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Operator
Good morning. My name is Lisa, and I will be your conference operator today. Welcome to Luxfer's 2021 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)
Now I will turn the call over to Heather from Luxfer. Heather, please go ahead.
Heather Harding - CFO
Thank you, Lisa. Welcome to Luxfer's Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. We're happy to have you all with us today. I'm Heather Harding, Luxfer's Chief Financial Officer. With me today is Alok Maskara, Luxfer's Chief Executive Officer. On today's call, we will provide details on our second quarter 2021 performance as outlined in the press release issued yesterday. Today's webcast is accompanied by a presentation that can be accessed at luxfer.com.
Please note, any references to non-GAAP financials are reconciled in the appendix of this presentation. And before we begin, a friendly reminder that any forward-looking statements made about the company's expected financial results are subject to future risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the safe harbor statement on Slide 2 of today's presentation for further details.
Now let me turn the call over to Alok.
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Thanks, Heather, and welcome, everyone. Please turn to Slide 3 for highlights from our second quarter results.
I want to highlight 3 key messages on this page: First, successful execution of our growth initiatives and strong recovery in our end markets, combined with the benefit of the SCI acquisition, resulted in 29% year-over-year growth in our second quarter revenues. Our adjusted diluted EPS was $0.36, an increase of almost 90% from the prior year. The resulting EBITDA margin expanded 370 basis points to 17.5% driven by volume leverage and operational excellence. We remain confident of sustaining and improving our margins in the long term.
Second, we have been able to timely satisfy our customers' growing demand despite the ongoing material supply and talent availability challenges. However, we remain cautious and concerned about the impact of persistent material and talent shortages on our near-term results. I am grateful to the Luxfer team who continue to work diligently to secure material and attract talent so that we can minimize any customer disruption.
Third, we further strengthened our balance sheet this quarter with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.6x, enabling us to maintain and accelerate investments in organic growth and operational excellence projects. In addition, we will remain thoughtful and disciplined in our approach to acquisitions while increasing shareholder returns through dividends and share buybacks. During the quarter, we also made significant progress on our key strategic and operational initiatives, and I'm going to highlight them in the next few pages.
Please turn to Slide 4 for an update on alternative fuel growth initiatives. We are optimistic about the growth potential of our alternative fuel product line. We believe that the industry is growing at 20% to 25% per year and that the total addressable market for this opportunity will be $300 million by 2025. We serve a small part of this total addressable market, hence, have the opportunity to expand our offering in addition to capturing market growth.
We continue to make growth investments to expand our product offerings and geographical reach to increase our compressed natural gas and hydrogen sales. Luxfer's value proposition for this product line is driven by our decades of experience during which we had developed proprietary technology and relevant engineering capability. We offer a growing range of large diameter cylinders that range from 16-inch diameter typically used for buses to 27-inch diameter typically used for trucks.
For hydrogen, we offer a high temperature version that enables fast filling and are planning to introduce a larger diameter hydrogen cylinder in 2022. I want to point out that we offer solutions for both CNG and hydrogen and have established positions in both. The hydrogen end market is currently small but is expected to grow faster and become larger than CNG beyond 2025. We are proud of our ability to meet our customers' need for CNG and hydrogen transport storage solution for public buses, commercial trucks and bulk gas transportation. We believe that alternative fuel will drive long-term growth for Luxfer.
While composite cylinders for alternative fuel is our fastest-growing product line, we also continue to drive innovation and growth in our other product lines. Turning to Slide 5, I am excited to share recent innovations in our magnesium product line. Luxfer is the world's leading producer of magnesium alloys for a range of niche applications across multiple industries, including aerospace and industrial packaging. Today, I want to highlight 3 innovative magnesium growth opportunities being pursued by Luxfer.
For graphic arts application, we are launching a new magnesium alloy photoengraving plate that will increase the life of magnesium die and make it more competitive versus other materials such as copper and brass. This innovation is expected to greatly enhance the total addressable market for magnesium alloys in the graphic arts application.
To penetrate new applications, we are increasing focus on engineered magnesium powders for Grignard reactions that are used in a wide variety of manufacturing processes, including production of lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen storage, lightweight composites and 3D printing. As part of core innovation to develop new capabilities, our Manchester location has recently enhanced the billet and slab casting process that is expanding Luxfer's reach into new customers and applications while reducing our own manufacturing carbon footprint.
