Claude Mongeau: No. The numbers in the annual vary depending on the exchange rate of the British pound and the finalization of our accounting for the Central Station, which include the sale leaseback. Overall it is around 20 cents and we will give more details when we have done all of those entries in the fourth quarter.
Unidentified Analyst: The headcount side is up about over 2.5% with volumes down 3%. Last quarter you have talked about taking on doing more contract work. How much of the headcount is for that and how much is for ramping up for Rupert?
Claude Mongeau: There are a couple of things. The contracting impact from the engineering standpoint so far is that of 160 people. We talk about for sometime that we are going to be contracting more in and net-net best calls to us. We have the demographics in the West. We have lower employee, average age is about 47. We are doing now hiring to replace retirees, and we have an overlap there. When 300 or 400 people are going to retire for some six months, we have 800 people, if there are 400 leaving. One other things that we are doing in the belt-tightening exercise, is going to reviewing the training we are doing for the people. We can give the same amount of hours of training, but do it in a three to four months timeframe rather than six months to help that situation. Some of the other employees are result of just ramping up CN worldwide and CN worldwide North America to the mid-tier.
Unidentified Analyst: Is 2.5% a good run rate going forward?
Claude Mongeau: No. We are going to come down, closer to flat going forward because some of these items are one-time in nature, the engineering employees is a good example. We may continue to see increases there, but not to the tune of 160, and similarly further running trade. Ones you get your compliment of people in training, we may have 400 and 500 at the moment in training. You just replenish them when they go into the workforce and we do not go higher than what we have at the moment.
Unidentified Analyst: The revenue for carload is up 1%. Can you give the split on fuel, price, and mix and what the exchange rate is?
Claude Mongeau: Excluding exchange the numbers are as follows: price would have been up 4%, revenues up 4% from price up 2% from mix down 2% from volume and down 1% from fuel.
Unidentified Analyst: The 4% for price was same as last quarter. Is that correct?
Claude Mongeau: On a per unit basis we have gone up into the range of 4% to 5%. 4% is what we said in last quarter, and the quarter before. In the fourth quarter it is going to be even more than that. In the fourth quarter the dollar last year was 88 cents and it is trading at dollar to now that is a whooping increase, and that is having a direct impact on our reported revenues. Right on a reported basis we will have a larger impact from exchange in the fourth quarter than we did in the third quarter this year.
Randy Cousins (BMO Capital Markets): Rupert, Vancouver, and Seattle. What percentages of the boxes are going to be dropped in Rupert and how many of the boxes are going to be making their way into the United States versus staying in Canada?
James M. Foote: What we are looking at now in terms of dealing with TEUs, we are looking at a discharge of about half the boat, and in terms of the final destination for those boxes, and the original plan was to have about 70% or 80% of that going into the U.S.
Randy Cousins (BMO Capital Markets): Has COSCO or Hangen given you a sense as to how they are seeing that service developed or what they are looking at in terms of order flow over the balance of this quarter and into 2008?
James M. Foote: We are excited about the first call that the volumes are high, because this is the run rate that we were looking at to kick off the service so to speak, and to have it there on the first, and appear to look like on the next vessel. In the shipping community, either the manufacturers or the receivers of freight desire to use Prince Rupert because of all the benefits it has like congestion-free. It is not only the steamship companies that have been there to look at it but the big box stores and everyone else has been up there as well. It looks good so far and we are on track.
Randy Cousins (BMO Capital Markets): Have you priced this in US dollars?
James M. Foote: We had anticipated the volatility in the dollar not to this extreme and had marketed and priced the product accordingly.
Randy Cousins (BMO Capital Markets): Could you comment on the CTA proposed with reference to the Hoppermann and how it is going to impact the results both this year and next?
James M. Foote: This year the decision of the CTA has been safe, so it is not going to have any impact into this year, but the government is on the record that they think that the estimate for the maintenance adjustment is about C$2 a ton and so there is going to have to be consultation and technical analysis with the CTA to arrive at that number and it could be up or down around C$2 a ton.
Randy Cousins (BMO Capital Markets): What would that mean to CN?
James M. Foote: It will be on the order of C$20 million a year.
Scott Flower (Banc of America Securities): The exchange rates tend to on a lag basis affect a lot of the product loads, and that tends to take place every six or nine months. West has continued strong with the bulk in the East is weaker. Does the currency shift accentuate that?
E. Hunter Harrison: That has been the challenge for us in the quarter, where we have hit strong business segments in Western Canada in the bulk businesses. It is that they have been coming at us quickly. In some segments like our coal business we are 20% ahead of what we had budgeted for the year. We have been working hard and diligently there to meet our customer demands for the significant growth we are seeing in the west. The East does not have the similar characteristics in terms of its markets and therefore its heads have been softer to begin with, and before the dollar appreciates take a look at the issues associated with the softwood lumber agreement where a lot of the lumber had already been manufacturing, had been transitioning from Eastern Canada to Western Canada, and now paper manufacturing is impacted by the exchange rate, because there is a manufacturing done in the Canadian dollars and a market for the product in U.S. dollars and there have been cutbacks and there have curtailments by our customers, five of which were new in the third quarter and unless something happens with the exchange rate, those shutdowns could be of a long duration. Our challenges are to hustle around and find new opportunities to take their place in Eastern Canada, and that is what I challenge my sales team to do everyday. |