Part of the proceeds from the notes’ insurance was used to redeem USD 500 M of 8.375 notes during the quarter. We still expect interest expense to be in that range of 345 to 355 M per fiscal 2015. Our effective tax rate per Q3 came in at 29% in compares to a 28% rate for Q3 last year. We continue to expect that our full year fiscal 15 comparable basis tax rate will approximate 30%.
Now let discuss free cash flow which we define as net cash provided by operating activities less capex. For the first 9 months of fiscal 15, we generated USD 209 M of free cash flow compared to USD 543 M for the same period last year. Operating cash flow for the first 9 months of the year totaled USD 750 M versus USD 629 M for the prior year period. This increase was primarily due to the benefits generated by the beer business. Capex for the first 9 months of fiscal 15 totaled USD 541 M compared to just USD 86 M last year. Capex for the beer segment totaled USD 435 M and is primarily related to the brewery capacity expansion. For fiscal 15 we continue to expect free cash flow to be in the range of USD 275 M to USD 350 M and capex to be in the range of 725 to 775. Our capex projection includes 600 M to 650 M of capex for the beer segment. As a reminder we hedge certain commodities in the energy and agricultural categories.
These commodity derivatives generally do not qualify for hedge accounting treatment. As a result, mark to market gains and losses on hedge contracts flow through our gap income statement. We exclude these mark to market gains and losses from our comparable earnings. At the time that a commodity contract is settled the gain or losses allocated to the appropriate business segment for reporting and it will be included in our comparable earnings. This approach is in line with others in the consumer space. For Q3 there was a USD 20 M loss from this activity which was primarily driven by the mark to market additional on diesel fuel contracts. Before we start taking your questions I like to note we are very pleased with how fiscal 15 is progressed so far and we believe that we are well positioned as we head toward the completion of another phenomenal year for Constellation.
Our wine and spirits business is on track to generate solidly of the growth through the year while our beer business has tremendous momentum in the market place growing well ahead of the total U.S. beer category. We are also pleased to have begun advancing efforts around our beer glass sourcing strategy with the recent formation of the 50-50 joint venture with Owens-Illinois and the JV’s acquisition of the Nava Glass Plant. In addition, our beer production capacity expansion efforts continued to progress as planned. The glass sourcing and capacity expansion initiatives will position us to support the momentum and significant growth opportunity we see for our beer segment. With that we are happy to take your questions.
Operator
At this time I would like to remind everyone if you like to ask a question press * than the number 1 on your telephone key pad. If your question has been answered and you need to remove yourself from the queue press the pound key. Again we ask that you please pick up your hand set to allow optimal sound quality. Your first question comes from the line Nick Mouldy as RBC Capital Markets.
Nick Mouldy, RBC Capital Markets
Yes, thanks! Good morning everyone! So two questions from me. Just on the wine side you have real good margin expansion obviously going a bit late and I am just curious did you make a concerted decision to little priorities of a margin of a volume. Is that something we should expect kind of in the next 12 to 24 months? And then the last question is just you can give us some updated thoughts on Debby Vega continues to migrate towards your targets. How should be thinking about cash float distribution to shareholders?