In addition to growth through the focused investment highlighted, success of our transformation plan is also enabling growth in other product lines. For an example of growth fueled by transformation plan success, please turn to Slide 6. Our graphic art business has been going through the Luxfer transformation plan for the past 3 years and is now embarking on the growth and continuous improvement phase. The transformation journey at the Luxfer graphic arts business unit started with simplification, which included delayering the organization to increase accountability and consolidating 2 U.S. sites into 1 to reduce customer lead times while generating savings.
The larger consolidated site allowed us to attract and deploy stronger management and manufacturing leadership while purposefully deploying the Luxfer values through a leader-led training program. In addition to cost savings, these changes have resulted in significant improvements in many operating metrics such as safety, on-time delivery, lead times and customer quality. As a result of these improved customer service levels and deployment of global growth talent and growth processes, the business is poised for growth and expected to capture greater share of the end market through innovation and customer excellence.
In addition to maintaining our growth focus, our teams are proactively responding to the current manufacturing challenges, as summarized on Slide 7. Just like many other manufacturing companies, Luxfer is facing a difficult set of challenges in ramping up production to meet the demand recovery. Our teams are diligently working around the clock to address and mitigate these challenges, including material supply issues, freight delivery lead times and talent availability.
In the second quarter, 2 of our critical suppliers declared force majeure, which is forcing our teams to identify additional suppliers for these critical raw materials to serve our customers. Attracting manufacturing hourly employees remains a challenge, particularly in U.S. We are proactively adjusting our rate structure and shift pattern while implementing onetime actions such as larger incentives to attract and retain talent. While we are making solid progress, we remain cautious about the impact of these disruptions on our results for the remainder of the year.
Now let me turn the call over to Heather for details of our second quarter financials.
Heather Harding - CFO
Thanks, Alok. I'll start the current quarter review on Slide 8 with a summary of our performance by end market. As a reminder, our sales can be classified into 3 key end user markets: defense, first response and health care; transportation, which is a combination of alternative fuel, aerospace and automotive; and general industrial.
In the defense, first response and health care end market, sales increased by 14.2% for the second quarter versus the same quarter last year. We saw increased demand for our military products as well as an increase in SCBA sales. Sales in transportation grew 32.7% in the second quarter.
The recent SCI acquisition positively impacted sales performance of this end market. In addition, we generated solid growth in our auto catalyst products driven by industry recovery and wider adoption of gas particulate filtration. Sales in the general industrial end market increased 45.3% in the quarter driven by the strong market recovery. Every product category within this end market grew relative to prior year, and we exceeded the industrial sales level from the second quarter of 2019.
Now please turn to Slide 9 for a summary of our second quarter P&L results. Second quarter sales of $99 million increased 29.2% from the prior year with favorable FX contribution of 5.9%. The SCI acquisition added $8 million in second quarter sales or a little more than 10%. Growth in our general industrial products was a major contributor, along with increases in both the transportation and the defense and first response end market. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $17.3 million for the quarter increased 63.2% versus the prior year. In addition to the strong impact of operating leverage on incremental volumes, we were able to offset material inflation with price and generate net cost reductions as part of our ongoing productivity efforts. Overall, we achieved strong performance with sales growth, strong profitability and cash generation.
Now let's look at our product segment results on Slide 10. Elektron sales of $52.5 million increased 34.3% from the prior year. The sales increase was most pronounced in our general industrial products with additional growth in military sales and autocatalysis. EBITDA increased over 125% to $12 million with the positive impact of sales leverage, coupled with productivity improvements in the quarter. Gas Cylinders segment sales grew 24% to $46.5 million, including $8 million in sales from SCI. In addition, we saw strong demand for industrial specialty cylinders and posted growth in our SCBA products. EBITDA of $5.3 million was flat to prior year as productivity benefits were offset by SCI losses and lower core volumes.
Now let's review our key balance sheet and cash flow metrics on Slide 11. We ended the second quarter with a stronger balance sheet. Our net debt position improved to $39.5 million, leading to a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.6x. Second quarter operating working capital finished at $79.6 million or 20.1% of sales, which is a significant improvement over the prior year's 28% level, even with the unfavorable impact of SCI. Going forward, we aim to maintain a targeted operating working capital range of 20% to 23% of sales. After a strong cash flow start in the first quarter, we continued our cash focus, generating free cash flow of $7 million in the second quarter, bringing our year-to-date cash total to $20.8 million. On a trailing 12-month basis, free cash flow totaled more than $57 million, which really illustrates the success our transformation plan has achieved. Also on a trailing 12-month basis, we delivered 18.7% ROIC on adjusted earnings. We have a strong balance sheet and are well-positioned to generate consistent free cash flow.
