Dive Brief:

• Jacobs Engineering Group announced on Monday its second-quarter 2021 financial results and reported $3.5 billion of revenue, up 3.5% from the $3.4 billion the company reported for the same period in 2020. 
• The company's People & Places Solutions segment saw second-quarter gross revenue decline year over year from $2.2 billion to $2.1 billion but net revenue increase by 1.4% from $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion. P&PS backlog increased from $14.2 billion at the end of the second quarter last year to $15.5 billion this year. During Jacobs' earnings call with analysts, Kevin Berryman, president and CFO, said its pipeline is benefiting from life sciences and electronics customers moving forward with projects that had been placed on hold.
• Transportation projects made up 30% of P&PS' net revenue, followed by building (22%), water (21%), advanced facilities (15%) and environmental (12%). During the earnings call, Steve Demetriou, Jacobs CEO and chair, said the company is poised to take advantage of U.S. stimulus spending but does not expect those opportunities to present themselves until 2022.

Dive Insight:

One of the projects that Jacobs counts as a recent win is the $160 million McCarrons Water Treatment Plant Improvements Project in St. Paul, Minnesota. St. Paul Regional Water Services expects the design work on that project to continue through 2022, with most construction taking place from 2022 to 2025. Jacobs, SPRWS, the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Health will run a small-scale water treatment facility on site for 12 months — using a proposed new treatment process — in order to flesh out any issues before construction on the new facility begins.  

Mike Matichich, Jacobs' financial services practice lead, wrote this week that the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan Act, if passed, would provide opportunities to tackle important capital water projects that have been paused for the last year due to the pandemic. The act, he said, makes provisions for:

• $56 billion in water, wastewater and stormwater funding, primarily through low-interest loans.
• $45 billion for lead service line projects.
• Other funding opportunities for resilience, sustainability, environmental justice and social equity-related projects.

The act as proposed would also provide:

• $115 billion to modernize bridges, highways and roads.
• $20 billion for road safety projects.
• $85 billion to modernize transit systems.
• $80 billion toward Amtrak's repair backlog.
• $25 billion for airports.
• $17 billion for $17 billion for inland waterway, coastal port, land port of entry and ferry projects.