Operator
Thank you. The next question is from Ben Hartford with Robert W. Baird.
Fredrik Eliasson
Good morning Ben.
Ben Hartford, Robert W. Baird
Good morning guys. Just turning the attention to longer term margin outlook and the reiteration there and a lot of focus on ’15 but if we can put ’15 aside, what is contemplated in terms of what’s required to get to the mid-60s target long-term, if you could speak in kind of broad strokes, as it relates to coal and crude and base pricing and productivity gains and service normalizing in those types of items? How are you thinking about the calculus to get to that mid-60s target?
Fredrik Eliasson
This is Fredrik. Clearly we expect to start moving towards the mid-60s here in 2015 after having absorbed that close to $900 million from coal loss over the last couple years. Going to make some meaningful improvements. Now, as we think about the three components, it’s ultimately price, volume and productivity. The last decade it was more probably price and productivity and as we think about the next decade, it’s going to be more evenly split between the three as we continue to see good volume opportunities for us. We continue to have a strong healthy pipeline of productivity initiatives not just for 2015 but in the years beyond that as well. And then pricing environment, after having been a little bit slower over the last couple years I think, is becoming more vibrant as well. So the three of those components together with continued good cash deployment of the free cash flow is the way we get there. It continues to do blocking and tackling we’ve done the last couple decades that got us from the high-80s down to the low-70s, we are going to continue to push down going forward.
Ben Hartford
Just a couple specific questions. Does it require a strengthening of the pricing environment from current levels, one, and two, from a coal standpoint, does it require any improvement in the coal markets relative to whatever the baseline is for ’15? I guess those are the two key concerns in terms of the sensitivities that we have.
Fredrik Eliasson
Yeah, I think we’re going to try to stay away from too much of the detail around specific pieces because generally as I said before, whenever you put a plan together, I think it will be obsolete as soon as you put the plan together. But in terms of pricing specifically, inflation plus pricing is critical to everything that we do. We are not necessarily banking on coal on the domestic side coming back specifically from where it is today. It would be nice to see, but not necessarily anything we’re banking on. Export coal, we’re in a down cycle at the moment and two years from now who knows what it’s going to be? But we think there’s enough other factors within our business to drive that earnings growth without just focusing too much on the coal business itself.
Ben Hartford
Okay that’s helpful and real quick if I could get just a clarification on the tax side. What are you assuming for a tax rate for 2015?
Fredrik Eliasson
Generally we see a tax rate right around 37.5%. It was a little bit lower this quarter because of some tax credits that we got but generally about 37.5%.
Ben Hartford
Okay, thank you.
