Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Monadelphous 2021 half year results investor and analyst briefing. Presenting this morning from Perth are Monadelphous Managing Director, Rob Velletri, and Chief Financial Officer, Philip Trueman. Copies of this morning's presentation and associated materials are available on our website at monadelphous.com.au. Throughout this presentation, the speakers will guide you on when to click through to the next slide. I will now hand over to our first presenter this morning, Mr Rob Velletri, who will start on slide two. Please go ahead, Rob.
Thanks, Kristy, welcome to our 2021 half year results briefing. Phil and I will talk you through our financial and operational performance for the period, as well as cover off on our outlook going forward. We'll then answer any questions you might have. The structure of this morning's presentation is similar to the previous results presentations, with some further detail provided as appendices.
I'm on slide three, group performance and highlights. I'm pleased to report that our sales revenue was up 11% on the prior corresponding period to AUD 947.8 million. The result was an increase of 18.7% on the previous six months, as the company and the industry more broadly continued to recover from the initial impact of COVID-19 experienced in the second half of last financial year.
Our Engineering Construction division reported revenue of AUD 460.3 million, an increase of 68%, with work progressing strongly on a number of major resource construction projects which had experienced COVID-19 related delays in the previous six months. The Maintenance and Industrial Services division reported revenue of AUD 491.5 million, which was down 15.9%. The lower than usual maintenance activity was experienced early in the period as the industry steadily regained momentum, as well as from reduced demand from within the oil and gas sector.
Activity levels in the iron ore sector ramped up significantly through the period due to the large volume of iron ore project developments and execution phase, the resumption of work scopes that were deferred earlier in 2020, and a strong appetite from our customers to maximize production. The skilled labor market in Western Australia progressively tightened during the period as labor demand increased and border restrictions limited supply.
Since the beginning of the period, Monadelphous secured approximately AUD 360 million of new contracts and extensions, most of them in the iron ore sector. Pleasingly, we've seen a substantial improvement in our safety performance, with a number of health and safety initiatives implemented over recent times positively impacting our performance in this critical area, and I'll talk a bit more about them later.
Net profit after tax for the half was AUD 31.6 million, which resulted in an earnings per share of AUD 0.334. Earnings were lower than normal in the first few months of the period as the industry regained momentum post the initial COVID-19 impacts. Included in the NPAT is the reversal of a one-off provision of AUD 6.5 million made in the 2019 financial year relating to our research and development tax incentives, and Phil will give you a bit more detail about that later.
The company continued to adopt its long-standing dividend payout policy of 80% to 100% of annual profits, and the board has declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.24 per share, fully franked. We ended the period with a strong cash balance of around AUD 170 million, and the half saw increasing levels of working capital as a result of the rapid recovery and ramp-up in revenues post-COVID-19.
As previously announced, Monadelphous was notified during the period that Rio Tinto had filed a writ of summons in the Supreme Court of Western Australia against one of our wholly owned subsidiaries in respect of a fire at Rio Tinto's iron ore facility at Cape Lambert in January 2019. Now, we continue to work effectively with Rio Tinto towards reaching a satisfactory outcome in this matter. Moving now to slide four, the engineering construction highlights.
As I said, revenues were up 68% to AUD 460 million for the period. The division secured about AUD 175 million in new contracts, including four new work packages of work with BHP under an existing West Australian iron ore panel agreement for work across a number of sites in the Pilbara. A contract with BHP was also secured for multidisciplinary construction services at Olympic Dam operations in South Australia.
Good progress was made during the period on a number of major resource construction projects. At BHP's South Flank project, substantial progress was made on our work scopes for the project's inflow and outflow infrastructure, as well as construction of the world's largest rail-mounted stockyard machines for ThyssenKrupp. Work continued at Rio Tinto's West Angelas deposit C and D project, with fabrication support provided by SinoStruct.
We successfully progressed our construction package at Albemarle's lithium hydroxide plant in Kemerton in the southwest of W.A. Mondium, our EPC joint venture with Lycopodium, also progressed the construction phase of the AUD 400 million EPC contract we have with Rio Tinto for this Western Turner Syncline phase II mine.
