This is Justin Long with Stephens. We'll go ahead and get started. I wanna welcome everyone back to our Nashville conference in 2023. Excited for our next fireside chat with Canadian National Railway. Joining me from the company today, to my right, is Ghislain Houle. He's CFO. Derek Snyder, whose job I think is changing in one day, so I'll go ahead and use your new title, EVP and Chief Field Operating Officer, and then Stacy Alderson, down on the end, with Investor Relations. Thank you so much for being here today and continuing to support this event. Ghislain, maybe I'll kind of kick things to you to get things started off on just an update on the business, given we're now halfway through the quarter, and then we'll dive into some additional questions after that.
Super. Thanks, Justin, to have us. Thanks to the people in the room and people on webcast that are taking interest in our company, thank you very much. And of course, our valued shareholders, thank you to be with us and to have confidence in us. To your point, let me make a few introductory remarks, and then I'll give the floor a little bit to Derek, and then after that, we'll go on your questions. So you have a lot of questions on volume, so I don't wanna steal your thunder, but just a couple of remarks. As we've said publicly, I think it's clear that in our view, that we hit bottom and we hit the trough in Q2 and Q3.
When you look at our volumes, sequentially, we're getting much better. When you look at the volumes in September, they were higher than August. October volumes, in terms of revenue ton miles, were 10% higher than September. We're tracking November volumes to be slightly higher than October. And then December, you've got to be a little bit careful because of the seasonality of December. Like, we hit, you know, we're hitting the holidays and the winter, so you've got to be careful on that one. When you look at the sector, that continues to be weak, obviously, and everybody knows, and it's just, it's not just CN, it's the entire industry, it's intermodal international.
I think that we're starting to see some type of a light at the end of the tunnel, and I hope it's not a locomotive. But when you look at the loadings of the Asian cargo that's now destined to Rupert and Vancouver, they're coming at levels that are before the longshoreman strike. So that's a sign. I think we're talking to shipping lines as well. They're saying that, you know, there will be some type of recovery in 2024. I don't think you'll see anything in Q1, because Q1 is always very noisy, especially being the railroad of the North in Canada with the weather. So and we had some very tough... We will have some tough cons.
If you remember, Justin, our EPS was up 38%, versus last year. So tough to see in Q1, but you will, I think you'll start to see some recovery at the end of Q1, early Q2. People will need to consume. Retailers, I think when you look at inventory levels, they're normalized. So eventually, those inventories will have to be restocked. I don't think they will be restocked to the level of what we saw in COVID, and I don't think Intermodal International will come to the level of where it was, because it really, they really had a bump, a year or two, post-COVID or in COVID. But I think it's gonna come back to the levels of 2019-ish, which is pre-COVID levels.
So, stay tuned on that one, but, but I think that's what we believe, and that's... And then I think that the recovery will be slow. But you talk to other people, talk to various economists, you talk to various people from big banks, and some of them believe that the recovery will be V-shaped. So we all have our views. We'll see what happens, but definitely, I think, there's better light in 2024 than there was in 2023. The other sector that's a little bit soft was forest products, as you know, with you know. So, when you look at lumber prices, they, you know, they were as up as $1,600 in the bump. Now, they've got down to about $300 per thousand board feet.
I think we're, Stacy, now around 500-ish. When you look more specifically at CN, when we hit the trough, sometime in Q2, early Q3, from the center beam, center beams are the rail cars that we use to move lumber. The orders from customers were about 1,700 cars per week. When we go full out, we're about 2,300 cars per week, and today we're doing anywhere between 1,900-2,000 cars per week on a given week. So you know, not where we need to be, but at least, you know, we're seeing some improvements. When you look at housing starts, they remain next year to be in the 1.4-1.5 million housing starts.
When you look at, and I think that's a lagging indicator. Housing permits, I think, is a leading indicator. It used to be -25% housing permits on a year-over-year basis. I think now we're lower than 10%. So, and there's still some, there's still a deficit of houses in the U.S., and the number that's being thrown out there is 6 million deficit on houses in the U.S. So as interest rates stabilize, hopefully, that sector will gain some strength back up. When you look at our bulk segments, that continues to be relatively strong. When you look at frac sand, when you look at potash, grain, we do have a lower crop this year than we had last year, 72 million metric tons versus 75.
We think that we're not going to be as impacted by that reduction, being the railroad of the North, so this lower crop was due to a lot of the dryness that happened in the South. So it's not gonna be 50/50 on a relative basis on the impact of that lower crop. Typically, on grain, when you have a lower crop, we will move grain full out, you know, Q3, Q4 of this year. It's just you're gonna run out of grain a little earlier on in the following year, in 2024. From an operating standpoint, I must say, and I'm not saying this because this guy is beside me, and by the way, congratulations, Derek, on your promotion.
Thank you.
It's, it's one thing to get it, it's another thing to keep it. So,
As you've told me many times before over the years.
