Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay and now for the tough question. If you look at the offshore segment, and you look at some of your peers in the space, it''s generally what we’ve observed at least on the sell side is that if a project is less than halfway done, you will be likely seeing material issues going forward given the fact and I think from what I understand the problem is what you have been facing in essence over the last quarter where you have a compounding effect of all the issues that are building up. But given that has been your experience to-date, why would you not build a cushion into what your assumptions are, why would you assume sort of a flat line kind of assumption going forward and not build a cushion into that?

Michael S. Taff

Tahira, this is Mike. I think we have kind of built that cushion in. I mean, I think we feel very comfortable with the cost, the estimated cost to complete on these projects. And we''ve factored into the utilization of the vessels are...what our lay rates have been on these projects, and factored that into all three of these projects. So, I mean I think as of today, we feel very comfortable, and as John mentioned, we''ve looked at this, spent a lot of hours looking at this. We sent a special task force over to Dubai for a week plus to examine this independent group and then based on their recommendations and working with Bob Deason and his team, I think we all feel comfortable based on the current calls that we know as of today.

John A. Fees

Yes, I would say that we assess all elements and when I say flat, that recognize that we''ve got, what we consider to be reasonable project contingencies on each one of these projects and we believe that we''ve estimated until the point that we can accomplish the projects for where they are with some level of margin. So, that was our philosophy going into it, and it wasn''t inconsistent than the same philosophy we applied to when we were having issues in the construction segment, in the power business in ''07 and we were able to I think fairly reasonably capture what we thought it was going to take to execute those projects. And if you take a look at our bidding environment there and what we''ve done in corrective actions, have turned it into a great producing segment throughout 2008, so we''re not philosophically approaching this really any different.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. Well thank you very much.

Michael S. Taff

Thanks.

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Will Gabrielski of American Technology Research. Please proceed.

Will Gabrielski - American Technology Research

Sure, thanks. Hey guys.

John A. Fees

Good morning.

Will Gabrielski - American Technology Research

So a couple of bigger picture questions here. If I look at your stock chart now, you are back to ''05 levels and I was wondering if you could talk about what the market looks like for the next two years versus maybe what it looks like in ''03, ''05, ''06, provide some perspective on the end market so then specifically focusing on the competitive side? What are the competitors doing and is it getting more competitive on the bid side and on the capacity side, so just a landscape overview I guess today versus then and what''s different?

Michael S. Taff

I think, you know you really have to assess this from each individual business, but I mean from the oil and gas side, I think the market compared to mid-2000, ''03, ''04, ''05 is much more robust than what we''re seeing in those days. I mean I think if you just look at the level of backlog that we have at close to $5 billion, back in ''05, J. Ray''s backlog was below $1 billion, bids outstanding is in the $3 billion range for J. Ray and the focus project as John mentioned is $14 billion. I think it varies depending on what region of the world you''re talking about, so this could be a fairly lengthy conversation we could have here because you really have to analyze this since J. Ray is truly a global player and within a decade, we kind of have reached into the world that come in and out of being very busier times. But I think just in general, if you look at just the world demand for hydrocarbons, much more significant than what it was on a macro basis in our view today than it was four or five years ago. And I will let John answer the question related to the power side.