Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from James West with Lehman Brothers.
James West – Lehman Brothers
Hey, good morning, Gary.
Gary Kolstad
Good morning.
James West – Lehman Brothers
With the increased traction around the CARBOHYDROPROP technology, given that it sells at a lower price than some of the existing proppants, do you think that there's a chance that margins will continue to decline for several quarters before you're able to stabilize production and hold margins up?
Gary Kolstad
No, actually the opposite. We're ramping up our new line two in Toomsboro, so we will continue to see improved production output there. And no, we wouldn't expect that at all. As the volumes increase, we'd expect it to go the other way.
James West – Lehman Brothers
Okay, understood. And then, could you give us a sense of how much the increase in volumes sequentially came from the HYDROPROP?
Gary Kolstad
I don't know if we're going to spell it out that completely, but what I will say is that our volume increased without HYDROPROP considered in there. It's been very successful and it's penetrated the market for sand-based proppant and it did generate a good portion of the growth. However, we did see our other product lines, especially in North America, outpace the growth in the rig count and we saw significant growth in Russia as well. So on balance, it helped but everything else is growing as well.
James West – Lehman Brothers
Okay, understood. Then on the international side of the business, in the last conference call, you had mentioned some price competition in select markets. You didn't mention that this time. Has that gone away?
Gary Kolstad
Well, there's still pressure from some countries in the eastern hemisphere, but it's primarily coming from lower quality, lower priced products from China. That really hasn't changed since the last quarter so, no, we didn't feel it was anything that was important.
James West – Lehman Brothers
Okay, great. Thanks, Gary.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Roger Read with Natixis Bleichroeder.
Roger Read – Natixis Bleichroeder
Good morning.
Gary Kolstad
Good morning.
Roger Read – Natixis Bleichroeder
A quick question, I guess kind of following up on James' deal [ph] there, maybe try to get you to give us a little more color on the volume side. If you're looking sequentially fourth quarter to first quarter in Russia, I kind of understand the year-over-year improvement, but how did that plant sort of operate? I mean you had the agreement for roughly 50% of the capacity under a frame agreement. Are we selling up to that? Are we selling beyond that? Can you kind of maybe give us some more color on that portion?
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