Our Americas Mills segment recorded adjusted operating profit of $75.4 million for this year’s first quarter making the highest adjusted operating profit recorded for this segment in any fiscal quarter since the onset of the global financial crisis. Our Americas Mills segment recorded adjusted operating profit of $65.8 million during the same period last year. This segment’s strong result for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 were primarily due to a 7% increase in total shipments and a 4% per ton increase in average selling prices on stable average scrap costs compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Overall shipments of our higher priced finished products, including rebar and merchants, increased approximately 34,000 short tons while billet shipments increased approximately 15,000 short tons.
Our Americas Fabrication segment recorded adjusted operating loss of $3 million for this year’s first quarter compared to adjusted operating profit of $2.2 million in the prior year’s first quarter. Adjusted operating profit was impacted by an average metal margin compression of $14 per short ton for fabricated rebar in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 compared to the same period in the prior fiscal year. Additionally, conversion costs for our rebar fab increased $8 per short ton. Partially offsetting these items was a favorable change in pre-tax LIFO of $2.9 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 compared to the first quarter of the prior fiscal year. We booked approximately 30,000 more fabricated rebar tons during this year’s first quarter compared to the same period in the prior year, and the backlog is up approximately 22,000 tons over November 30, 2013.
Our International Mill segment recorded adjusted operating profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 of $4.2 million compared to adjusted operating profit of $15.3 million for the same period last year. Adjusted operating profit in the first quarter of fiscal 2015 was negatively impacted by a decline in shipments of 55,000 tons coupled with an average metal margin compression of 7% compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Shipments declined during the first three months of fiscal 2015 due to sluggish demand in central Europe and a three-week planned maintenance outage at our Polish minimill.
Our International Marketing and Distribution segment recorded an adjusted operating profit of $18.3 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 compared to adjusted operating profit of $2 million during the first quarter of fiscal 2014. The improvement in adjusted operating profit was primarily attributed to an increase in margins and a $3.6 million favorable change in pre-tax LIFO for our trading divisions headquartered in the U.S. In addition, our Western European and Asian operations reported a strong increase in shipments for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 compared with the same period in fiscal 2014.
Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity. As of November 30, 2014, cash and short-term investments totaled $326.1 million. Total liquidity was approximately $1 billion as of November 30, 2014. We have continued to maintain sufficient unused credit lines.
Capital expenditures were $22.5 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 compared to $14.1 million in the prior year’s first quarter. We estimate that our capital spending for fiscal 2015 will be in the range of $140 million to $180 million.
Thank you very much. I will now turn it back over to Joe for the outlook.
Joseph Alvarado, Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO, Commercial Metals Company
Thank you, Barbara. We are encouraged by the continued improvement in the U.S. economy with job growth and rising wages. U.S. manufacturing activity expanded for the 18th consecutive month in November 2014, and U.S. nonresidential construction spending increased during the first three months of our fiscal 2015. In November, theArchitecture Billings Index, a leading indicator of construction activities, reported the seventh consecutive month of greater than 50 at 50.9.
