Good morning, everyone. I'll start off, and John Reid is also on the call, so as I finish off, we'll both be available for questions. So I plan on providing an overview of the Q3 2023 results, and if you want to follow along, I'll be using the PowerPoint slides that are on our website. You can just go into the investor relations section. If you go to page three, you can read our cautionary statement on forward-looking information. So let me begin with just a little bit of a perspective on the quarter. I think that Q3 was a nice example of how we have a lot of inherent flexibility that is built into our business model, and our team really did a great job in navigating through volatile steel market conditions.
One of the things that John and I have said multiple times over the past few years is that the changes that we've made to our portfolio, the lows should be higher, the high should be higher, and we've reduced the cash flow volatility through the cycle. I think this quarter illustrated that very well, as it was one of our best quarters from a free cash flow perspective. We had solid profitability, plus the countercyclicality of our business provided for cash generation from working capital. In addition, we realized proceeds in selling our TriMark equity interest, and at the same time, we returned about $ 45 million to our shareholders through a combination of both dividends and share buybacks. Let's turn to market conditions to start off on page five.
Steel prices have moved around quite a bit over the past few months, with hot rolled sheet prices coming down from around $1,200 per ton in April to a level that was below $700 in late September, in part driven by the uncertainty related to the UAW strike. More recently, though, we have seen a bit of a pickup. There's been a lengthening of mill lead times and an increase in prices, and they're back over $900 per ton. On the plate side, it hasn't been as volatile. It was over $1,500 a ton through September, and it's now closer to $1,400 a ton as producers have been proactive in managing the marketplace. Overall, it seems like producers have been reasonably disciplined in managing supply, which is constructive for our part of the supply chain.
Somewhat related, you can see from the charts that are on the right-hand side of the page related to service center inventories, that the industry remains at relatively modest levels, at the same time, that demand is steady. If we go to page six, there's a snapshot of our Q3 results, and if we look across the various charts, starting on the top left, revenues were $ 1.1 billion versus $ 1.2 billion in Q2. The decline was due to both price declines as well as summer seasonal dynamics that impacts volumes in the service center segment. EBITDA was $ 96 million versus $ 131 million in Q2, due mostly due to margin compression or service centers in steel distributors.
That being said, our overall gross margin of 9% was down from Q2, but remained at a pretty healthy level compared to pre-COVID frames of reference, 2018, 2019-type time frames. From a bottom line perspective, EPS was $ 0.99 per share, and our annualized return on invested capital was 23%. Even without the non-recurring gain from the sale of our TriMark joint venture, our return on invested capital was an annualized 20%. As we've always discussed, we have a strong internal focus on return on capital, and that has led to industry-leading results over an extended period of time.
Lastly, in terms of capital structure in the bottom right-hand chart, we have a net cash position of $ 272 million versus net debt of almost $ 500 million at the end of 2019. This approximately $ 775 million-dollar increase in free cash flow gives us a lot of financial flexibility going forward. We're disciplined in what we do with shareholders' capital, which is why we'll continue to be active in looking at reinvestment opportunities, both internally and externally, as well as returning capital to shareholders by both dividends and share buybacks. Going to our more detailed financial results on page seven. From an income statement perspective, I've covered some of the high-level items on the previous page, but a few other items of note.
Revenues of $ 1.1 billion, which I mentioned before, down 7% from Q2. Price realizations were down in the service center business, and we had our normal seasonal decline in volumes that we get in Q3s in a typical, in a typical year. On the flip side, we had a sequential increase in revenues from our energy field store business as that activity continues to do well. On margins, all segments were down, and I'll discuss these in more detail in a minute. Interest expense came down to $ 2 million, as the increase of interest rates and the increase of our cash balance is allowing us to generate interest income on our cash reserves. As I mentioned earlier, overall, we had earnings per share of $ 0.99 per share, and $ 61 million in total. Our Q3 results were impacted by a few non-operating items.
TriMark, on the sale, we picked up a gain, but overall, it was $ 12 million, a combination of the $ 10 million gain, as well as $ 2 million worth of earnings in the period prior to the sale closing. Stock-based comp had a $ 1 million negative impact versus a $ 2 million impact in Q2, and we had a $ 5 million increase in our inventory, NRV reserves in the quarter. Now, to put this $ 5 million NRV adjustment in context, many of you are aware that in previous years, we had some very sizable NRV hits. We've always had a very conservative bias in managing inventories by not taking speculative inventory positions.