SinoStruct, our China-based fabrication business, secured a number of new contracts and also established its own fabrication facility in Tianjin in China to self-perform fabrication work and to provide improved modularization services. The business also continued to deliver work for customers in Australia, Mongolia and PNG. Despite the renewable energy sector experiencing a lull in activity, Zenviron continued to secure new work with a contract to deliver the Murra Warra Stage 2 wind farm in regional Victoria. Moving now to our maintenance division.
We see our maintenance division recorded revenue of AUD 491 million for the six months, which was down around 16% on the prior corresponding period. As I said earlier, maintenance activity levels steadily regained momentum during the period after the initial impact of the pandemic. The division retained all its term contracts and secured AUD 185 million in new contracts and extensions, which added to its contracted forward workload.
In the Pilbara, several new contracts were secured with BHP under an existing W.A. iron ore panel agreement, and the division also secured three three-year master services contracts with Rio Tinto for the delivery of sustaining capital projects across their iron ore mine sites and port operations. High activity levels were experienced in the iron ore sector during the period, with the division successfully completing a number of maintenance shutdowns for BHP and Rio Tinto across the Pilbara.
Despite the challenges of COVID-19, Buildtek, which is our maintenance and construction business in Chile, continued to perform well and was awarded several new contracts. Those contracts included a strategically significant contract at GNL Quintero's operations in Valparaíso, which leverages our core capability in the LNG sector. The division continued to also broaden its service offering, integrating its rail services business acquired last year and investing in specialist equipment to support existing rail contracts and enable further growth.
It also strengthened its marine, civil, CSG pipeline and corrosion management capabilities during the period. If I move now to slide six, which is contracts secured. As I mentioned earlier, we won work valued at approximately AUD 360 million since the beginning of the financial year. This slide shows the location and values with a large proportion, as you can see, in the W.A. iron ore sector.
In other sectors, we secured a three-year maintenance contract at Rio Tinto's Gove operations in the Northern Territory, a major dragline shutdown for BMA at its Saraji coal mine in Queensland, and a 12-month extension to our existing maintenance contract across BHP's W.A. nickel operations. Subsequent to the end of the period, we were also awarded a multidisciplinary contract with AGL Macquarie at the Bayswater Power Station in New South Wales.
In addition to the contract we already mentioned in Chile, Buildtec secured two contracts with Minera Escondida BHP for the construction of a communications tower at the Escondida copper mine and a conveyor system upgrade at Coloso Port. Looking at slide seven now. Safety performance. As I said, pleasingly, our 12-month recordable injury frequency rate improved by 16% from 30th June 2020 to 3.12 incidents per million hours worked.
Now, the period saw a number of system improvements and new fatal risk standards to reinforce line-of-fire fatal risk controls. Other health and safety initiatives implemented included a revised frontline safety leadership program and the continued rollout of the Delivering the Safe Way behavior framework. Also, in these challenging times, we focused on mental health awareness, rolling out specific training programs and participating in national health and wellbeing initiatives such as Movember and R U OK? Day.
Moving to slide eight. Our people. Now, with activity levels rising across our operations during the period, we saw our employee numbers jump 22% during the period in the last six months. Comment there, the retention and development of our key talent is really central to our long-term sustainability and success, and during the period, we increased participation in our employee equity scheme, and we made improvements to our performance management practices.
We also focused on a number of initiatives to improve our attraction and recruitment in a tight labor market. These included detailed Australian labor market analyses for future workforce planning. We launched our award-winning workforce engagement app, MonaWork, and we kicked off the Monadelphous Make It Yours employer branding program. We also commenced the implementation of a new upgraded recruitment and talent management system.
Slide nine, social value. At Monadelphous, we're committed to making a positive contribution to the communities in which we operate. Our efforts are focused around key areas of diversity, community support, and education. During the period, we worked on the development of our fourth Reconciliation Action Plan, consulting with key stakeholders, including our indigenous workforce. This will be our second stretch RAP, and it's planned to be released in this half during National Reconciliation Week.
We continue to make progress on achieving our objectives in the important area of gender diversity and inclusion. A major highlight during the period was the appointment of our first female operational general manager, Lorna Rokich, to head up our Heavy Lift business. Lorna's been with the business for a number of years now. We participated in several other social value initiatives, including a partnership with the Graham (Polly) Farmer Foundation's Follow the Dream and Living the Dream programs, which provide education and career pathways for Indigenous students.