So, we've done extremely well, and I'll let him cover operations in two minutes, but we've done well in light of the significant disruptions that we've had. And when you look, we've tried to quantify this for the market so that you could put your finger on it, but these forest fires, the strike, and some of the flooding, I mean, CAD 0.07 of EPS impact in Q2 and CAD 0.10 in Q3. And yet, when you look at our operating metrics, they're in line with last year, slightly, maybe slightly up a little bit, but in line. So tremendous job. And then when you look at our OR, year-to-date to September, I'm even surprised that we're just 70 basis point higher than last year on our OR.
So we're doing extremely well. I'll let him cover it. And then to finish, I think at this point, from what we see, and again, as I said, we're seeing improvements. We're confident we'll deliver on our guidance for this year of flat to a slightly negative EPS growth. And obviously, with the economy doing better and some of the growth initiatives that are coming on board that we'll talk about just in a couple of minutes, I think we're comfortable that we will deliver 10%-15% EPS growth from 2024 to 2026. So maybe Derek-
Yeah.
talk a little bit about operations and give a bit of an update there.
Sure. No, thanks, Ghislain, and thanks, Justin, for hosting CN today. Appreciate it.
Of course.
So, you know, one thing I wanted to touch upon a bit with the operating structure, you know. When you look at make the plan, run the plan, sell the plan, that's something that's ingrained in this railroad again now. You know, we mentioned it in Investor Day in May. You know, Tracy then had a vision of what that looks like, and the end result is the roles Pat and I are now in. So when you look at that, they're very complementary. At the same time, those roles are equal importance, right? If you look at how things have evolved here, it's not just splitting Ed's role. There's actually more that have been given to Pat and I in terms of responsibility. An example is intermodal now has come back to operations is one thing.
You know, this could evolve a bit over time, but it allows both of us to focus on two unique things, so we can really be laser focused as time goes on in this organization. You know, Pat's actually en route, I think, into Toronto. He'll be with you tomorrow.
Yep.
So, you know, my good friend, Mr. Whitehead, is not here with us today, but I'll touch a little bit upon his structure. One important thing to remember, why this works so well, Pat and I, over our careers, have actually done each other's roles. I've done network operations roles like he has done. He's been in the field before. It's very complementary. One thing at the end of the day that wins out is what's right for CN. That's the most important thing, and that's what drives the decision making and the outcomes. So a little bit about Pat's group, there's two key responsibilities. You know, first, from that role, they design the network plan, right? You don't suboptimize the network for a terminal or a region. Mm-hmm.
You gotta do what's right for the entire network, and that's what his team does for, see, call it the foundation of the railroad, to what that plan looks like. We look at certain corridors, how to best use our locomotives, crews, and other assets. Now, it's not done in a vacuum, right? There's a lot of feedback that comes from myself or my team to make sure we've got the best plan, but that's where that plan lies at, is under Pat's organization, for example. A second thing, when you look going forward on the new organization, though, he also has a good example, is engineering and mechanical as part of that. Now, when you think about that, not only does he own the network plan, but take engineering, you're gonna have a one-year outlook, a three-year outlook, a five-year outlook, right?
Very important when you look at—he's looking at: where do we need potential capacity at? Where do we need to hire people at? But another key thing, near and dear to Ghislain's heart, capital efficiency, right? With myself really being focused on the day-to-day operation, Pat and his team can really get into the engineering team and drill down, how can we do stuff at a lower incremental unit cost? How there are different opportunities out there. It creates space where you're not into the day-to-day like I am, where you can sit back and have a vision of where things are and where they need to go. That's really important.
You know, I've been in this industry 23 years, and when you have a lot going on in the field side, it tends to distract because you've got to have the day-to-day going the way it needs to go. The other thing I would say with that's the mechanical side, he gets to look at that network. You look at the shops, how locomotives are distributed, but think about it. Right now, what does the locomotive of the future look like? We may not know yet, so he's working with the mechanical team and others to, you know, our DC to AC conversion fleet, for example. What does that look like? What do we need on a year-to-year basis as this goes out till we transition? It creates that space for that group to really have a strategic focus in a timely manner.
Now that you come to, say, my team on the field operating side or the run the plan side, you know, as I've always said, and he'll, he'll tell you the same thing, you can have the best plan in the world, if you can't execute the plan, it doesn't really amount to a lot, right? So this is a really key piece. And listen, the plan is a living, breathing thing. You gotta be able to adapt to economic conditions and different things, but always the plan is sacred. That is something there is 100% alignment on our organization, and that includes the marketing team. This is not just an operations function. Everybody's aligned. So in my realm, day-to-day, we're supposed to execute the plan.
So you look at your major hump yards, your major terminals, the customer centricity piece of the first mile, last mile, all that comes in to the operational function and what falls under my responsibility. And that's important, especially when you're bringing the intermodal piece back, too. There's another customer centricity piece that may be a bit different than your manifest centricity piece. So how we do that roll that out is extremely important. And then the second thing we do is, obviously, railroad is an outdoor sport. We manage disruptions daily. Obviously, we do that in a clear coordination with Pat's team, but my team is out there, rain, snow, sun or shine. And we're the northern railroads, so we get plenty of the above.