However, more recently, the sale of our OCTG line pipe business and other capital control measures have substantially reduced the NRV risks that we have experienced in the past.... If we go further down the page, from a cash flow perspective, in Q3, we generated $ 58 million from working capital, primarily driven by a reduction in inventory, and as previously discussed, we picked up $ 60 million on the sale of our TriMark joint venture interest as it closed in early September. CapEx of $ 50 million was similar to Q2. As we continue executing on our discretionary projects, our annual CapEx should pick up to around $ 75 million per year on average over a few years. From a balance sheet perspective, we're in a net cash position with net cash of $ 272 million.
This is a $ 118 million pickup in the past quarter. Our liquidity is almost $ 1 billion, and we have the strongest balance sheet that we've ever experienced. To put the balance sheet in perspective, we managed the company with a very conservative investment-grade, credit-type bias, and I think we've demonstrated this approach through market volatility over the past couple of years. In the quarter, we picked up about 500,000 shares under our NCIB, which brings the total to about 2.8 million shares since we put the NCIB in place in August of 2022. Our cumulative average price is CAD 33.42. Our book value moved up again and is now over $ 27 per share, notwithstanding the share buybacks that we did in the quarter.
Lastly, we have declared a quarterly dividend of $0.40 per share. On page eight, I've included an update of the TriMark transaction that we summarized at the end of last quarter. So the staged monetization is now complete, with the final piece being the $60 million sale. We have repatriated all of our capital back that was tied up in OCTG line pipe, which, when aggregated, totaled approximately $375 million. This approach provided for a very profitable exit, including this last tranche that realized a $10 million gain, virtually all of which was shielded from tax. More importantly, our goal with the portfolio changes was to reduce the volatility of earnings, lower the risk profile, and enhance our margins and returns over a cycle.
Also, we now have a tremendous amount of financial flexibility as a result of that repatriation and capital to pursue a range of alternatives, some of which we have already done, some of which are on the come. On page nine, you can see our EBITDA variance analysis between last quarter and this quarter. In looking at the service centers, the volumes were down from Q2, but the biggest factor in Q3 was the decline in margins that impacted results by $ 29 million. In terms of operating costs, that was a positive variance, as operating costs came down by $ 6 million as our variable compensation models tied directly to financial performance and creates a direct toggle up and down with our financial results. Energy field stores were mostly flat quarter-over-quarter, with steel distributors down $ 8 million due to lower steel prices and margins.
In the other category, there was a $ 8 million favorable variance, which included the pickup of our TriMark gain, a small pickup in our Thunder Bay terminal operation, and lower mark to market on our stock-based compensation expense. If we go to page 10, we have our segmented P&L information. For service centers, revenues were down and margins came off, as did EBIT. I'll go through some more detailed metrics for the service centers on the next page in a minute, but our overall revenues and margins per ton remain very healthy by historical comparisons. More importantly, the steel market seems to have found a floor and some price increases have occurred in the past few weeks. In energy field stores, we are continuing to see solid performance. Q3 2023 revenues were up versus Q2 and were up versus Q3 of last year.
Margins did come off a bit as one of our divisions moved some volume for project work that was at below normal margins. Our steel distributors' revenues, margins, and profitabilities were down with the adjustment in steel prices. If we go to page 11, we are having a deeper dive on some of the metrics for our metal service center business. The top right graph is the past number of years for tons shipped, and the Q3 volumes were down from Q2 because of the normal seasonal summer slowdown, but the volumes were very similar to Q3 of 2022. Demand continues to be solid going into Q4, but we typically have a reduction of operating days in Q4, which results in lower volumes in Q4 versus Q3, and you can see that trend that has occurred over the past few years.
It's typically down about 7%-10%, Q4 versus Q3, because of the lost operating days. On the bottom left graph, we have revenue and cost of goods sold per ton. On revenue per ton, our price realizations decreased by $131 per ton versus only a $37 per ton decrease in cost of goods sold, which resulted in a $94 per ton drop in margin. As a reminder, there's usually a three to four month lag between steel price changes and when that flows through our inventories and into our cost of goods sold. So even though our cost of goods sold came down in Q3, that lag effect should cause our cost of goods sold to come down further in Q4, all of the things being equal.
For Q3, our gross margin was $442 per ton, which remains higher than our historical average of closer to $300 per ton. As I said earlier, we've repeated over the time, we expect to realize average higher average margins and lower volatility over the cycle as compared to pre-COVID margins due to our ongoing investment initiatives. On page 12, we have illustrated our inventory turns. This chart shows the inventory turns by quarter for each segment, with energy in red, service centers in green, and steel distributors in yellow. In addition, the black line is the average for the entire company. Overall, our inventory turns improved from 3.9- 4.0, as we remain focused on tight inventory controls to reduce risk during periods of market volatility.
