ConDig (04-May-17).  Executives at Los Angeles, California-based civil and building construction company Tutor Perini Corporation (TPC) expect a steady stream of contracts for major work to be issued through this year.

Speaking on a conference call, TPC chairman and ceo Ronald Tutor said that there is an “incredible array of bids going on every day” and this was recently underlined after the company  bagged four civil contracts worth about $774 million.

“There is just a constant stream of major work, our estimating groups nationally work six, seven days a week. So there’s no shortage of major work bidding all the way through the end of the year, it will be just frankly how big a share of it we can get,” he said, noting that company is currently under review for a $900 million light rail job in Minneapolis and a $1.5 billion light rail project in New York and Long Island.

The comments come as TPC posted net income of $14 million in the first quarter, down slightly from $15 million in the first quarter of last year.

The drop was driven by the impact of certain civil and building projects in New York and in the Midwest that are nearing completion, or are substantially complete, and the timing of new projects that are now ramping up, the company said.

But this was partially offset by increased activity on some civil projects on the West Coast and the impact of a more favorable effective tax rate.

Revenue in the first quarter was $1.12 billion, up from $1 billion in the year-ago period.

Backlog as of the end of March 31 was $7.2 billion, up 15% compared with $6.2 billion at the end of December, while new awards and adjustments to contracts in process totaled $2.1 billion in the first quarter.

Tutor Perini expects full-year earnings to be $2.10 to $2.40 per share and revenue to be in excess of $5.5 billion.