And, it can be challenging sometimes, but by really focusing on that under my organization, it still creates space to have a network planning point of view. And as I said, while it may be two teams, it's all for one goal. And, talk a bit about experience, and I've been at CN 23 years. You heard Ghislain allude to it. He told me a few times over the years when I've had opportunities, you know, good luck, congratulations, but good luck keeping it. That's the important part.
We've met, we've met, I met Derek, I would say, about 20 years ago when he was a young superintendent in Memphis. We were both being groomed by Hunter at the time. I was on the railroad MBA. You were a new superintendent, and then you moved to Winnipeg. So I've known this guy for over 20 years.
It's relationships are important.
The red hair.
Yeah. It used to be fire engine red, by the way, and freckles. That was all gone. I noticed during COVID, during Teams calls, I was getting a little shy, too, so. But to Ghislain's point, though, you know, relationships are important and leadership are important. And I've been very fortunate, if you look at how the leadership from CN has evolved, you know, from the days of Mr. Harrison, but you've gone on in the CN alumni in different organizations, now in leader positions. They've all impacted me in a positive way. I've been fortunate enough to have a lot of exposure to those folks, and I like to think I take the best of them in learning those experiences and applied it to here. And the reason I bring that up is we still have a lot of good talent at CN.
You know, we grew up in a when it was just scheduled railroading, and that's what we know it as, in that environment. You look down the organization when Tracy set the expectation, the team really rallied around that and how we rolled that out. We still have that muscle memory here, and I think that's shown over the last 18 months. And that resilience here, Ghislain mentioned, when you look at the disruptions, this was a very disruptive Q3. You look at the floods we had in Eastern Canada and Halifax, the wildfires in northern Quebec, western Canada, which were very impactful. The ILWU strike, which, you know, a railroad's like an aircraft carrier. You can't just turn it on a dime, but, you know, to stop and start this railroad essentially three different times with that.
But we came through that, I'd say, in the best shape I've seen it from a disruptive point of view.
Yep.
The resiliency of make the plan, run the plan really showed its true colors over this Q3, because when you look at some of our operating metrics, like, car velocity was only off 1%, for example, right? You know, train speed, 2%; dwell, up 1%. So while there was a little give there, it did not disrupt the overall flow of the railroad. We're very adaptable in terms of dealing with some of the disruptions. And lastly, the reason I bring that up, what's important, customer centricity is really where I think the future opportunity lies. You know, we have a metric called LSCP. There's plenty of acronyms on the railway, but what I'll tell you is, what it measures is: did we give the customer the right car on the right day and actually in the right window?
And I'm proud to say that's been at 91% over the last two quarters. And as, Stacy graciously shared yesterday, I think it was an RBC report that came out, and it really showed the difference we've made in the last 18 months, as we have now provided, you know, according to that, the best service in the industry. So I think that's something when you look to grow in the future with some of the opportunities Ghislain will touch upon, it's an important part of that, is that, that last mile or first mile touch point with our customers.
Sure.
All right. Well,
Thank you.
Thank you both for, for all that detail. Appreciate it, and we'll dive into some questions. Maybe to start with one that's more focused on the near term. As I think about the last earnings call, I felt the tone from CN was notably more optimistic than what we've heard from a lot of other transportation companies, particularly in the U.S.. Just in terms of how you talked about the end markets improving sequentially. So do you feel like this is mainly a function of mix? Are there some market share gain benefits that, you know, we're maybe not fully appreciating? How would you explain that discrepancy in the tone there?
Yeah, I can start, and then, Stacy, you can jump in here. I think I don't think it's a whole lot of market share gains at this point. I think there will be opportunities for some market share. I think, you know, we're very happy, and you had Jim Vena talk from UP before us on our Falcon service. I think that's a great opportunity to get market share from long-haul trucking back on the rail. And you and I, Justin, were talking before the webcast. I think when you look at the rails, you know, we lost market share to the trucks in the 1950s. I mean, when because on the market share standpoint, between rails, over time, it's a zero-sum game.
You'll lose a contract, you know, to your Canadian competitor, you'll gain one, but over time, it's a zero-sum game, where the industry loss is in long-haul trucking. I'm not talking about trucks that go 500-700 miles. That, to me, that kind should be on a truck. They're more versatile, they're more on time. But there's no reason why a freight in a can, you know, going 1,300, 1,400, 1,500 miles should be on a truck. It should be on a train. The issue in the past is railroads have not worked well together, okay? So we've been quibbling about where we're going to interchange. So of course, now you interchange, you have to split the revenue.
