Question-and-Answer Session
Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. And your first question will come from the line of Saul Ludwig with Keybanc. Please proceed.
Saul Ludwig - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Good afternoon. In the press release, you talked about decisions that were made in North America and Europe to change the customer and product mix with the idea of giving up some volume and increasing profits. Would you just elaborate a little bit on that rebuild? And how do you do that so quickly, in other words, this carbon black is a little bit under longer-term contracts, and is this the first quarter that we have seen this shift and therefore should we be thinking about more moderate volume numbers going forward in light of the change in the mix, a little clarification would help?
Jonathan P. Mason - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Well, so I would start by saying, optimize?our goal is to optimize the margins, so the pricing and volume gives and takes that we do, we do it with that ultimate goal in mind. Now, the reason you saw a fair amount of activity in this quarter is because on January 1st, the annual contracts came due and we had one of our long-term contracts that came due as well. And so we made some trade off at that time in all of those contracts.
Saul Ludwig - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Is this? does this not [ph] affect your profitability under the new setup versus what it would have been under the old setup?
Jonathan P. Mason - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
The net effect was positive.
Saul Ludwig - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Okay. And should we be thinking about the effect of lower volume, particularly in South America and in North America as we look at the next? the quarters throughout this calendar year?
Jonathan P. Mason - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I think it should be more stable than what we saw at the turn of this past quarter.
Saul Ludwig - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Okay. Next question I had is the? for Patrick, or Roby maybe. On the aerogels order, what’s sort of the magnitude of the two orders? and you mentioned that we’ll have materially improved results. What do you think that will do to the loss, let's say, in the back end of the year compared to what the loss in aerogels was in the front end of the year? So two questions, the sales volume and impact on profitability.
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