Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andrew Bonfield: Yes. So when we talk about it — I mean, obviously, we don’t break down what dealers take the orders for between retail and stock in CI. A significant proportion of the purchases they make are based on customer orders, particularly if there is a degree of customization that is needed. And there will be somewhere once the machine has actually been delivered to the dealer, they will have a number of things or attachments put on, which will impact the timing of commissioning. So there’s a little bit of commissioning within CI, but obviously, it’s nowhere near around the 70% plus that we talked about for E&T and for Resource Industries. What we are seeing, as I indicated, is there are patches, particularly in BCP and earthmoving, where dealers are constrained and actually would like to have more inventory available to them, and that impacts their orders.

So obviously, orders in those segments are — those divisions are much stronger. Obviously, with excavators, and excavator as an impact of what’s happening, particularly, say, for example, in China, where obviously demand is reduced, that means we have more availability. And dealers would like to decrease their inventory of excavators accordingly. So it’s a bit of a mixed pattern. But as I say, we only have 3.5 months of inventory on hand, and that percentage will actually decrease around by the time we get to the year end.

Chad Dillard: Great, thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Fisher with UBS. Your line is open.

Steven Fisher: Thanks. Good morning. Wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the drivers of the broad oil and gas segment. Where do you think we are in the kind of the rebuild cycle of equipment there? To what extent do you need rig counts to rebound to keep the current level of revenue sustained? Or are there really other drivers with this segment to be aware of? It was obviously a very strong acceleration of sales to users. So just kind of curious for color on the drivers and the longevity of the strong trend in the segment.

James Umpleby: Well, Steven, we’re certainly not dependent upon rig counts to drive oil and gas. It’s just one element of the — one of the applications that we sell into. So as I mentioned earlier, we are encouraged by the strong demand that continues for gas compression for Cat-branded reset engines. That’s quite positive. We have seen a bit of slowing in well servicing, but that’s expected to increase again based on most analyst views over the coming months. Solar continues to have quite robust sales into a number of oil and gas applications, including gas compression, but also offshore platforms and international business as well. So again, at this point, oil and gas certainly looks strong. And in some areas, we’re quite bullish on what we see moving forward.

Steven Fisher: Thank you very much.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Kristen Owen with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Kristen Owen: Great, thank you for taking the questions. I wanted to come back to a question on pricing. First, for the second quarter, if you can help us understand what’s supporting the strength there. I think that was a little bit ahead of where we were expecting price to be. Is that a function of mix or just the better than expected end user demand? And then as we think about that stepping down through the back half of the year, to get to that single-digit number that you outlined on a previous answer, just how we should think about the cadence of that stepping down throughout the remainder of the year? Thank you.