So we would say, "Hey, we want to interchange as south as we can." Our U.S., UP, for example, "No, no, we want to interchange as north." So when we started the Falcon service, we looked at this and said: Where is the best route and the best interchange point to be competitive with the truck, okay, from a customer standpoint? And we got that in mind, and then we said, okay, in the past, these partnerships would be, you know, CEOs having dinner together, papering it on a piece of paper, having a press release, but it wouldn't permeate into the organization from an execution standpoint, from a governance standpoint, from a sharing of information standpoint. This is what we've done with UP, okay? It's permeated down. It's permeated down from an execution standpoint, so we know the traffic coming.
We know we're monitoring, you know, every day when it comes, the dwell of the cars, how long it took to swap power, if we needed to swap power, get the crews. And the notion is, we need to run as a single-line railroad. And if you do that, and today, when we look at our service from Monterrey to Toronto, we have a five-day service. So one, it's win for us, because remember, when you look at our network, you know, you can't replicate a railroad, which is the biggest strength of a railroad. You can't replicate it, but you're limited by your network reach. You go to where you go, and you don't go to where you don't go. So all of a sudden, it's beneficial for us because now we have access to Mexico. We tried to buy the KCS.
It would have been a big purchase. We weren't able to do it. We finished with $700 million in our bank account. But now imagine we're able to access Mexico with UP. That is just gravy for us, and then UP doesn't go north, so we give them the market access north. It's win-win. And then if we take those boxes that run 1,300-1,500 miles, put it on a train, customers are able to pay at least an equivalent, if not a lower price, and this is environmentally friendly. Like, shame on us if we screw this up. I think that, you know, if we're successful, which I'm confident we're successful, I think that this will be...
The Falcon service will be the role model of how rails need to work together to gain market share from other modes of transportation. I think CN, we're well-positioned because we've been the draft team that, that has filled other rails, from with our talent. I'm very pleased with Jim being, you know, the CEO of, of UP. He knows us. I remember when he was our COO of, of, of CN Rail, and you and I have ridden trains with him, so we know him well. He knows our company. He's got CN tattooed, you know, on maybe his right side and UP on his left side or vice versa, but he's got CN still tattooed on him, I'm sure.
And we've launched another partnership with NS, going to, again, long-haul trucking, going to Kansas City and Atlanta. So that's market share. You won't see this needle moving in the short term as much, because a customer that has done business with trucks for the last 10 years won't give you all that business tomorrow morning. They'll test you out. So I'll test you out for 10 loads, 20 loads. I like what I see, then 50. But if we're successful, and we're reliable on our service, I think this will grow, and I'm quite excited about it. So that's a little bit more what's happening now, but what you see on the short term, it's more the end markets that makes us a little bit more bullish.
I think, you know, in Q2, you're always wondering yourself, when volumes are down, have we hit bottom? And in Q2, we definitely were not sure we hit bottom, and when you look at our volumes, in Q2, sequentially, they were the same as Q3, and then they're up now. So, so that tells us, okay, bottom has been hit, and then we see signs of, of betterment, you know, and it's not one, but it's a little here, a little there, a little there, that makes us confident that this is coming back. I don't think it's going to come back to, levels, especially intermodal international, that, you know, the COVID bump demand that we saw. But, but I think it's gonna come back to the pre-COVID levels. And I don't know, Stacy, if you want to add anything.
I think that was a really good summary. I would just add, you know, we're really excited about the portfolio of opportunities that we've laid out on Investor Day, and we're seeing some of them come to fruition, kind of in the near term, like this quarter and throughout 2024. So it gives us kind of, to your point, that really optimistic tone about where the company's going from a growth perspective.
Well, great. Maybe I'll ask a follow-up question on that, and then I'll open it up to the audience if you have any questions. But, you know, as we move into next year, what, what's your confidence level that you can achieve that volume growth framework of, of being above the economy, GDP, and, you know, what are the key drivers to that? I know you laid out a lot of details at Investor Day, but specific to next year, what are some of the above economic growth volume drivers?
So we can give a couple of examples, Stacy and I. First of all, I think that you're right. I think what. On 2024, we will give more visibility in January. That's typically what we do on the year per se. When you look at our, our Investor Day, we said that we were gonna deliver 10%-15%, and we need it, and we said that assumes a constructive economy. And we looked at 150 different economic indicators, you know, and how they correlate to the segments of our business. But to simplify for investors, we took one, we said, industrial production of at least 2%. So if you look at consensus forecast today, I mean, you would debate that we will not have 2% industrial production next year.
I think it's more targeted to be, you know, flat to slightly positive. But, you know, we do have some of these opportunities that we laid out that are gonna come to provide volumes in 2024. I think you can talk about the AltaGas, Stacy, contract that we just signed and some of the opportunities we have on the BC North, which we're gonna start moving volumes. I mean, we're finishing the investment as we speak. We're gonna start moving volumes in 2024. Maybe you want to touch upon a couple of those.
Yeah, sure. We press released the new AltaGas contract that we signed a few weeks ago. It's a long-term agreement, and it's gonna provide us with incremental growth for export propane into Rupert as well as Ferndale, Washington. So as you may recall, we did line an opportunity of, I think, 40,000-45,000 cars of propane at our Investor Day. So this is actually a big chunk of that opportunity already secured, so we're pretty happy about that, and as I said, it's starting up already. You know, I think Derek could probably talk about Northeast BC, because we just finished doing the siding there.
Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, in coinciding with that, obviously, Frac Sand growth out of Wisconsin going to Northeast BC. We just completed the siding project there to enable some further growth and train meets there. So that's exciting. But with Frac Sand going there, that means NGLs are coming out of there, hence some of the propane and different opportunities. So, you know, Northeast BC is a location we have a lot of collaborative focus on, from marketing and operations, to make sure we have good alignment. And, you know, as Gilles... as you heard Ghislain pointed out say, you know, we bring on these folks with these investments, it is backstopped, right? We're not just spending money to spend money. It's, it's back, you know, backstopped with different things there to make sure our investment will get the proper ROIC on it.
... Yeah, there's also the Norchem jet fuel transfer facility that we actually finished building in Toronto, in the Mac Yard?
Yeah, Mac Yard. Yes, sir.
So that will see volumes coming in. It's gonna ramp up in 2024, but we'll have a full year effect of those. And then maybe from a little longer term, in Eastern Canada, we're quite excited about the electric vehicle and battery facility, which we've started to move some lithium from mines in northern Quebec. Why we're favorable about this is, as you know, we have capacity in Eastern Canada, so we're working hard to try to densify our network there. On the electric vehicle battery side, there's been six announcements that have been made of building some of these facilities, some of them on our line.
Like, there's one that's been announced by Ford, that they will build a facility, a $1.2 billion investment battery facility in Bécancour, which is just between Montreal and Quebec on our lines. So obviously, that's not gonna give a whole lot of volumes in 2024, but from a mid to long-term standpoint, if they build on your line, then you'll service them for the next 30 years or so. So there's 6 of them that have been announced. So maybe not all of them are gonna come through, but I'm hoping that a few of them will. And there's a big one that actually, I think the Quebec government is subsidizing in the billions of dollars, south of Montreal, that's coming as well, as one of the big battery producers in Europe.
So the good news about our opportunities is, it's not one single, where if it doesn't work, then you're, you're toast. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, it's and it's not a big home run, but it's a lot of singles and, and doubles and maybe a triple. But they're there, they're diversified, they're diversified geographically, they're diversified from a commodity standpoint. We've said again, that, you know, we're not assuming in our 10%-15% EPS growth, that all of the 800,000-900,000 carloads will happen. I mean, we said that we had 25%, locked up, in May. I think now we're a bit higher than that, and we're continuing to work.
We're investing, especially on the revenue side, we're investing as these opportunities happen and as we're signing up the customers to make sure that our investment are as close by the revenue as possible, so not to have a dilutive effect on our ROIC. So in some cases, if the opportunity doesn't materialize or if the opportunity is being pushed, then we will adjust our CapEx accordingly. Obviously, we're not, we're not gonna spend just for spending, so we will adjust accordingly. So when we said CapEx from, you know, and we gave go-forward $3.5 billion-$4 billion, we said to people, "This is not set in stone." Like, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, this is a bit dynamic.
Some of the maintenance is steady, Eddie, as we typically do, but on some of these capacity and/or revenue opportunities, we will line up with the opportunities that are in front of us. So we're—I think we're in great space, and then we've got the operating model. We've got the operating model to deliver. I mean, when I look at the reorganization that's been led by our CEO, you know, with having, you know, Derek on the field and Pat on the network, it really solidifies from an organization standpoint, the schedule, the scheduled railroading model that CN will have for the next 10, 15 years going forward.
And the key on that, and to me, this is, this is, this is telling, 'cause I've seen the good, and I've seen—I've seen the good and I've seen the bad. You remember, Justin, when in 2017, end of 2017, early 2018, we started to be jammed up a little bit, and it wasn't clear at CN whether we're gonna run long-term train model or scheduled railroading model. We got to January, we had 35,000 more cars on the network, and we moved 11% less volume. Just as an example, this year, because it's tougher to see in Q2, because our volumes were down, but in Q1, our volumes were up 6%, and we did that with 15,000 less cars on the network. That's compelling because now you're sweating your assets, you have, you have less congestion.
Some of the car ownership benefit we get if we own the car, but remember that some of it goes to the customers because they own private equipment. Well, guess what happens? That's great, they get the benefit, but it helps us when we get--when we try to get re, re, rail plus inflation pricing with them, then we're able to demonstrate not only that our trains are more reliable, 'cause how can you be reliable if you never start your train on time? But that they're able to get the benefit of running either more volume with the same amount of cars or return some cars to the lessors. It helps us to get better pricing. So that model and the reorg that we've just done, and we--Tracy did not do this in a vacuum.
We were all involved in looking at this, making sure it's the right thing to do. To his point, he's fighting fires every day, and, you know, his team are the best at it. When they don't have a fire a given day, they'll create one, because they want to put it out. They're good at it. Then Pat is a little bit more long term. I think these two work hand in hand, and I think you've seen the dynamic at Investor Day, and some of you, if you attended or looked at it... Because it was video, you looked at it, you can see these two guys working very well together. We did this intentionally.