By sector, service centers were 4.6 turns, which again, is industry-leading versus our publicly traded peers. Our energy field stores improved from 2.6 - 3.3, while steel distributors also improved from 2.9 - 3.2 in the quarter. On page 13, we have the impact of inventory turns on inventory dollars. Total inventory declined by $ 65 million in the quarter compared to the end of Q2. And as mentioned earlier, the countercyclical nature of our cash flows provides for a drawdown in inventory when prices come off. I do expect to see some further declines into Q4, given the lag effect that I mentioned earlier between prices coming in and how that flows into our inventories, and then ultimately cost gets sold.
If we go to page 14, you can see the overall impact on capital utilization and returns. Our capital deployed came down to just below $ 1.4 billion because of our working capital reduction. More importantly, our returns continue to be industry leading. Our last 12-month return stands at 26%. If we go to page 15, I want to update our capital structure. The continuation of our strong free cash flow and disciplined approach to capital utilization gives us a lot of financial flexibility. On the left table, you can see that our cash position went up to $ 569 million, which was a $ 119 million increase over June 30, and a $ 365 million increase since this time last year.
We are now realizing return on our cash balance that substantially offsets the interest cost on our outstanding notes. Our equity base is almost $ 1.7 billion, and if you look at the chart on the right, you can see the continuation of our growth in our equity base. Our book value per share is over $ 27 per share, which is a $ 0.90 increase since June 30th, and a $ 2.61 per share increase since this time last year. If you go to page 16, we have an update on our capital allocation priorities going forward. Given our strong balance sheet, we have a multipronged approach to capital allocation. For investment opportunities, we seek average returns over the cycle greater than 15%.
And as some of those charts that we've talked about earlier have demonstrated, we have more than delivered on that target. The ongoing opportunities are threefold. One, we are continuing to identify and pursue new value-added projects. In total, we have approximately 30 equipment projects on the go throughout North America. It is extremely active right now, and we expect to see an impact of those items tail into this year and into 2024, and frankly, beyond. Facility modernizations. We have five modernizations underway, some of which we've talked about in the past, and they are tracking for completion at various times in 2024. When combined with other projects on the go, we have a robust series of initiatives that should grow our volumes, increase operating efficiencies, generate attractive returns, and in many cases, improve health and safety conditions.
In terms of acquisitions, we've seen a lot of deal flow over the past while, and we are actively looking at opportunities. In Q3, we closed the acquisition of Alliance Supply, which is a small tuck-in to our Canadian energy field store business. In addition, we are pursuing a number of opportunities that could fit within our middle service center business. In terms of returning capital to shareholders, as we've talked about in the past, we've adopted a flexible approach. For dividends, in May, we increased our dividends to $ 0.40 per share, and we'll continue to reevaluate the appropriate level. For purposes of this quarter, we have again done a $ 0.40 per share dividend.
For the NCIB, we acquired 529,000 shares last quarter, and since August of 2022, we have acquired 2.8 million shares at a cost, average cost of $ 33.42. We expect to continue to utilize the NCIB on an opportunistic basis. Overall, given our capital structure, we have the financial flexibility to pursue a variety of alternatives and initiatives, including share buybacks, dividends, acquisitions, and internal reinvestments. In closing, on behalf of John and other members of the management team, I'd like to express our appreciation to everyone within the Russel family. We couldn't be happier with how Russel has navigated its way through the markets over the past few years, and we really look forward to some exciting and new opportunities ahead. Thanks to everyone across the company for your contributions.
Operator, that concludes my introductory remarks, and if you would now like to open the line for questions, that would be great.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. First question comes from James McGarragle from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, Marty, and thanks for taking my question.
Hey, James.
Hey, so on the M&A front, you've completed some tuck-in acquisitions in successive quarters. You said you're evaluating some deals, and, you know, your U.S. peers also made some similar commentary during reporting that the pipeline was very strong. So can you just talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of target multiples in the market and kind of how that's evolved during the last year?
You know, it's hard to make a reference for the market as a whole because there's not that many data points, it's not that liquid a market. All I can say is how we look at it, and we look at it the same, regardless of whether the market is up, down, sideways, which is we're trying to generate an appropriate return on capital, and we're very public of our target return on capital over a cycle is over 15%, so you can reverse engineer into multiples for that. Sometimes vendors meet those criteria, and sometimes they don't.
One of the fascinating things, I think, for John and myself over the last little while is, you know, when we look back to 2022, for example, there was a lot of a lot of opportunities that we had looked at, and we didn't complete a single acquisition in 2022, and it wasn't for lack of looking, it was we couldn't find the right opportunities that made either economic sense, commercial sense, or in some cases, they just weren't cultural fits. There have been a lot of deals that have come back to market a second time, a third time, and, you know, sometimes it's not the first kick at the can that allows vendors and buyers to find an alignment.
