Question-and-Answer Session
Sure. [Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of John Hill with Citi. Please proceed.
John Hill - Smith Barney Citigroup
Great, and thanks for the call, everyone. Just a quick question to revisit this Boeing and titanium situation, I mean it's great if they take their volumes in '08, but it creates a question about an overhang in '09. If you had to redirect those mill products elsewhere in your customer base, could you sell them? Would have to cut volumes? And would you make more money or less money if you could redirect those volumes elsewhere?
L. Patrick Hassey - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
John, where we are... let's just back up for a second and remember that we expect to ship the volumes that we had in our schedules during 2008 to Boeing. Also, when we talk about Boeing honoring their contracts, we have multi-year contracts, which include a minimum target and a maximum level. So when we talk about their honoring their contracts, we are talking about honoring the contracts straight through this contract period. So that's the first point, and there are significant volumes in that contract that are take or pay volumes that will be shipped under any circumstances. That's the first point.
Secondly, we're reaching? we're running at a rate of 50 million pounds this year. We had over 12 million pounds this shipment? 12.2 million pounds of titanium shipments in the first quarter. We began to redirect some of those volumes as to grow to that 50 million pound level really in the second half of 2007. So we are directing our shipments into more of the marine market, into the tubing markets, into the nuclear markets, into the chemical processing industry to create that growth that we have committed to at the 50 million pounds. I think we're able to reach that growth this year and sustain that level throughout the future. I think it will take the ramp-up of the new airplane programs, both the 787 and the 380, to get us to that next plateau of around 60 million pounds. So we're very confident that we are going to reach the 50 million pound level. We are gearing for that level. We are stretching into the international markets for the titanium products that we have, generating fairly good margins on all of these products, and we're looking forward to the growth into the new aerospace platforms as the production begins to ramp-up.
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