Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Robert Stallard - Macquarie Research Equities.
Robert Stallard - Macquarie Research Equities
Mark, first question on margins. The zero margin pass-through coming down, how much of a benefit was that in this quarter? And how much of a benefit do you see that going forward?
Mark Donegan
Well, there’s roughly $15 million – excuse me, $19 million of zero margin. So you know in terms of the whole, you know, ratio in mathematics it’s relatively insignificant. Most of the margins that came through was truly productivity operational improvement.
Robert Stallard - Macquarie Research Equities
And given what the nickel price has done, presuming it’s a lag effect with the pass-throughs, you said this could be a [pulsive] trend for margins since that –
Mark Donegan
Yes, it will be, but again it takes a while to unroll it. You know, there’s a number of overlaid hedges in material out there, you know, that kind of our customers have done. So it will take really the next six to nine months to kind of unravel and get to the kind of levels we’re at. So we’ll kind of be either this number or a little less is what it will feel like moving forward for quarter.
Robert Stallard - Macquarie Research Equities
And you mentioned the three growth areas – gas turbines, the pipe and non-aerospace nickel sales. Has the same or do you think the growth in these areas is likely to be given the economic pressures that are going on around the world?
Mark Donegan
Well, you know, I can only go by what I have in front of me right now. But you know again, if I look at the biggest piece of the puzzle, certainly the [same] in pipe that backlog has stayed there. And from that standpoint, you know, I think that’s a good indication. When we tend to get into it, you know, there are plans that are identified and we kind of attached to a specific application. So I think that put in move in or around a little bit, but again we have a – but depending on our backlog, we have a couple years of load sitting in front of us.
So I think that’s going to pose pretty well. On the IGT side, I think that the fact that we have really worked hard over the course of the last year-and-a-half to make sure that we kind of cover all the customers is the key part of why we’re going to be able to keep growing to the question next year. So we’re going to be basically getting share that we didn’t have over the course of the last two or three years. So again I think that’s a key piece of the puzzle.
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