We also supported various initiatives in the education sector and employee volunteering opportunities at community events. Finally, in October last year, our Newman after-school program, Monadelphous Mechanical Mob, was announced as a finalist for the Indigenous Engagement Award for the Australian Mining 2020 Prospect Awards. I'll hand over to Phil now, who will give you a bit more detail on our financial performance.
Thanks, Rob, good morning, everyone. I'm on slide 10 now which shows our financial performance compared to that of the previous corresponding period. As Rob's already mentioned, our revenue for the period increased to AUD 947.8 million. Our earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization was AUD 57 million, a 3.5% reduction on the prior corresponding period.
Earnings in the first few months of the period were lower than normal as the industry regained momentum following the initial impact of COVID-19. During the period, we reversed a one-off provision of AUD 6.5 million, which was made in the 2019 financial year. This provision related to notices of amended assessments which were received from the ATO for R&D tax incentives claimed by the company, which were determined to be ineligible.
At that time, we requested a review of the decision, in December 2020, we were notified that the original findings had been set aside and the company was in fact eligible for the incentives. We've commenced the process to obtain a refund for these amounts from the ATO. Our net profit after tax for the period was AUD 31.6 million, which represents an earnings per share of AUD 0.334. The board declared an interim dividend of AUD 0.24 per share fully franked.
The Monadelphous dividend reinvestment plan will apply for the interim dividend. The cash flow conversion rate for the 2020 calendar year was a healthy 91%. However, we experienced unusually different cash flow conversion rates in the first and second halves of calendar 2020 as a result of the initial impact of COVID-19 and the subsequent recovery.
The materially lower operating activity levels experienced in the months leading up to 30 June at the height of the pandemic significantly reduced the working capital requirements of the business at that time and delivered an unusually high cash flow conversion rate in excess of 300% for the first half of the 2020 calendar year.
The progressive ramp-up in activity post-30 June drove a corresponding increase in working capital as our requirements returned back to normal levels, resulting in a negative cash flow for the period. Despite the large fluctuations we've seen in working capital during the period or during the year, our healthy cash position and the strength of our balance sheet provides us with capacity to invest in suitable opportunities as they arise. I'll now hand you back to Rob, who'll provide you with an overview of the outlook for the business.
Okay, thanks, Phil. Slide 11 shows the relevant current and forecast Australian market conditions for our business. You can see sectors in which we operate are expected to provide a solid inventory of prospects and opportunities for growth. If we go to slide 12, a summary of the outlook. While the global economic outlook in the wake of COVID-19 remains uncertain, the resources sector is expected to provide a steady flow of opportunities for Monadelphous over the coming years.
With continued solid demand from China driving favorable iron ore prices, the outlook for Australian iron ore investment remains solid. An ongoing capital and operating expenditure required to sustain the high levels of production in this sector will drive strong and steady demand for engineering, construction and maintenance services.
Developments in other resource sectors, particularly in lithium, gold, copper and nickel, are also expected to provide ongoing prospects for us in Australia, as well as our international operations in South America, Mongolia and Papua New Guinea. The decline in global demand in the oil and gas sector has resulted in delays, deferment in the development of new LNG projects, with customers reducing operating costs and deferring non-essential work in the short term.
The long-term outlook for the renewable energy sector is positive, with a pipeline of new wind farm projects expected to come to market in the next few years, particularly as electrical grid access improves in New South Wales and Victoria. Demand for maintenance services are expected to grow steadily on the back of aging assets and customers deferring non-essential work in prior periods.
In the more immediate term, the resource sector activity in Western Australia is expected to remain strong in the second half of this financial year, with increasing demand for skilled labor. Capacity constraints from the further tightening of an already stretched labor market, coupled with unpredictable interstate border restrictions, will be a key challenge for the business.
Now, following a solid first half result and subject to the timing of progress of projects, sales revenue for the full year is expected to see an increase of around 10% on the previous year. While the outlook remains positive, the potential impacts of COVID-19 continue to create some level of uncertainty. Monadelphous' reputation as a leader in its markets and our longstanding commitment to the delivery of safe, reliable and competitive service solutions puts us in a strong position to capitalize on the opportunities and to deal with the challenges ahead.