For us, we stick to our criteria regardless of what the macroeconomy is and regardless of what vendor expectations are. We don't chase stuff for the sake of chasing stuff, and so sometimes things come back to us at values that work for us.
As a follow-up to that, clearly you have lots of cash available. You know, are you limited in any way from a management perspective in terms of evaluating deals and potentially integrating acquisitions versus the amount of dry powder that you have available on the balance sheet?
The short answer is no. Well, I mean, we're in really good shape from a capital structure perspective to look at a variety of things. We are sensitive to making sure that things that we look at can be properly brought on from a systems, people, cultural fit perspective. So we're very conscious of that, but we don't see any significant limitations for the things that we're looking at right now. We're set up very well, if they make sense.
Just one more follow-up from me before I turn it over. On infrastructure spending and nearshoring, so I know that the U.S. steel producers were highlighting during reporting that they expect to benefit from infrastructure spending starting early in 2024. I know you have a little bit more tilt towards Canada, but do you see a similar line of sight as to when, you know, we should start seeing an uptick in volumes at your company related to some big infrastructure projects in Canada and the U.S.?
Hey, James, this is John. Yeah, good question. And again, we're about a 60/40 split, Canada to U.S., so we're seeing benefits on both sides. I think early in 2024, there's some anticipated infrastructure spend, especially when you look at clean energy, solar, wind, will be heavy users of steel, along with other infrastructure spends that are being government funded. When you shift to Canada, we're seeing some of that in energy as well. And there's some large energy projects that we're looking at right now that we'll participate in through our energy field stores as well as our Western Canadian service centers. So we see a really nice opportunity going into 2024 for that spend to impact our business in a positive way.
Thank you very much.
Great. Thanks, James.
Thank you. The next question comes from Devin Dodge from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
All right. Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Hey, Devin.
Within the service center segment, I believe activity levels in BC and Quebec have been a bit slower than maybe some other regions in your network. Just can you speak to some of the drivers behind that, and if you see any signs that these markets are starting to improve?
Thanks, Devin. Yes, John. Yeah, in Quebec, again, when you look through Q3, keep in mind you have a construction holiday. So again, they take two weeks off, and so that's some of the impact that we saw on demand during that period. Again, we've seen imports put some pressure in that market, but overall, we think that's improving nicely. We think the construction backlogs are very stable, and so we're, we're anticipating a good Q4 and really going into 2024 being very strong for Quebec. When you move out to BC, it's a different market out there. We've seen, again, a lot of changes to the market as far as our carbon-based business. Our non-ferrous business has been very strong out there. But again, there has been some manufacturing that's left.
Some pulp and paper industry has slowed down or actually idled or closed facilities, and so we've seen some market aggregation out there. But overall, we're pleased with where we are in BC as far as a market perspective on demand, and our model's so flexible, we can adjust to what is very positive. We just don't see that as a big growth market for us in the near future.
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks, John. Okay, and then I was gonna ask about M&A. Obviously lots of dry powder, you know, based on your earlier comments, optimism around putting some of that capital to work. You know, so within Russel, is there a desire or at least an openness to expand your energy field store business in a more, you know, meaningful way? You know, and if so, is there a preference between Canada and the U.S.?
Yeah, we'll look at them again as on a business-by-business perspective, as Marty said. Again, we're very comfortable with our energy field stores. It's really a distribution model. When we again we exited OCTG Pipe, it's a different model. It just frankly underperformed for years on our capital and our return on capital. But when we look at the field stores, we think there's a great opportunity both in Canada and the U.S. to continue to grow. But we'll be very strategic about how we do that. Being able to use existing networks that we have to share inventories to make sure that we're hitting the return metrics that we want is critical for us. But yeah, there's really not a bias one way or another.
We just look at a deal-by-deal perspective to make sure they do the right things for our metrics, for our company and our shareholders.
... Okay, thanks for that. I'll turn it over.
Great. Thanks, Devin.
Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Doumet from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Hey, Michael.
Hey, so on the metal service centers, you know, you highlighted the impact of the higher cost inventories on the segment margins. You know, given the 80 day age of inventory, the recent price action for steel, is that mostly behind you? Marty, I might have missed this, but just how are you thinking about, you know, gross margin percentage Q4, dollar margin for Q4?
Yeah, it's an interesting inflection point because we're in the middle of two things moving in two different directions. So our inbound inventories have been coming down and will continue to come down. At the same time, we are starting to see some price increases on new orders and product going out the door. So Q4 is a long-winded way to say there's a bunch of moving pieces happening. All things being equal, cost of goods sold would have come down in Q4 just because of that lag effect that we're still seeing with lower cost inventory coming in versus our average cost of inventory that we have in place.
