Benefiting from the strong cash flow generation, our net debt ended the quarter at $243 million a reduction of more than $100 million sequentially. Availability under our trade facility remains sizable with a borrowing capacity of $800 million and a maturity of August 2027. Net leverage was 21% at quarter end and the ratio of net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.7x. We also returned capital to shareholders through our quarterly dividend. During the quarter, we entered into interest rate swaps to fix the rate on a portion of our floating rate credit facility. The swaps have a three-year duration and a notional amount of $150 million. Execution of these contracts provide us with more interest rate certainty, while also benefiting from the inverted yield curve.
CapEx spend in the fourth quarter was $28 million. For full fiscal 2023, CapEx was $118 million. Net of insurance reimbursements primarily associated with the repair of the shredder in closure building at our Everett facility. Looking ahead, we currently project our fiscal 2024 CapEx investments to be lower compared to the past year at approximately $100 million. Approximately 25% of the anticipated spend will be for growth projects, including the completion of our nonferrous technology initiatives and investments to support recycling services expansion. The remaining CapEx will be for maintaining the business and environmental-related capital projects. Our effective tax rate on fourth quarter adjusted results was 32% and 31% for full fiscal 2023.
For fiscal 2024, we expect the tax rate to be in the range of 25%, but reflects some quarter-to-quarter variability, including in our first quarter of fiscal 2024, when the rate is projected to be lower at around 15% subject to company performance. While we are just over halfway through the quarter, I’ll now turn to our outlook for the first quarter of fiscal 2024, which is based on information and market conditions we have today that may be subject to significant volatility due to geopolitical uncertainties. We expect our consolidated adjusted EBITDA per ferrous ton to remain approximately flat compared to the fourth quarter, when excluding the insurance recoveries. In the lower price environment, we project a modest detriment from average inventory accounting in the quarter.
We expect our federal sales volumes to be approximately flat sequentially. Our nonferrous volumes are projected to be up 10% year-over-year, reflecting benefits of our strategic nonferrous recovery investments and expansion of our platform. We expect the contribution from our steel mill to remain healthy, but declined sequentially reflecting a 10% to 15% decrease in sales volumes due to normal seasonality along with the impact of lower average finished steel prices. We expect the initial benefits from the implementation of our new fiscal 2024 productivity initiative program, to more than offset the impact of inflation and loss of operating leverage due to lower volumes in the quarter. Finally, we expect our operating cash flow in the first quarter to reflect the seasonal detriment from working capital.
For full fiscal year 2024, we aim to continue our trend of generating positive operating cash flow through the cycle. And with that, I’ll turn the call back over to Tamara.
Tamara Lundgren: Thank you, Stefano. As we conclude our remarks today, I’d like to thank our employees once again for their resilience and dedication to working safely, while continuously serving our customers and communities, supporting our suppliers and demonstrating the critical and essential role of our business and industry and the economy. You have demonstrated once again, why we have continued to be a leader in the recycling industry for over a century. And I look forward to the next steps in our company’s history as Radius Recycling. And now, Olivia, let’s open the call for questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] And we have a question coming from the line of Samuel McKinney from KeyBanc. Your line is open.
Samuel McKinney: Hi. Good morning.
Tamara Lundgren: Good morning.
Stefano Gaggini: Good morning.
Samuel McKinney: As you mentioned, scrap supply flows were tight in the summer quarter. Now, that we are headed into the winter, is it safe to say that there’s some more availability for both scrap flows and spreads to fall? And what are you seeing just in general from your peddlers.
