Question-and-Answer Session
[Operator Instructions]. And your first question comes from the line of David Begleiter. Please proceed
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Thank you, good morning.
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Hi David.
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Hi can you just give us the update on the backlog, how much of that it... how much start-up and the ending number?
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Right, first of all, I apologize, I have cold this morning. So my voice is a little bit off. But we started-up six projects during the quarter. We signed 7 new ones. And just to give you a little bit of an idea of the diversification in those projects, among the new ones that we signed, two were in the U.S., one in Mexico, one in Europe, two in South America and one in Asia. And also to show the diversification of the new sign-ups from end-market point of view, we had one in energy, one electronics, one in chemicals, one in glass, one in pulp and paper, and two in metals.
So you can see that, we're still signing new projects on a broad basis. Globally both by end-market sector. And the size of the new projects continues to grow relative to the sizes of the projects that we are starting up.
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Very good. And just on... in the quarter, did pricing and productivity offset costs in the quarter?
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes.
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
And that's true for the first quarter as well?
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes.
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Thank you.
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. I mean basically, we're getting pricing to offset energy cost, first of all. Plus we are getting another 3% or 4% of price, which I would call real price. And then on top of that our productivity programs are primarily offsetting the inflation in labor and non-energy items.
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Thank you very much.
James S. Sawyer - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes.
Operator
And your next question comes from the line of P.J. Juvekar of Citi. Please proceed.
Prashant Juvekar - Citigroup
Good morning.
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