Bruce Thames: That’s a great question. Actually, I’ve kind of seen a bit of the opposite most recently. And I wanted to highlight the 92% growth in just the renewables opportunities we’re seeing. Those are some significant investments that we’re seeing growing. The thing that I think stands out most is, a year ago, I might have told you that kind of hydrogen was going to be an opportunity, but it was several years out. The thing is we booked over $9 million this quarter in hydrogen opportunities alone. And these are projects that are funded, that are moving ahead. And we’re really seeing a lot around alternative fuels, particularly renewables, the sustainable aviation fuel, there’s global opportunities around this, whether hydrogenating those fuels and making those from biofuels so that they’re sustainable.
So we’re seeing some big investments in there in ammonia. So I’ve been actually really surprised and pleased at just the rate of investment there. And I think the ones that we’re seeing move ahead are economically viable projects. I think some of the other areas where there may be more reliance upon government subsidies, particularly maybe around some wind and solar power type projects, I think those certainly could be at risk where payback periods may be longer. But I think the thing to reinforce here is that our technology is agnostic. And as we look at energy transition, we can all debate the pace at which this could occur, but I think we all would agree that this is the direction the world is moving. Should it take longer to transition, our technology is there to meet the needs of increased investments that may be required to sustain production levels in hydrocarbons to basically enable energy during that transition period.
Conversely, if it moves more rapidly, we’re seeing our technology playing in these new emerging alternative energy sources and it creates a lot of opportunity for us there. So, I really feel very good about how we’ve positioned our business with our solution set and with our customer relationships and market access to grow this business going forward.
Jonathan Braatz: So if I would summarize, it sounds like you would characterize this transition as sort of a win-win situation for you. Whether it goes rapidly or slowly, it doesn’t matter because you’re covering all bases.
Bruce Thames: Absolutely.
Jonathan Braatz: Secondly, it sounded as if in your press release that you’re seeing a little bit of improvement in Europe sales, I guess, up year-over-year, some sales gains. Europe has been weak for a while. Are you seeing any real changes there? Do you see this improvement in sales continuing in Europe?
Bruce Thames: Yes, we do see a positive trend there. And we’re seeing the same in Asia as well. So they were – certainly, Europe a was a little slower to respond kind of after COVID. Asia even lagged that. And so, we’re seeing signs of growth not only in just kind of the business and the incoming order levels, but also as we look to the pipeline of opportunities that we see going forward.
Kevin Fox: John, maybe just to put a little bit of color there too, I think when things were a little down, we took a pretty hard look at the channel. Particularly in the eastern hemisphere, the team’s done a lot of really nice work over the last 12, 18 months to focus there. And we’re starting to see some nice traction that’s helping to drive that business forward. I think Europe was up about 40% in the quarter. I think APAC was 17% or so. So we’re seeing really nice growth in both of those environments. And it’s not just kind of waiting on large one-time projects. We’re really doing a nice job of managing the channel in those regions as well. And that’s what’s helping to drive the growth.