The pickup that we're starting to see in prices, that's – we're probably gonna see a little bit of that starting to take place on the top line, but that's probably more of a Q1 phenomenon before we start to see that show up in margins.
Got it. Okay, so all else equal, we're assuming steel prices will move around in time. It feels like Q1 margins should be presumably a little bit better than Q4. Is that the right way to think about it?
Spot on. That's exactly spot on.
Perfect. Okay. And then, $440 of gross profit per ton this quarter. Just wondering how you think about that versus what you'll be earning on average going forward. And I know you talked about the historical average, but, you know, you're also talking about value add. So any way you can contextualize how much gross profit is coming from value add today, where that can go in the next couple of years, and maybe where that was before?
Yeah, Michael, as we bring these products on, and again, the value add services as they come on, we think so far we've picked up about two points of gross margin over a cycle. Again, steel prices will move up and down, but we, as we continue to do these, they're either performing at or above expectations. And we've got several of these projects will come on in Q4, will continue throughout 2024 and beyond with these projects. So we think it will continue to make an impact on that gross margin. Again, as those projects come on, they move up very quickly into profitability within the quarter that they come on. So we see that continuing to expand that out.
Again, we've said before, we don't, we think we're less than halfway there on this overall project on the spend for the value added. So we're very optimistic that will continue to spread our gross margin, ultimately our bottom line margin over time. So I, I would anticipate that continuing to grow in 2024 and 2025 as these projects come into fruition.
Thanks, John. And maybe just a third. On the share repurchase, I might be reading into this too much, but I guess that's partly my job. But you slowed the level of repurchases this quarter versus last. So does this quarter's level of repurchasing reflect maybe more of a steady state of what you'd like to do? Again, understanding that it is opportunistic, or does the lower amount maybe reflect, you know, potentially better, you know, uses of capital elsewhere?
It's a good question, and I wouldn't characterize we have a steady state frame of reference of... You know, there's not a cadence that we're gonna be hardwired to. It really is a flexible, adaptable, opportunistic approach to it. So it's... I mean, to be blunt, it's gonna be price dependent, and we will be more aggressive at certain price points than other price points.
Makes sense. Perfect. Thank you, guys.
Okay. Thanks, Michael.
Thank you. The next question comes from Jonathan Lamers at Laurentian Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Hey, Jonathan.
Morning.
With the steel price softness early in the Q4 around the UAW strike situation, are the metal service centers or the steel distributor business taking on any additional inventory or, have they continued to maintain discipline there?
Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan. Yeah, our approach over the long haul is again not to be speculative inventory buyers. We stay to our terms. We may buy a little bit more or a little bit less, but overall, we're gonna try to turn our inventory faster than the industry. We think that mitigates the risk, and so our approach did not change during that timeframe. Unfortunately, some of the industry approach did, and we saw an overstocking. People got caught pricing dip due to the UAW that you mentioned and hot rolled coils. So we saw the industry as a whole in a little bit of an overstock position, which is now rebalanced. And Marty alluded to it earlier in his comments. You can see the charts and graphs.
The in-inventory position for the service center industry as a whole is in a very good position right now. So there's not a lot of slack in the supply chain. So as these increases start to take effect, take hold, scrap prices continue to increase, drive up the HRC prices, we think that will move into the market very quickly. We're highly transactional, so we'll move into the market very quickly with them.
Great color. Thanks. And, one follow-up, John. When you were mentioning that you think the value add processing has added two points to the gross margin above and beyond the cycle, just, just to confirm, are you talking about the overall, on the overall revenue of, you know, say, $ 4.5 billion for this year, or on the revenue just from the metal service center business?
Just, just for service centers.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And one more, Marty. You mentioned that you're very busy with new value add processing projects. Does the budget you've spoken to of about $ 50 million per year for growth CapEx remain appropriate into 2024?
It does for now, but well, technically, a budget is for an annual period. It's a constant rolling project list that we have, and so things are getting added to it all the time, and the exact timing of which sometimes moves around depending upon order lead time. But for planning purposes, $ 75 million for next year, 50 of discretionary, that's a good frame of reference.
Thanks for your comments.
Okay, thanks, Jonathan.
Thank you. The next question comes from Maxim Sytchev from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, gentlemen.
Hey, Max.