We wanted to put the breadcrumb out there so that knowing Ed was eventually going to retire, that we were not gonna take the market by surprise. This was all intentional.
Okay, well, I can keep going, but let me take a question from the audience.
Just two quick questions, if I could, just on, can you talk a little bit about why the volumes in Vancouver and Prince Rupert have been so weak? Just, it seems like those ports have lost a lot of share to LA Long Beach. And then secondly, I was just trying to clarify your grain comment. So the comment is, it's a lower grain crop this year, and you have-
... spillover impact of that into early 2024, the overall grain business should be down for you, or, or is there a southern versus northern dynamic there?
So, so I can talk, and you guys can jump in, and I can open up. So in terms of the volumes going to Rupert and to Vancouver, obviously, we did lose some market share to LA/Long Beach and Seattle-Tacoma. What happens with the strike, as the shipping lines started being concerned about a potential strike, they signed up deals to those ports because they needed to land the box and to North America. And typically, when they sign those deals, they don't sign it for a week or two. They'll sign it for a couple of months. They won't sign it for a couple of years, but they'll sign it for a couple of months.
We think that, you know, as volumes come back, where LA Long Beach will continue or will restart having more congestion issues and so on, that definitely, it'll come back to Rupert, because, you know, Rupert is too compelling for business going to, Chicago, Detroit, and North U.S.. Just from a sailing time, it's two days shorter sailing time to go to Asia, and then you pay the-- you pay, you know, the port fees in Canadian dollar. There's no harbor tax. Anyway, so there's a lot of these things that make, Rupert, very compelling. So that's the question on this. On grain, as I said, it's a lower crop. Typically, like, it depends on world prices of grain.
But farmers typically, historically, will push the grain as much as they can in Q3, Q4. And then some of them, they try to, you know, they try to play the market as well from a pricing standpoint. But what we've seen historically is you'll run—you'll move as much grain as you can in Q3, Q4, but then you just run out of grain in the following year until the new crops comes back on August first. So that's typically what we've seen. Now, you could have a week where it could be stronger or weaker, depending on how sometimes the farmers and the big grain companies are trying to play the market. And God knows, there's a lot of geopolitical things happening out there and so on and so forth.
But that's typically what we've seen.
Question on the end?
Yeah, just maybe a quick follow-up on the West Coast line. So then you're talking about, you know, the folks that signed agreements for some length of time, three months, six months-
Something like that, to get around the strike diversions. And then on the conference call in Q3, you guys talked about those volumes recovering sort of over the course of the year. Why would it take that long if these diverted volumes have been put on fairly short contracts to just sort of get around?
Well, I mean, maybe it won't take that long. You know, we're speculating. I think that, you know, on any given conversation, you know, it could be a month or two, versus it could be three, four months. I think that, you know, it could take a little longer if it takes longer for L.A./Long Beach Port to get back to some congestion issues. But if they get to congestion... If, for example, the recovery, and some of the people are telling us, they're expecting the recovery to be V-shaped in 2024 on intermodal international, then I think it'll come quicker. So right now we're just speculating, but from a long-term standpoint, for me, this strike in Rupert is noise. Like, it's a little bit like noise we have on the fuel surcharge on a given quarter.
Definitely, Rupert, for us, is the gift that keeps on giving, and it's a long-term play. Like, Rupert has tremendous opportunity to expand. We're trying to make it a multi-commodity. Also, it has capacity to expand its terminal from 1.6 to 1.8, and then it's got land to build another one. So to your point, I don't know. So we, you know, you talk to Doug MacDonald, he could tell you, "Well, you know, it's gonna be in a month or two." Talk to somebody else, they say, "Well, depends, you know, if L.A. Long Beach gets better." Because these agreements may say, "Hey, you know, we'll extend it for another month or whatever." You know what I'm saying? Like, so, so but definitely, we feel that over time, it will come back. So it's just a question of when.
I think there's two pieces. There's kind of the temporary share loss because of the strike, which we're already starting to see kind of in the order data that we look at, which is three-four weeks out, that we're gonna see better volumes at Rupert in the coming weeks.
And then there's a longer-term issue about just the overall environment's been very soft for everybody. That's where we think the recovery is gonna build through 2024.
Got it.
I'd say, too, you know, there were some recent announcements, new import-export facility at Rupert, for example. This is gonna make it even more sticky and competitive with this new facility they're building to be able to transload plastics back into containers, different lentils or products. So that... When you have the ability to reload these empties going back even more than we do today, it just makes it more of a competitive thing to want to bring imports in, right? So, you know, you know, the team, whether it's CN, our customers, and the Port Authority, are not sitting idle. There's things we can continue to evolve at Rupert to make it even more sticky and competitive over time.
