Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator instructions) Your first question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Barclays Capital.
Andy Kaplowitz - Barclays Capital
Hello.
Ray Milchovich
Hello Andy.
Andy Kaplowitz - Barclays Capital
Hello, can you hear me okay?
Ray Milchovich
We hear you just fine.
Andy Kaplowitz - Barclays Capital
Great, so Ray your margins in E&C have continued to be relatively stable and good. You know we continue to hear, you know, when you talk to people in the industry people talk about a little bit of competitive pressure, but you know your margins have been fine. So in general can we expect this sort of range of margins? I know you have given guidance going forward, and what are you seeing on the competitive side?
Ray Milchovich
Well, let me give an overall response, and I will ask Umberto for his perspective as well. I mean, I will go back to what I said in Q2, and what I repeated in Q3. Yes, we have a market today in E&C that is not as robust as it was in the first half of ’08. However, we are very happy with the bookings in terms of volume and in terms of margin that we booked so far this year.
Now, I mean yes, we have competitive pressure and our 2010 isn’t yet booked and it is going to be in large part dependent upon how we are able to book in Q4 and in the first half of 2010. But so far we are happy with that, and yes we have been able to stabilize margins at a very acceptable level. Umberto?
Umberto della Sala
Yes, the additional comment I would like to make is that these margins are driven by good execution. I believe that no only we book high quality work, but I think we execute very well. And we enjoy all the profit enhancement opportunities (inaudible). Okay, I just finished.
Andy Kaplowitz - Barclays Capital
Okay, and Ray and Umberto any change in sort of customer, I don’t know behavior in the quarter, you know, they see what is going on around us. We have seen GDP continue to tick-up globally slowly. You know are customers trying to get off the shelf a little bit more. Are they still in sort of a wait-and-see mode with some of these projects?
Umberto della Sala
Well, let us say that we see it a different behavior, if we compare international oil companies with the national oil companies. The international oil companies are taking more time in deciding whether to proceed with investment. It takes more time to go through value creating exercises, cost reduction exercises before the project is launched. We see, let us say more stable approach in the national oil companies. They proceed with the project, because probably the drivers are different. But I will say that we have not seen any major change with respect to the last quarter.
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