Northwest Pipe Company (NASDAQ:NWPX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Montross: Well, having come from the steel industry, those — some of those delays in late shipments are just inherent in the business. But we certainly — we see those every once in a while, but we’re certainly not seeing them as often as we saw them like in 2021 when steel was really, really tough to get. So, I would say at this point, it’s not really that much of an issue. As the prices go up and demand goes up, it could get a little bit tighter, but I think we’re pretty well positioned with multiple steel suppliers to be able to handle any kind of steel requirements that we have, and especially with what we see in front of us. So — and everything in the backlog, Ted, the 372 million tons of backlog, we have commitments on steel for that already.

So ultimately, that’s in good shape. It’s just the near-term stuff when you get orders. If it gets really busy, the deliveries can start to jump around a little bit, but we really haven’t seen much of that to this point at all.

Ted Jackson : When you look at your first quarter and the challenges that you have, I recognize it’s mainly weather-related. It’s not a different side. But what are your thoughts with regards to what the revenue picture is going to look like in the fourth quarter or the first quarter of 2021?

Scott Montross : What I would say, obviously, is we don’t give guidance on revenue or anything of that nature on these calls. But we’re having weather issues, but we’ve also had some project delays that are customer-driven with really near-term projects. So the revenue is going to be down a bit in the first quarter. But those things actually get made up in the rest of the year. The issue is they don’t get made up in a quarter in steel pressure pipe. So after — what I would tell you is after a slow first quarter, we think we’re pretty much on the same trajectory revenue wise that we were in 2023 for steel pressure pipe with what’s in our backlog, and the really good thing about this is like we said in the script, the quality of the margin that we have in backlog is pretty solid too.

So, I think we’re looking forward to a pretty good second half of — or the last three quarters of 2023 in regards to steel pressure pipe really on a pretty similar trajectory based on the backlog that we have now, same projectors as we saw in 2022.

Ted Jackson : Well, I got to say, when I look at your backlog number and I try to make adjustments to take it down to a tons level, it seems like the backlog, you’ve got a lot of visibility.

Scott Montross : Yes.

Ted Jackson : Anyway, I’m going to step out of line so other people can ask questions, and I might go back.

Scott Montross : Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, Ted.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Brent Thielman : Hey, thanks. Good morning. Can you guys hear me okay?

Scott Montross: Yes. We hear you great. Good morning, Brent.

Brent Thielman : Okay. Great. Thanks. Hey — Aaron, thanks for all the detail. I wanted to come back to Park, because I mean you put up pretty significant contributions in precast despite the fact you had some of these headwinds with the ERP implementation. Just wondering, can you parse out what impact that actually had here in the quarter?

Scott Montross : Brent, on the impact on the fourth quarter for ParkUSA specifically?

Brent Thielman : Yes.