Anthony Pettinari: Hey. Ward, you talked about some softness in ag in the quarter in the Southwest and the Midwest, if I heard that right. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that. Was that weather driven or maybe a specific end market? Just wondering if there’s any carryover into 4Q or potential reads into 2024?
Ward Nye: Thanks for the question. We had a couple of things. One in the Southwest, frankly, you had a lot of heat and the heat slowed some things down and you also had some timing relative to the large energy projects as well. So I see a lot of that being pushed off to the right. I mean clearly and it’s not just the Southwest or Midwest issue. There are some degrees of softening relative to warehousing and data centers. I mean that’s not a surprise. We anticipated that. But what we are seeing is a nice renaissance relative to manufacturing and then the timing of energy coming. Energy is not one of those issues that we have any concerns about. It’s just relative to pace. So I think more than anything we had degrees of timing and we had certain degrees of softness that, from my perspective were broadly anticipated.
And I think that’s one of the reasons that when we were giving you our results at half year, part of what we indicated to you, is we thought we would probably see a near-term nature in volumes in the third quarter. So if we’re looking at the way Q3 worked from our perspective Anthony, honestly, no big surprises including the way the pull-through came through and some — obviously some very attractive incrementals in the quarter.
Anthony Pettinari: Okay. That’s very helpful. I’ll turn it over.
Ward Nye: Thank you.
Operator: Your next question comes from Phil Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Phil Ng: Hey, guys. Congrats on a really strong quarter. And obviously, your price — your value over volume approach is showing in your results. But I’m just curious how much line of sight do you have on your aggregate pricing in 2024? How are your competitors behaving in this environment? Is that value over volume approach potentially at risk tier volumes? The reason why I ask is because one of your bigger competitors calling for perhaps weaker volumes than your flattish outlook. So I just want to understand how the competitive landscape is behaving on pricing?
Ward Nye: Well, the things that we stay focused on Phil is what can we control and how do we run our business and we do that based on what our needs are. So we’re very focused on Martin Marietta. We’re focused on where operations are we’re focused on what our inventories look like. We’re focused on what our reserves look like in the ground. And we’re focused on what we feel like the market can bear relative to these products. So our perspective, those are really the unique drivers on that. As I indicated before, if you’re looking at volumes for the quarter were our volumes down a little bit more than others yes probably, so are we okay with that? You bet. Do I feel like that’s probably going to find more degrees of equilibrium going forward?
I think it probably will. At the same time, if I’m looking at the geographies in which we tend to be focused, let’s face it we’re talking about Texas, that’s going to be awfully good. I mean we’re looking at a Texton budget for FY 2024 that it exceeds $18.5 billion. I mean that’s just a massive budget in Colorado, recently passed a $5.3 billion 10-year infrastructure bill, that’s going to be massive in that state here in North Carolina and it was something that I’m proud to have been part of the project. We structurally change the way that we’re paying for infrastructure here. Now we’re using a degree of sales taxes. And in FY 2024, it’s going to ramp up to 4% here in North Carolina, because North Carolina recognized they needed to increase their spending by over $7 billion over the next decade.
But even separate distinct from that, if we’re looking in Florida right now, Florida is looking at a $17.2 billion budget for FY 2024 and that’s an all-time record. And I feel like I’ve said for probably the last six or seven years, that every year is an all-time record for transportation in Florida, largely because it has been. And in California where we brought that new business the Caltrans budget is $20.5 billion next year. Now to give you a sense of it, that’s a 5.5% or 5.6% year-over-year increase with $12.1 billion designated for highway and bridge capital spending. So as we’re thinking about what that public funding looks like and we’re coming back and looking at what’s happening industrially in places like Atlanta what’s going on in South Georgia, literally just yesterday, Toyota announced they’re adding $8 billion to what is already a large battery plant that’s underway in Randolph County that’s just downside of Greensboro.
These are the types of things that we’re seeing in our markets both in public and heavy non-res that gives us a lot of confidence around the way that we think volumes will work next year. And the fact is with the footprint that we have, I don’t have any doubt that we’re going to get our fair share of that business. I just want to make sure that we’re doing for what we feel like is fair value for that business.
Phil Ng: Super. And Ward, you mentioned maybe some of the weakness recently is tied to some of these bigger projects whether its energy mega products, getting pushed out. Can you give us a little perspective when you see that kind of ramping up? Is that early next year middle part of next year? And then on the public infrastructure side, we could all appreciate there’s a lot of money coming. How do you kind of see that ramping up and building into 2024?
Ward Nye: Yeah. Phil, those are great questions. I think on the public infrastructure side, we’re still where we were. We said, we thought we would start to see that building in for and then build into 2024 — when I say four, I mean Q4 of this year. And that was part of what led us to the commentary around the fact that we thought we’d probably see this type of dip in Q3. So again very anticipated, if we’re looking for example at the large LNG projects, part of what we’re seeing right now is several projects that are already underway. Golden Pass is underway, Chevron Phillips has a large facility in Orange, Texas that’s underway, Port Arthur LNG, at least portions of that are underway, Cheniere has a lot this underway. But if we look going forward, I can think of at least four big jobs and I think this gives you a sense from a timing perspective in Texas that we’re watching.
Cheniere has another one in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. We are grand LNG in Brownsville and Freeport LNG in Texas, all are looking at we believe 2024 start dates. We’re actually anticipating some acceptance of materials maybe as soon as this week on some of those projects. So it continues to be a live conversation. So if we think about it for the year has timing been a little bit of a headwind on those, yeah, it has. Do we think they’re going away? Absolutely not. And part of what we’re seeing and frankly in degrees this is helpful, you’ve got degrees of material tightness in some of those markets and that continues to underscore at least the notion of the overall economy in Texas today. So I hope that gives you a snapshot at least on some of the heavy non-recipe.
Phil Ng: Appreciate the great color.
Ward Nye: You bet.
Operator: Your next question comes from Timna Tanners with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.
Timna Tanners: Yes. Hey good morning everyone.
Ward Nye: Hi Timna.
Timna Tanners: I want to follow up on one would just appreciate that…
Ward Nye: Timna, I’m sorry to interrupt you. We’re having a hard time hearing you. Can you lean that a little bit more please?
Timna Tanners: Yes. Is that better?
Ward Nye: Yes ma’am, it is. Thank you.
Timna Tanners: Okay. Sorry about that. So I appreciate the commentary on big projects and starting up in 2024. We have heard some delays and cost overruns. So does that affecting your geographies perhaps as much? Or are you budgeting for that as well?