I'll close now. In closing, I would like to thank all our stakeholders for their ongoing support, including our shareholders and customers. I commend our team on their commitment and efforts under the circumstances in achieving a solid result. Thanks. I'll now hand over to the operator for any questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Once again, it is star one and wait for your name to be announced. Thank you. We have multiple questions in queue. Our first question comes from the line of Alex Karpos from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question, Alex.
Hi, team. Can you hear me?
Yep.
Perfect. First one I wanted to ask on is the maintenance side. Appreciate the color about demand growing steadily from here. Can you parse that out a little bit more by end market? How do you think about the different recovery profiles across iron ore and oil and gas for the second half and into FY22?
Yeah, I suppose the forecast is a sort of macro forecast across the whole of the resource and oil and gas sector. I guess, the expectation, as we've said in the outlook, is that one, there's probably been still significant deferment of maintenance and a sort of catch-up element.
There is ongoing aging assets. I guess in the oil and gas sector, we've got a number of large major term contracts that are ongoing. Although, I guess volumes have been slightly down this period due to tightness in the oil price. Otherwise, I think pretty well right across the resource sector, there is an ongoing expectation of good volumes available for our maintenance business.
Thanks. That's helpful. Maybe just staying on oil and gas, if we pivot to the E&C side. How have discussions with customers there, let's say, changed over the past six months? Is it still kind of a year delays, or how are you thinking about the broader landscape into 2022?
Look, I think it's still uncertain. I don't think any of these projects have been canceled. It's a question for the majors to understand what the timing. I think that these projects or some of these projects will come. It's just a question of when. We're certainly not factoring anything into the next one or two years in terms of engineering construction opportunities.
Got it. Thanks. One more, if I could. You mentioned tight labor markets out in W.A., and you're certainly not alone in calling that out. How should we think about potential for margin impacts from a kind of tighter labor market and also potential to raise prices on your end as a result?
There's no question that there are risks that arise because of the tightness in the market, the ability to get the required numbers of people, the squeeze on rates of pay, et cetera. That's certainly the biggest challenge that we're seeing in front of us in the more immediate term. It is a considerable challenge for us going forward.
Thanks. That's it for me.
Our next telephone question is from Michael Aspinall from Jefferies. Please ask your question, Michael.
Okay, Rob and Phil, thanks for taking my questions. I might just ask a follow-up on the labor. Understandably, a heavy focus on attracting and keeping talent. Have you seen any cost impulse in the first half that you've been successful in being reimbursed by customers, or you haven't seen that across any of your projects yet?
Look, I think varied is probably the answer, depending on contracts, customers, conditions in contracts. The ability to recover COVID-related impacts is varied across our contracts. I couldn't give you a more definitive answer than that.
Okay. It sounds like there may have been some additional costs due to labor, though.
Oh, no, there's no question there has been increases in costs.
Yeah.
Some which are recoverable, some which are not.
Okay. Your EBITDA margins in the first half of 6%, which compares to 5.9% in the second half of 2020, the provision you took for the New Zealand water business. Your commentary into that second half was that margins were heavily impacted by COVID. It sounds like then that the first half margins are also impacted by lower activity levels in the first half. Would that be correct in characterizing your margin performance?
Margins, there's a whole pile of different drivers there, but certainly COVID in the early part was a driver, and the ability to recover COVID labor extra costs or whatever is also a factor. It will continue to be a factor as we go forward.
Can you talk about maybe some of the drivers that you mentioned there are whole pile of different drivers that kind of weren't COVID related?
If you put all of the labor restrictions onto COVID, then it's all COVID. You've got a restriction from COVID in terms of access to people, but you've also got a very large demand profile at the moment. It's a significant overlap of demand.
Yeah.
You've got a lot of projects all happening at the same time.
Okay. Revenue guidance, or the kind of outlook for revenue to be around +10% implies down in the second half on kind of the first half you've just reported. Is that being driven by some E&C work that's coming off or coming to completion?
It depends on how we go with the progress of construction work. Some of those jobs will be tailing off in this half, so that will be a factor.
Okay. Last one from me, I'll turn it over. It looks like the results included a AUD 5 million profit on sale of assets. Is that right? What did you sell?
Yes, that is correct. It was really just taking the opportunity to make sure we rationalize the fleet to the size that we need for our future requirements.
There was-
Things like cranes?
Yeah. A whole range of different equipment. No one-off item.
Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
Our next telephone question comes from Ben Brownette from CLSA. Please ask your question, Ben.
Rob, Phil, just wondering when you look at the chart on construction and infrastructure and the decline, how much of that is driven by the exit of the water business and how much is underlying? Going forward, when you talk about renewables, is that the part of the business that you see growing there? Is there anything major that you're bidding on, or is it still just all wind farms?
Yeah. The answer to that is yes, we're doing less water work and expected to do less of that. The majority is in the wind farm market. The majority of the work going forward.
Okay, cool. Can you just give us a bit of a color around how you're going on those major projects in construction? Are they going to plan? You've commented on labor being tight. Is there anything on the horizon that would lead you to suspect that your execution wouldn't be where you would normally have your execution?
I know. They're going fine. Yeah. The real issue is we're actually still ramping up on some. The labor demand issue or squeeze on labor is the risk. We'll have to see how that plays out over the next six months or so.
Okay. Has there been a reluctance over the last six months to bid, or are you kind of happy with what you've won?
In a sort of more immediate term, we are capacity constrained. There's no question. If there's another big job right there to start now, we'd be limited. It's really just around timing. That's the issue.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry, I don't know if that answered your question.
Yeah. No, that's fine. You've noted the bounce back, I think you noted this before, that you expected to see a bounce back in maintenance in iron ore, and you did mention the potential for oil and gas to continue to be weak. In terms of that oil and gas maintenance kicking back up, do you have any kind of further visibility today than you did six months ago? Are you just waiting to be called on site to do things?
No. No, we don't. There's not just one contract, there's a number of contracts. It's just volumes through them are down. They're not significantly down, but there's pressure on, people are looking at much tighter with their allocation of operating expenditure in that sector. That's all. Whether that comes back or not or all of it comes back or that grows back to where it was, I really am not too sure.
Okay. Phil, you mentioned the working capital in the last period, there was obviously the difference in this period. Can you just explain to us a little bit about what drove the big working capital swings? Obviously, net working capital was up, obviously receivables and payables were up a lot too. Can you talk us through that talk about how that move's coming into the end of the year?
Sure. As we said, the activity levels picked up during the period. We had costs going out of the business, significantly labor costs, which are paid on a week by week or fortnight by fortnight basis. We don't collect that money back into the business again, for a period of months afterwards. That's the driver. In terms of the full year, we do have a few advances on construction jobs that are due to unwind as these big construction jobs come to an end.
Really it's going to come down to the collections around year-end. I'd just like to reiterate that you just have to be cognizant of the fact that we did have two very unusually different halves, but the cash flow conversion over the 12-month period was sort of greater than 91%. You have to look at the two halves.
Together
together. Our net working capital position at the end of December is almost the same as it was at the end of December the previous year, it's returned to more normal levels.
Okay. Thanks for that.
Our next telephone question comes from John Purtell from Macquarie Group. Please ask your question, John.
Oh, good morning. Just had a few questions, if I can. Rob, just in terms of staff numbers, so conscious of your comments there, but are you expecting your staff numbers to continue to grow through the second half?
We have quite an intense period where we've got a number of projects all firing at the same time. I think there's an expectation of numbers increasing through the period, but then they'll decrease again. If you get what I mean. It really is just a function of the progress of where we are at with the work that we've got on. I would expect them to increase. Be nice to them to stay there, but it really depends on the workflow post year-end, I guess.
Thank you. Well, coming back to margins, obviously you delivered 6% in that first half EBITDA. Do you think there is the potential for second half margins to improve on that, noting that you still had COVID impacts in that September quarter? You've obviously also called out higher labor costs.
Yeah. Well, I think the margin question is, again, a function of a whole pile of different drivers, depending on where projects are at in terms of their progress, and the issues around, I guess, the significant issue around labor. Yes, labor costs are going up, recoverability is going to be a question. Whilst I can say we'd love for them to go up, there's certainly a lot of pressure on those margins. Yeah, I guess very hard for us to predict going forward.
Rob, maybe just from an industry point of view.
By the way, sorry, I will expand a little bit more on that, and that's more significantly, we're talking about labor and the pressure of costs, et cetera, or productivity, et cetera. It is generally not as acute in our maintenance business, where most of those contracts are cost plus or there is rise and fall type arrangements. It is more on our construction business, where some of those prices have been fixed.