Question here. You gave the 10%-15% guidance in May. I don't believe grain heading into 2024 was known yet, and I don't believe this sort of issue at Rupert was known yet. Should we sort of expect that to move to the right a little bit, or is that still very much achievable despite CN's volume heading?
We'll see. I mean, obviously, as I said, we will give more visibility on 2024 as we get to January. But you're right. So, you know, the grain is a lower crop. Now, when you look at our three-year guidance, it could very well be a higher crop in 2025, 2026. Grain on a given year, you know, just with technology from fertilizers and from agriculture, goes up, I say 3%, Stacy says 2%. So but it's in the 2%-3%. So, and I mean, and industrial production is not going to be at 2%.
But again, like I said, Industrial Production was a metric that we provide to simplify for investors, but we're looking at 150 of those economic indicators. So I would say on this one, for 2024, stay tuned, and we'll give more visibility in January, as we typically do.
The last two years, there's been a lot of discussion around inflation and what we've seen there. Obviously, that's added some pressure. Any initial thoughts around inflation in 2024 and how that could compare to this year? Just curious if you're expecting some easing and what magnitude.
Yeah. When you look at inflation, when you look at labor inflation, with deals that have been signed, the U.S. would be a little higher than in Canada. I mean, I think, you know, you're probably in the 4%-4.5% range in the U.S.. I think in Canada, with the various deals that have been signed, you're in the 3%-3.5%. I think inflation from a material and product standpoint, I think that the biggest of inflation is probably behind us. When I look at, you know, buying rail, for example, on a year-over-year basis, now it's pretty much flat. Ties, tie prices are. They do have inflation. They're higher on a year-over-year basis.
So, you know, I think that, you know, and then with interest rates going up and what the banks are trying to do, I think, is they're trying to contain whether we'll go to inflation at 2%, that's questionable, but I don't think we'll remain at four or five. I think we'll go down to the 3-ish%. And then from our standpoint, what's important is when we state, and I'm sure that's going to be your follow-up question, is what about how do you feel about pricing above-
You nailed it.
above inflation? And I think that, like, we feel pretty good because of a couple of reasons, is because our service has never been as good. So we feel pretty good about pricing. We're reliable. This customer survey that came from RBC yesterday is very favorable to CN and our service. And the fact that we're able to move more business with less cars and some of the benefit going to the customers, I think is favorable for pricing. So I'm confident that we will continue to price above rail inflation.
Without giving any specific numbers on price, do you feel like the pricing environment can accelerate in terms of the pace of increases as we move into next year?
Yeah, you know, I mean, it's broad brush. We say rail above rail—we say pricing above rail inflation, but it's lane by lane. We're looking at it lane by lane. We're looking at it on a commodity standpoint. Obviously, a dangerous commodity does not have the same pricing as pricing coal, for example. So we look at it, and the good news at CN, because we have not done this all the time, is in the past, marketing would go up, and they would sign up these contracts, and we would not, all of us would not have visibility on them.
Then I would see these emails of all the volumes that we have been able to pick up, but I would not be able to see at what price did we pick them up. I'd have to go through my costing people and so on to find out. I think now, this is something that Tracy came along. Not only did she, you know, push us to go back to the scheduled railroad model, but also to better work on an integrated fashion.
So we have this operating committee where Derek, Pat, Ed used to sit on it, myself, Doug, and Tracy, and we look at all the renewals of contracts, either new business or renewals of contracts, to make sure that we all agree that we have the capacity to move the business so that we can deliver great customer service. We like the price, we like the profitability, we have the resources to move the business, we have the capacity, so we have visibility on all, on all of this. And in some cases, pricing will be way ahead of inflation because of the OD and because of the commodity and this and that. In other cases, maybe we'll be a little bit more aggressive on price, let's say, in Eastern Canada, where I do have capacity.
You know, even if it's a little lower margin, it adds to be able to pay our fixed costs, it adds to, and it accretive to earnings and so on. So it's the right thing to do. Sometimes we've picked up some spot business where we said: "Hey, we have capacity for the next three months. Let's move some crude from Western Canada to the Gulf, but we'll do it for three or six months because we have the capacity. But then after that, we're going to supplement this with frac sand or with grain. So we have these types of discussion that we're very intentional about. The key for us is to be very intentional about not only grow the top line, but grow it in a way to bring that top-line growth to the bottom line.
Makes sense. I think there was a question down there. We probably have time for one more.
Sort of more of like a follow-up clarification, because you obviously weren't able to price above inflation over the last sort of 18-24 months, like super inflation, let's call it. So how long do you think it would take you to get back to sort of that historical kind of margin run rate or whatever? Like, can you claw it back over the course of three years or something to make yourself whole?
I don't know what you think. Can we claw it back over the next two years? I think that it depends what you call inflation. So if you look at the RCAF inflation, 7% or 8%—you're right, that, you know, it's the pricing and most railroads have not priced at 10% or so. But if you look at the real rail inflation, which is lower than that, because remember that some inflation comes from fuel, and that fuel is actually being sent to customers through fuel surcharge. I think that, you know, in the last 12, 18 months, you know, when I look at our own rail inflation, we've been able to price above it.