Morning
I'm not sure if it's John or Marty who want to take this, but I guess my question is a bit more sort of broader based. I mean, historically, when sort of the business is quote, unquote, good, you know, we had in prior cycles sort of lots of working capital investment and so forth. I mean, typically would be, you know, negative free cash flowing right now, but we're actually seeing the opposite. Do you mind maybe hypothesizing a little bit in terms of, you know, why the cycle is different? And maybe sort of any thoughts on kind of sustainability of the underpinnings that's sort of supporting the dynamic right now? Thanks.
Yeah, and a good question again, and it's, there's some unique things going on right now. We freed up cash flow throughout with the OCTG line pipe departure, and then with the, ultimately, the final sell in the JV here with TriMark. So that freed up cash flow during the cycle, when we typically would have been using cash flow. Then we had a little bit of a downturn with steel pricing. Things started to come off. We throw off... Again, being countercyclical, we'll throw off cash. So we threw off cash again on top of that. So it put us in a very favorable position in the cycle. And so again, I think it's cleaned our balance sheet up.
It's eliminated a lot of the volatility that has caused us some issues in the past, in downturns, so that when you look at, when we took inventory provisions or when we struggled and used a lot of cash in the past, that was typically related to OCTG line pipe, as Marty mentioned earlier. Some of the capital discipline we put into some of our other divisions. So those things are keeping our balance sheet in a much better position over a cycle and really kind of smoothing out that cash flow.
Super helpful. Thank you so much. And then maybe, if you have any thoughts, on kind of the sustainability of the rebound we've seen very recently in, in HRC pricing. Obviously, I fully realize that, you know, you're much more exposed to plate, but, you know, certainly stock correlates to, to the former as well. Just curious kind of what you're hearing from clients kind of on, on the ground, if it's possible. Thank you.
Sure. And again, we start always with scrap pricing being the major input cost into both HRC and plate. We're seeing scrap pricing across North America and the world market improve right now, so that will drive the pricing. When you look at HRC, the recent increases, Marty mentioned, we were just under $700 a ton. If you look at the list prices that are out, they've moved up between $950 and $1,000 a ton. Lead times have stretched out. Typically, they're around four weeks, now they're five to eight. Most mills are booked out through the end of the year, so we think that's been a nice impact. Part of the interesting dynamic was in anticipation of the auto worker strike that happened to our industry.
So I think there was a surge of people getting inventory, getting prepared, making sure they had plenty of product, and the strike lasting longer than was anticipated, I think caused some bottlenecks in the chain. I think that's now worked through, and so we're in a good place. So I think that is sustainable going forward. I think we'll see a good Q1. All things are pointing towards a very strong Q1 for demand. On the plate side, there was an adjustment during the quarter, Nucor led, but again, that was really to bring the list price just down to market price. There were some things that were going on in negotiating, so it wasn't a big change. It was highly anticipated throughout the market, so I think they were just cleaning up where the list price should be.
The interesting thing is, if you look at the spread historically between hot rolled coil and plate, it's typically been between $180-$200 a ton and $300 a ton spread between the two products. We're getting very close to that alignment again. They're probably be a little bit higher than it has been historically, just due to some of the inflationary pressures that are sticky, that will stay around and that have driven up costs at the mill level. So overall, talking to our clients to your final part of the question about demand, we feel really good about demand going into Q1.
When you look at the reshoring that continues, you look at the infrastructure and the clean energy government initiatives on both sides of the border, we think those are going to really start to see some fruit in Q1 and so. So the non-residential construction has great backlogs that are out there right now. The only thing we're seeing on the backlogs that are pulling back in construction is really related to speculative building or housing that would be more, inflation sensitive and, or I'm sorry, interest rate sensitive. So we're just seeing that impact a little bit, but that's something that we don't participate in a lot, be it housing.
Again, there'll be a little bit in the speculative construction and that's pulled back some, but overall, our fabricators are booked pretty solid for 2024, and so we see that being a good year on that product as well. End user demand is very steady and a lot of optimism around next year from our end users.
Okay. Thanks, Max.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ian Gillies at Stifel. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone.
Hey, Ian.
Morning.
We're heading into that point in the business cycle where people tend to worry a bit more about small private businesses rather than larger enterprises. Is there any way you're able to articulate the exposure on the metal service center side to call it medium and larger businesses versus smaller businesses, acknowledging this is tough given the volume of transactions you do?
Yeah, when you... And again, I'm assuming I'm understanding your question correctly, Ian. Again, when we look at service centers that are medium to larger, typically balance sheets are in good position, lines are in good position of credit, and so they can, again, ride the cycle. Smaller service centers, again, when they go through these cycles, the use of capital, then they have the trailing twelve months if there's a downturn, that's going to strain their lines on ABLs. So there are opportunities then for M&A transactions to pop up. So we'll look through those at the cycle. Again, as Marty said earlier, we'll stay to our discipline, looking over a long return, what the return is and what it would do for our shareholder base.