Thank you. Just to finish, which is sort of related to that. Just from an industry point of view, the industry is pretty full at the moment, Rob. Would you expect industry margins to improve from here, as logically one would expect more rational bidding?
I hope so. I can only hope. Yeah.
Okay. Just the last one. You mentioned some of the jobs may be tailing off towards the end of the period in terms of construction. In terms of the bidding pipeline, the areas that you're sort of seeing most prospective to replace that or grow off that?
Yeah. Look, I think iron ore's got a steady investment kind of pipeline of AUD 5 billion or AUD 6 billion, year-on-year. That will just provide us with an ongoing set of opportunities. It's a question of lumps and timing of that work and et cetera. Otherwise, yeah, there's lithium projects in the pipeline. There's copper work for us in Mongolia, as well as Olympic Dam. To me, it's a case of the timing of some of this work. In terms of the macro view, there's plenty there.
Okay, many thanks.
Our next telephone question is from Wei Wang Chen from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
Hi, guys. Just a couple of questions from me. Just the first one was to go back on first half guidance. You guided to sort of 10% half on half growth, which was provided in late November. If you do the math from where you guys ended up, it kind of means that you guys earned an extra AUD 70 odd million of revenue in the last five weeks of the year. Just wondering if you could give some color on that. Was that revenue that you'd expected in the second half, or what was that?
To me, it's just a combination of, sometimes we can't necessarily predict demand on a month to month basis. It really is just the case where we've had a ramp-up and everything's firing. You've got all our projects firing, you've got customers wanting to accelerate completions on the basis of demands for production, et cetera. When that happens, that's really what we've seen there in terms of that spurt, particularly in the latter part of the half, the last three months.
Yeah. Okay, thanks. Then just a question in general on your contracts. How much revenue is typically generated from a new contract in the first year? The other follow-up question was, you're coming off a period of two halves where, for obvious reasons, you've had below average contract wins. Just wondering if that creates a headwind at some point for subsequent periods from a revenue perspective.
Yeah, look, the revenue flow is very variable. It's really variable on our contracts. I can't answer the first question. There's no average contract. Our contracts can range from AUD 10 million to AUD 400 million or AUD 400 million. I can't really answer the question specifically. What I can say is that the sort of macro pipeline is good, and it's a case of then timing, really is timing of work. When work comes off and when work comes on. You're going to get quite a bit of variation because of that.
Yeah. Not sure if this will help you.
Sorry. That is very much the case in the construction world. Not so much in maintenance, which has a lot of fixed-term contracts with volumes that are just constant and consistent. We get less variability in that part of the business, which is half the business, and more variability in the other part of the business, in the construction part of the business.
Yeah. Thanks. Just to follow up, I'm not sure if it helps you answer the question, but let's say for construction, I kind of meant in terms of civil contracts, would you earn 15% of the contract value in the first year or 30% or is that not really something.
Our construction projects are normally a year or 18 months, so they're all done in that period.
Okay. Thank you. That's all from me.
Our next telephone question is from Steven from Bell Potter. Please ask your question.
Hi, guys. Just a couple of questions from me. The 6% EBITDA margin was a decent result in light of the current operating conditions. If we were to just assume for a minute that border impacts and COVID impacts would have normalized moving forward, and I know it's obviously a fluid situation, but if we were to assume that they would have now normalized moving forward, is a return to that PCP margin of 6.9% to 7% realistic, not for the current half, but looking out to FY 2022?
Oh, I think, well, it's certainly realistic, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The second one, just the nature of the current competitive environment. I note there wasn't a lot of major FY 2021 contract wins so far. That's in contrast to some of your competitors. Just if you can provide any color on how you're playing or seeing the current competitive environment. Are you deliberately not wanting to win too much work, imminent work, given resourcing constraints? Do you also suspect that some competitors are tendering more aggressively to grow their order books?
Yeah, both of those things.
Okay.
Yeah. We're bidding most things, but clearly it depends on what our workload is and what we feel comfortable doing for the price that we're bidding. Others may be in a position where they don't have any work, so they'll be pricing more keenly.
Yeah.
You know.
From your point of view, you're maintaining the contract discipline, you're confident in the macro outlook, and you're just happy to maintain that discipline in your trust that the work will come through in time.
