Jim Nickolas: I’ll give you some of that, Keith. It’s getting increasingly challenging for us to give too much granularity around that cement business. because that’s the only cement business that we have. So, I’m torn between — I want to make sure I’m transparent giving you everything that you need. I also don’t want to put ourselves at a remarkable competitive disadvantage. So, I’ll give you an overall sense — obviously–
Keith Hughes: Give me what you can.
Jim Nickolas: I’ll give you what I can with that — so look, we obviously kept the larger of the two cement businesses. From a volume perspective, it’s going to be modestly over two million tons. From a pricing perspective, we’re looking at an increase in North Texas of around $15 per ton. That increase — if I were you, I’d be modeling that more in an April timeframe as opposed to a January timeframe. Obviously, you saw very attractive margins in that business last year. And what I would suggest to you is our aim would be on a full year basis to maintain the types of margins in that business that you saw in the overall cement business last year in Texas. So, Keith, I hope that gives you broadly what you need.
Keith Hughes: That’s fine. Thank you.
Jim Nickolas: You bet.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from Garik Shmois from Loop Capital. Please ask your question.
Garik Shmois: Hi, thanks. I wanted to just follow-up on aggregates pricing. The outlook is in line with how you framed it coming out of the 3Q call, but and we appreciate your value over volume strategy, but there was a competitor last week that spoke to both trying to take share this year and pricing maybe a little bit more closely to inflation or the rate of deflation that they were seeing. I’m wondering if maybe you’re seeing a change in the conversations at all with aggregates pricing going into this year? Are those becoming maybe a little bit more difficult? Maybe I’m over thinking here, but I just thought I’d ask the question on how those discussions have been going?
Ward Nye: No, Garik, it’s a fair question. The conversations have actually been pretty constructive with our customers. And keep in mind, several things happen. Number one, location is going to matter a lot. Number two, relationship is going to matter a lot. Number three, I think the swing factor in some places may be what degrees of midyears declined. Again, the only place right now that we’ve already got stated midyears are in California, where we told people basically we’re coming out of the gate in 2024 were $2 a ton up, and then we’re going to do another $2 a ton at midyear. Keep in mind, too, that most of our customers are not the owner. They tend to be a general first-year tier sub, second tier sub, third tier sub, et cetera.
and they tend to be cost-plus themselves. And if we’re looking at being 10% of the cost of a road, 2% of the cost of a home, and somewhere between those two numbers on a non-res project. The price of the stone usually isn’t why a project goes or why a contractor gets the job. But at the same time, we’re placing that stone once it goes out of our gate can be pretty challenging. So, look, do I think — do I think we will see years and years of price performance like we saw in 2023? No, I don’t think that’s going to be the norm. Do I think we’re trending more towards — but I think the norm will be from Martin Marietta this year? Yes, I think we probably are. And to me, that feels like an appropriate place for us to be given the economy, given the difficulties that you can have in replacing some of these reserves in some of these key markets.
Remember, we have some urban quarries and locations that trying to find opportunities to come back behind quarries if they’re depleted would be hugely challenging. And building new cars will put you further away from the city centers and take degrees of efficiency away. So, again, I hope that gives you, number one, a philosophy on how we approach it. Number two, what our dialogue looks like with our customers and number three, how I think it’s going to play out, at least from Martin Marietta over a period of years.
Garik Shmois: No, that’s helpful. Just wanted to follow-up just quickly just on cement margins, recognizing the increasing importance size in that segment. With the finishing coming on later this year, is there any choppiness or inefficiencies that we should be aware of?
Jim Nickolas: No, I don’t think so. To the extent — I mean we’re going to be very disciplined about bringing that online. It won’t be disruptive to price. We think we’ll be able to bring it online gradually in terms of operational approach as well as marketplace impact. It will be very disciplined, and we think it won’t be very disruptive at all. So, we’re not looking for any kind of noticeable effect from external view on this point. And margins should be enhanced when those come online. So we think it’s really going to fit the market is sold out by and large, and we think it will fit nicely with the growing demand there.
Garik Shmois: Understood. Thanks again and congrats on the quarter.
Ward Nye: Thanks so much Garik.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from David MacGregor from Longbow Research. Please ask your question.
Joe Nolan: Hey, good morning. This is Joe Nolan on for David.
Ward Nye: Hi Joe.
