands. And I think we'll be typical of that and that it starts to ramp up again and peak in Q4.

speaker
Mary
Analyst

Okay. Last question for me. Just on the NCIB, Joe, I'm just wondering, you know, just given where the share price has gone over the last few months, how much flexibility are you guys willing to have with respect

speaker
Chris Thomason
Analyst, CIBC

to your debt target? Can you lean on the NCIB a little harder in the near term and then maybe sacrifice like 0.1 of a turn on the debt side in exchange? Maybe just pretty how you guys are thinking about that.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yeah, I think at these, at this pricing and what we think is the return on our, what we think is our intrinsic value of, yeah, I think we can lean on a little more. I don't, you know, it just depends on where it goes. We have, obviously, we have a lot more liquidity with the high yield raise that we just did. So we'll look at it opportunistically and do what we think is the right investment. And right now I'd say buying our shares is

speaker
Mary
Analyst

the best investment we have out there. Great. Okay. Thank you guys. I'll hand it back.

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Stephanie Schilling from Benton Financial. Please go ahead.

speaker
Stephanie Schilling
Analyst, Benton Financial

Hi, guys. Good morning.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Good morning, Devin.

speaker
Stephanie Schilling
Analyst, Benton Financial

I see a couple of contracts up for renewal here in 2025. Any updates on these two renewals on timing and maybe expectations on any potential scope changes?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yes, the first one, it's in the middle row there that's the earlier one, is actually a negotiated early renewal. We've been very successful with these, Devin, and like I said before, you can't be any more successful. We've had a 100% renewal rate. The second one is actually an expansion, which is in the top line there, is an expansion of an existing operation where we're looking to potentially increase our scope. And that one we'll know more towards the end of the year. The one in the middle, the early renewal potential, we should know in the next quarter or so. And that's really the driver for what I said is going to be an increase to $4 billion in our backlog. So I'm highly confident in our ability, and obviously a record of 100% renewal feeds that confidence.

speaker
Stephanie Schilling
Analyst, Benton Financial

Okay. Again, I know that's helpful. I believe in the past you guys mentioned a large infrastructure opportunity. I believe it was in California that you were aiming to qualify for. Any updates on that project?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Yeah, we were unsuccessful in that prequel. We have added quite a few other projects. Our feedback on that was California was looking for California experience, and obviously we haven't got a lot of experience out there. We've got a lot of dam building experience, but we haven't done it in California. So unfortunately that was a weakness in that particular tender. But from what we've added and the information we've seen now in these large Earthworks projects, we're picking up two dozen projects that we've followed out on infrastructure Earthworks, big Earthworks in the next three years, of which we've added three, four, five. And you'll see on the big pipeline which generated about $4 billion backlog. We want to win every bid, but obviously that doesn't happen. And yeah, we see plenty of them backfilling for the one that we just didn't qualify for. And I think with this new exec we're adding on and our focus in the infrastructure side and expansion, I look forward to much success in that market.

speaker
Mary
Analyst

Yeah, that's a great update. I'll jump back in a few. Thank you. Thank

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

you. Once again, should you have a question, please press star four by the one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Maxim Zychev, Financial Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

speaker
Kazim Brown
Analyst, Maxim

Hello. Good morning, gentlemen. It's Kazim Brown. Hi. It's Kazim here on for Maxim, guys. My question is regarding the technician count. You've mentioned in the past that it's been a bottleneck. I'm just wondering for both your regions in Canada and Australia, is that still the case? And if so, how much shortfall in technician count do you think you have? And is it still factor preventing you to reach your respective utilization targets in both regions? Or is the gap mostly because of weather in your business?

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

I started with Andy. I would be more of weather. You know, Australia, we've got very full demand in Australia and long term contracts. I think the consistency of how equipment stays on sites and the consistency of our labor workforce, especially our skilled labor and the mechanics, we've been very successful in attracting and retaining maintenance personnel. I think, you know, skilled trades are an issue around the world, but I think we manage it extremely well in Australia. And that's why, you know, between that, the high demand and the weather, you'll see that utilization target is at 85 percent. And, you know, we're very confident in that. We've been right in that range, obviously not the last quarter, but before that. In Fort McMurray and the oil sands, we're getting, you know, when we get into that close to 70 percent range and above, that means we're full, full on demand. And getting from 70 to 75 is the efficiency of our skilled labor workforce. You know, we put in systems and processes and developed things like our apprentice program over the years to address this. And now is the time to deliver. So as we, as you look to get from that, you know, high 60s to the mid 70s towards the year end, that's really where you're testing your abilities in that. And, you know, we're confident. We've got the systems and the processes in place now. And with the high demands there, we'll get into that range of utilization. So it's not hindering us at any point right now. And as we go forward, we think we've got the systems and processes as far as attracting and retaining skilled workforce in place, both in Australia and in Canada.

speaker
Mary
Analyst

Thank you guys. Yeah, that's helpful. That's it for me. No worries.

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Joe Lambert for any closing remarks.

speaker
Joe Lambert
President and CEO

Thanks very much. And Jennifer, thanks again, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to providing next update upon our closing of our second quarter results.

speaker
Jennifer
Conference Call Moderator / IR Coordinator

Thank you. And this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.

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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