Yeah. Correct. We've got good relationships with clients that have pipelines of work, so that gives us a bit of confidence as well.
Yeah. Beautiful. Well, that's it from me, guys. Thanks.
The final question today is from Nathan Reilly from UBS. Please ask your question, Nathan.
Hey, guys. I was just going to ask about the order book in terms of the work which you've booked this half. From looking at it looks like you've booked AUD 360 million of new contracts for the half, but you've burned about AUD 950 million of revenue from your order book in this half. Is that tender pipeline you mentioned earlier, is that at a level that would make you think you'd be able to sustain annual sales at that AUD 1.8 billion level, which you got into this year?
Oh, yeah. No, I think so. Yeah. Remember, our maintenance business, some of those contracts are three to five years. If it's not due for re-bid, then you're going to lose a year of revenue, as in the book, until it comes up again down the track. The AUD 360 million of new or renewed contracts is not necessarily just the burn. That isn't all of it. There's already other things in train particularly in maintenance, where we've got a four or five-year contract. Do you get what I'm saying? Is that clear?
Yeah.
I think it's more in the maintenance area, unless we lose contracts, as in when they come up for re-bid, we lose them, then that's the only negative. Otherwise, the rest of it is positive. If we win new ones, it's positive, then if the volumes go up in existing ones, it's positive. There's a whole range of point of sale type work that we do, many and varied.
That volume is not highly variable. The revenue's not highly variable. It's really in the construction space where, yeah, if you've got all your jobs finishing at all at one time, you need to wait another few months before you get a whole pile of others, then you're going to have a lull. That's generally not what happens. There's enough volume to maintain some sort of ongoing work. Ultimately, it's a question of timing.
Yeah. I guess, as you sort of point out with respect to the engineering business and the lumpiness there-
Yeah
it looks like you've won, I think it's AUD 175 million of new contracts there.
Yeah
The burn rate just shy of half a bill. In that business, your typical duration on the contracts are 12 to 18 months.
Yeah. Correct.
I'm just wondering, that iron ore construction revenue, your run rate being a very strong annual sort of revenue growth rate there would be near peak, not quite peak. Certainly a very good year. I'm just trying to get a sense of where you're at in terms of peak activity levels for these mine replacement projects that you're working on at the moment. It's looking like the customers that you're working for are targeting first ore later this year. In terms of that second half revenue outlook, is that something that you think you can maintain based on current run rate?
Well, yeah, I think most of those iron ore jobs are due to be finished this calendar year. A case of how much gets finished in this half versus next half. Most of them will be pretty much finished this calendar year.
I think you mentioned a pipeline in iron ore projects of about sort of AUD 5 to 6 billion per annum.
Yeah
the CapEx that needs to be spent in that space. Would you expect that your revenue generation or revenue pool from that pool of work would take a step down just based on what kind of sits in that pipeline relative to the mine replacement projects which you've been working on? Or can you sustain it around current levels?
I don't know. I think there's plenty there. It's a timing issue and that's what it is. I think there are forecasts running around. I have seen forecasts in the iron ore expenditure the next eight years, which kind of averages, it's pretty well kind of peaky at the moment. Then it drops off maybe AUD 1 to 5 billion for the next eight years.
Right.
We're talking to customers about new work opportunities coming up in the next one or two years.
Okay. Finally, just back on the margin. I think you noted somewhere in the accounts that there was the benefit from JobKeeper, I think about AUD 7 million in the first half. I am guessing that was more than offset by additional costs that you encountered in the first half. Just in terms of how that rolls off in the second half, is that creating a bit of a headwind from a margin point of view as that rolls off in terms of the subsidies relative to the cost which might have crept into the business that you now have to deal with?
It's all rolled off. We're not getting any more. That's passed now. If you get what I mean. I understand you. I understand you put most, all of that's been utilized in paying people for standing them down and a whole range of, particularly early in the period. That's not there anymore.
Okay. I'm done.
It's not there anymore, but we don't have the reason for it to be there now anyway. If you get what I mean. Got everybody employed. The COVID-19 impacts are now much more about restrictions on getting people and therefore productivity risks attached to that.
Understood. Okay. Thanks for taking my questions.
No worries.
There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the call back to the speakers for closing remarks. Please continue.
That now concludes our briefing for today. Thank you very much for your participation.
Thank you.
Thank you.