We're not as exposed as our peers in the U.S. to the labor inflation as he spoke about earlier, so it's not quite the same thing for us.
Yeah.
Well, maybe to end, Derek, with one for you, just given the change in your role. Did this reorganization drive any change to incentives for you or others in the organization? And maybe along those lines, what are the metrics that you're most focused on improving? I'm sure there are hundreds that you look at every morning, but you know, what are the kinda top two or three that you're focused on and we should be focused on as we kind of grade how the execution of the plan is going?
Yeah, no, and I think the key is, as you mentioned earlier, you know, this is a network business. We're gonna do what's right for the network in CN, right? So you look at the whole make the plan, run the plan, sell the plan, there's always gonna be alignment in that. That's the expectation of Tracy. You heard about the ops committee, that makes us much more nimble. When you talk about alignment, these opportunities, as I mentioned, don't happen without alignment at that level, right? And, you know, I'd say this, just 'cause there's a couple new guys sitting in the chair with Ed retiring, with Pat and I. Listen, Pat and I have got along very good. We think a lot alike. We understand the schedule railroad concept. Now we're different leaders, and what's interesting, we want the same outcome.
How we get there may be different, but that's the diversity of thought and ideas. That's important, 'cause you may not be able to leverage everything as good as you could without that. And, you know, in terms of metrics, there's hundreds, as you know, we look at. You know, one I would touch upon is car velocity. I don't think I'm the first or last-
Yeah
... operations leader that would tell you that. And for us, you know, if car velocity is at 200 or above, this network's running in place. Now, what I would say about car velocity, always got to keep in mind, there is mix that impacts car velocity. There's seasonality to car velocity, so you can't necessarily just take a snapshot in time and say, "Oh, there's something right, or there's something wrong." But, you know, overall, that car velocity metric is one of the purest things we can use from a railway point of view. Now, for me, obviously, being in the field, you know, I'm looking at on-time performance. If you don't have on-time performance out of your initial terminals, it can negatively cascade throughout the network, right? So there's a lot of focus for my group on on-time performance.
You know, another thing is when you look at, you know, 32-hour cars, for example, how long are those cars dwelling in your major terminals or outlying points? You know, you look at, we call it industry process dwell, that's measuring the actual hours in a yard. Now, those things are all smaller, but they all create the velocity. It's just like anything else, you know, velocity is the wonderful thing, that's the all-in, but there's countless things I would get into. You know, I could, but I, you know, we can be here all day. But the other thing I will touch upon, you heard me earlier, is LSCP. That's that touch point with our customers. I don't wanna lose sight of that. That's extremely important.
When you can get your customers the cars on a right day, in the right window, that's extremely powerful, right? And at the right time, that, that's something that allows you to be able to maybe have, you know, heard Ghislain say, maybe there's some doubles out there, some triples, but hey, there's some bunts and singles, just the day-to-day operation, how you can draw these, you know, long-standing customers, how do you bring more volume to the network? And I close with this, from a, you know, compensation point of view, nothing's changed. We all get measured on you know, when you look at it from, from the, the different, metrics there. Corporately, that's what drives compensation, right? It's no different than what I have with Ghislain, it has Pat, there, there's no change in that.
You know, it's an interesting question, but are there some personal submetrics that him and I may have different from... You know, I'm more focused on some of these terminal metrics, but it actually still coincides with car velocity, just like some of his. So although we may have different personal metrics as a part of that, it still goes to the same thing, what's best for the network.
From an incentive standpoint, we're measured on revenues, so we have targets for revenue, operating income. So revenue, we need to grow the business. Operating income, we want to grow it profitably, and then free cash flow, because we believe cash is king. We're also, in our incentive compensation is tied to safety, so we have a component tied to safety, FRA accidents and FRA injuries. Some of our metrics is tied to customer service, and we have an NPS score that we go with, you know, to make sure that our customers are satisfied with our, with our service, and we're incented on that from a, from an incentive compensation. And then finally, another piece is employee engagement. So again, making sure that employees are engaged.
So we do surveys, we measure it, and if and depending on the targets and so on, we're incentivized by it or, you know, we just don't get a bonus related to it. And then we have long-term, like other rails and other companies, we have long-term compensation, a lot of it related to our targets on ROIC, because ROIC is such an important metric with a capital-intensive business like ours. And then we look at TSR, TSR versus other rails, and TSRs versus, you know, some type of index. So it's well-rounded. And you know, the bottom line, though, is, you know, what he's saying is those metrics, that car velocity and so on, they all feed into like, if we don't have car velocity or dwell, then you won't have operating income.
Like, it all boils down to which it should be. Like, if we perform well, we should be rewarded, and if we don't, then we should not be rewarded, we should be penalized.
Okay, well, we're out of time, so we're gonna wrap things there, but thanks again to the CN team for being here.