But I think there'll be opportunities again for more M&A for the medium to larger service centers that are well positioned on their balance sheets. You know, some have been aggressive, some have not. But again, I, I can only speak to where we're sitting. We feel like we're in a really good position to do virtually anything we want to do at this time, and so if those opportunities present themselves, we'll, we'll be aggressive.
So, John, the way I was thinking about that question was more so on the customer base. I'm just trying to maybe assess the risk to tonnage as we move forward and so on and so forth.
Yeah. I think customers, again, they're going to evaluate based on their size and scale. Again, you can have small customers, medium, large, but based on their size and scale, they've got... The medium to larger service centers are going to have a deeper breadth of inventory that's out there, that's available. There's an ease of transaction. The smaller service centers can get caught on that side of it. So, and then as we move into the value add and the industry changes, the more value add, the scale and the size and the liquidity it takes to do the value add, to buy and implement the machinery, the footprint it takes up and the additional capital it takes up really gives an advantage, I think, to the larger service centers.
Okay. And then with respect to where metal service centers is today on percentage of sales, type of value add products, can you maybe give us where that would have been, call it two or three years ago, where it is today, and where you'd maybe like it to be by the end of 2025?
Yes. So versus two or three years ago, and we've more than doubled from where we are on value added. We've been doing it for a while, but we've got where we're. We really can put these in, almost franchise these type things. We've got the footprint, so we can put them in, so we've more than doubled in the last two to three years. By the end of 2025, we'd like to more than double that again.
Okay. Thanks very much. That's all for me.
Great. Thanks, Ian.
Thank you. The next question comes from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hey, Mike.
Morning.
Hey, first question relates to energy field stores, gross margin. Just looking at the quarterly margin. So you mentioned in your prepared remarks that it was weaker, a little bit in the quarter due to a specific project, I think you said. I'm just wondering if you can give us a little bit more detail around that situation, that dynamic.
Yeah. It was basically... We have three businesses, two in Canada, one in the U.S., and one tends to be a little bit more project oriented. The one company tends to be more project oriented and a little bit lumpier, and oftentimes it's moving that volume at a little bit lower margin than we get in some of our other areas. So there was a little bit higher of that activity in this quarter with some of that project-oriented work from that one business segment, and it comes in. It's a profitable business; it just comes in at a lower margin. And so that brought our weighted average margins down for this quarter for energy field stores relative to what is typical through multiple quarters.
Okay. So it sounds like, really was sort of a mix issue in the quarter?
Yep. Yep. Exactly. That's a good way to characterize it, Mike.
Okay. Do you see that, that dynamic carrying on into the fourth quarter?
Probably, probably not. I mean, the rest of the business is still making the same margins it was last quarter. It's just not being pulled down by you know, that lumpy stuff. The lumpy stuff does pop up every now and again, and I don't think there's a ton of it coming in Q4. There's probably a little bit coming in Q4. It was a little bit more disproportionate in Q3. Or said another way, Mike, our normalized margins should be, for energy field stores, should be higher than they were in Q3.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. John, you made a number of comments earlier about about some of the movement in steel prices, we've seen and and talked a little bit about what's what's been driving those movements. I guess, going forward from here, what do you see happening sort of over the foreseeable future, the next little while, in terms of HRC and plate directionally? Do you think there's further room to go on HRC, and does plate come down any further, or is this sort of level now that these moves have occurred, where you see things stabilizing?
Yeah, I do think there's further room to run on HRC. And again, as scrap continues to go up, as I mentioned earlier, but I think there's further room to run there. I think inventories are back in balance throughout the supply chain. I think the mills are very disciplined as to what's coming forward. Again, this is contractual bidding season for the mills, so they'll do everything they can to continue to keep that price going forward. With the automotive demand now coming back, you'll see that build. We don't participate in it, but it does use HRC. On the plate side, again, I think there's a large preparation as we've had new mills come on in North America, getting ready for the wind, and the wind is a significant impact as this starts to move in 2024.
The tonnage is going up, you know, 5-10 times what it's been in the past, so there'll be significant plate moving into the market. Also, as energy continues to stay steady, that's a big driver for the plate market. So I think for the plate end use market, there's really good demand that's on the horizon for 2024, and we feel like it's got room to start to move in a lot more in lockstep, though, with HRC. So that, again, that spread that I mentioned, I think will hold more consistent than it kind of disconnected in 2021 through early part of 2023. I think it's come back in line, so I think we'll see that in $200-$400 range between HRC and plate going forward.
