Bucyrus Follows Caterpillar and Smashes Estimates

It seems that mining equipment sales is started to become yet another green shoot in the economy according to these numbers.

U.S. mining equipment maker Bucyrus International Inc (BUCY.O) posted better-than-expected quarterly results, helped by growth at its surface mining original equipment and underground mining segments. For the second quarter, net income was $82.3 million, or $1.08 a share, compared with $62.3 million, or 83 cents a share, a year ago.

Revenue was up 17 percent to $724.4 million. Surface mining sales rose to $356.0 million from $301.8 million.

Underground-mining segment sales rose to $368.4 million from $319.2 million.

Analysts on average were expecting earnings of 82 cents a share, before special items, on revenue of $621.3 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

I was looking over their report and the only thing that caught my eye that you might be wary of is this part. Backlog seems like a very big deal when it comes to these sort of industrial companies so you can see project out earnings for the next few quarters.

Backlog as of June 30, 2009 and December 31, 2008, as well as the portion of backlog which is expected to be recognized within 12 months of these dates, was as follows:

                      June 30,     Dec. 31,
                        2009         2008      % Change
                     ----------   ----------    -------
                           (Dollars in thousands)
Surface Mining:
 Total               $1,146,534   $1,367,242    (16.1%)
 Next 12 months      $  652,642   $  906,884    (28.0%)

Underground Mining:
 Total               $  838,336   $1,135,212    (26.2%)
 Next 12 months      $  576,060   $  806,074    (28.5%)

Total:
 Total               $1,984,870   $2,502,454    (20.7%)
 Next 12 months      $1,228,702   $1,712,958    (28.3%)

But with commodity prices stubbornly high companies like Bucyrus and Joy Global (JOYG) might be seeing really good quarters for the rest of the year.