Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. Your first question is coming from Andy Kaplowitz of Lehman Brothers.
Andrew Kaplowitz - Lehman Brothers
Good morning guys, nice quarter.
Raymond J. Milchovich - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning Andy.
Andrew Kaplowitz - Lehman Brothers
Just looking at your E&C guidance the Scope Margin of 25 to 27%, Ray you said in the past and then you said it today that there wasn't really anything unusual on these numbers in the E&C in terms of incentives payments. But in the second half of the year we've got a couple of major projects ramping up and maybe there is the potential for more sort of one incentive payment.
And was that a big project sort of ramping down to. And so when I look at the 27% margin approximately that you booked in the first half of this year, it seems like the guidance you're giving us is relatively conservative. Is that true, is there anything else that we should think about?
Raymond J. Milchovich - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Andy, I would turn to Franco Baseotto to speak to that question.
Franco Baseotto - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Andy, I think the guidance takes into consideration the fact that with particular reference to the incentives, our earnings have in fact having really based on the probability of assessments that is... that does not allow us to make leaner accrues [ph] of those incentives. And it is through some of those projects are going to ramp up in the second half of the year but they are going now well into execution in `09. So I think our guidance is centered in that we have taken a reasonable look at our portfolio, expected performance in terms of execution and we think we can sustain this high margin in the second half of the year.
Andrew Kaplowitz - Lehman Brothers
Great. Ray this feels a lot like last year at this time in the sense that you had a couple of big prospects last year that came to fruition. How confident are you in these big projects? It looks like you have got a couple of them in July already. It's hard to tell exactly the size of the ones that you listed. But in general there are a bunch of big ones out there. So I guess, what does the landscape look like, have you seen any slippage in these prospects at all in terms of... maybe you expected them in July and maybe they are coming four months later. What does the landscape look like?
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