Okay. And any commentary around import activity and what has been happening recently and what you see happening over the foreseeable future there?
I don't see a lot of change due to the 232. Again, and this is personal opinion, but I don't see the 232 changing meaningfully. There may be some window dressing or posturing, but again, especially moving into an election year in the U.S., with Pennsylvania being a swing state, I just don't see a lot of change in the 232, so that'll keep the limit of the imports at bay. In Canada, we've actually seen a little bit of an increase this year in imports, primarily driven by OCTG and line pipe. So again, a product that does not impact us any longer. But overall, we think it's in a very healthy situation, that the imports are at the right level to come in.
We have the right supply, and we're in balance in North America, both in Canada and the U.S. So we think the imports will still play an important role, but it just will not have a role as it has had historically, where it could come in and really create wild market swings.
Perfect. There was some discussion earlier about gross margins for service centers, which, I think it sounds like you're, you're optimistic that, there'll be some improvement, maybe back to kind of more normal levels in the, the first quarter of next year. Marty, I take your point that there are a lot of moving pieces at play in Q4, but I, I'm not sure I totally understood, if you, if you did suggest where you see margins, in service centers going in the fourth quarter versus Q3. Like, is, is there... Is there some improvement, but maybe not back to kind of more normal levels? Or is it still flattish given the, the various, pieces versus Q3? Just not, not sure how you're thinking about that.
Yeah. So if you look at Q4, you're right, a lot of moving pieces, and that is the right way to characterize it. Given we're sitting here, you know, halfway through the quarter on, you know, where are we? November 9th, give or take. The reality is, the first part of the fourth quarter saw continuing challenges on pricing before we saw the recent uplift. So what you'll probably see in Q4 is a little bit of margin compression into Q4 because of that dynamic, and the pickup back will be in Q1. So Q4, the way I'd characterize Q4, probably below normal, below expectations on a trend line basis.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And does the same hold true for steel distributors? I mean, I know there's some back-to-back business obviously there, but, but not, not everything is. So it, is it sort of following service center margins just in terms of the, the movements quarter to quarter directionally? Is that, is that how to think about steel distributors as well for Q4?
Short answer is yes.
Okay. Thank you. And then just very lastly, the gain on sale, on an after-tax basis, is it identical to what it was on a pre-tax basis?
Pretty close. There was a little bit of tax leakage, a few hundred thousand dollars, but by and large, most of it was shielded from tax. So for all intents and purposes, pre-tax, after-tax were very similar.
All right. Thank you for the time.
Great. Thanks, Mike.
Thank you. The next question comes from Frederic Bastien from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Hey, Fred.
Your, your energy field stores business has been pretty consistent from both a revenue and margin standpoint, since the monetization of the, OCTG and line pipe business, which was by design. I think that's what you've been aspiring to for a number of years. As you look forward, what are your goals for this business over the next, four or five years? Are there opportunities to grow it meaningfully, either organically or through acquisition, or are you just happy to hold the line on that business?
Yeah. No, Fred, you're spot on in your comments. Yeah, we've been looking to make this shift, and it is impacting overall for Russel, as you see the gross margin of how they've been able to perform. When we look at it organically, there are growth opportunities that are out there. Again, Alliance was a nice tuck-in or bolt-on there in Canada. We'll continue to look at opportunities like that in both Canada and the U.S. There's also room for growth and value added on that side through valve actuation and other areas that are out there. If there's a meaningful opportunity, again, we'll look at it on a standalone basis. If there's competition for capital within Russel, does it meet those criteria? Does it fit into our cultural criteria that we have for the company?
And so, we're not restricted to saying we're not gonna grow in that area. Service centers, again, are something that's a larger part of our business, and there's opportunities to grow there as well, but we'll take a look at all of them equally, based on their own merits.
Okay. You touched on, sorry, value-added opportunities within that segment. Can you expand on that a bit?
Yeah. So there's, there's things that we can do. Again, valve actuation is one, but we can do field services that are very similar to the same concept that we use in the service centers, and we're doing that in Canada now. We're starting to grow that in our U.S. operations. And so those just add to that gross margin profile. And so again, it's stabilizing, and the business is very stable on margins. It actually allows us to enhance those margins going forward, and it's something we have all the products right now. We just have to put in the facilities and then be in the right locations to perform that value-added process for the end users.
Okay, cool. That's, that's useful. Thanks. That's all I have.
Great. Thanks, Fred.
Thank you. We have no further questions. I will turn the call back over for closing comments.
Great, and thank you, operator. Appreciate everybody very much for joining the call. Thank you for that. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out directly. Otherwise, we look forward to staying in touch during the balance of the quarter. Take care, everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating, and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.