Let's review our capital allocation priorities on Slide 12. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. We expect to create value through internal execution while remaining open to strategic acquisitions to supplement our organic growth. In the second quarter, we maintained our quarterly dividend of $3.4 million and also initiated our share repurchase plan, spending $900,000 in cash for share buybacks.
Now I'd like to review our updated 2021 guidance on Slide 13. Given the Q2 performance, we have narrowed our full year guidance range to $1.15 to $1.30 compared to our previously communicated range of $1.10 to $1.30. While our order book remains healthy, we remain cautious given the ongoing material supply challenges, freight disruptions and labor shortages experienced throughout the world. We'll continue our execution on cash management initiatives, targeting 100% free cash flow conversion for the full year, excluding restructuring. We remain confident in our ability to successfully navigate through the recovery this year and be well positioned to capture growth.
Now before the wrap-up, I wanted to provide a brief update on ESG activities on Slide 14. Luxfer has made meaningful progress against the environmental commitments that we made in our November 2020 ESG report. We're pleased that our efforts so far have been acknowledged by external ESG rating firms like ISS. Throughout the year, we made continued improvement in all 3 categories.
During the second quarter, we successfully commissioned new equipment at our St. Louis facility that separates waste oil from ground magnesium, allowing us to recycle both materials and reuse them in our manufacturing processes as well as generate cost savings. In addition, we are currently in the process of conducting Carbon Life Cycle Analyses on our key products, which will help us identify and address the most carbon-intensive parts of our supply chain, enabling us to achieve our 2025 environmental goals.
In the social category, we remain committed to building a diverse and equitable workplace for all of our team members. As part of that commitment, we've increased our focus on diversity during the recruitment process. Through increased awareness and targeted recruiting practices, we expect to attract and maintain a stronger workforce.
Given the heightened awareness around IT and cybersecurity risk, we maintain a strong IT infrastructure and governance process. As such, we published our IT and cybersecurity policy statement on our website earlier this month that describes the actions we take to safeguard our IT infrastructure, systems and networks against cyber attacks.
So to wrap up on Slide 15, I'd like to highlight 4 key points: Luxfer serves attractive niche markets with proprietary products and technology. Our transformation plan has delivered results by simplifying our business, by reducing our cost structure and reshaping our portfolio towards higher growth. The final phase of this transformation plan will take place over the next few years and focus on accelerating growth and delivering margin expansion. We have plenty of runway to create additional shareholder value by deploying the Luxfer Business Excellence Standard Toolkit to drive additional improvement and accelerate our growth.
So once again, Alok and I want to thank all our employees around the world for safely operating our facilities during the pandemic while always putting our customers first.
So thank you for listening, and Alok and I will now take questions.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Chris Moore with CJS Securities.
Christopher Paul Moore - Senior Research Analyst
Maybe just start with kind of fuel landscape. So I know Luxfer and Hexagon owns IP on the bigger hydrogen tanks. I'm just trying to understand a little bit better the partnership you talked about a couple of days ago with Octopus Hydrogen. Does that create any kind of unique capabilities for Luxfer? Maybe you can just talk a little bit about the partnership and what you expect from that.
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Sure. One of the key growth areas, Chris, in the alternative fuel area, is bulk gas transportation. As we think about hydrogen, there's a lot of demand for green trucks. And one critical step to get there is to make sure options to transport hydrogen from the production process to the point of usage. And that's what the partnership with Octopus would do. With working together with them, it would create these modules, which would be able to go on what we call the hydrogen haulers and much more efficient than the current transportation process by increasing the amount of hydrogen that can be carried in a trailer.
While I wouldn't want to get into details of some of the IP or the proprietary know-how, I do believe this is going to be a huge step forward in creating the right infrastructure that will deliver hydrogen to the point of use so that could be used in -- because as you know, there are no pipelines or anything else that carry hydrogen. Hydrogen haulers are very critical. And we are very excited about partnerships like the ones we announced with Octopus.
Christopher Paul Moore - Senior Research Analyst
Got it. Very helpful. Appreciate that. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about the drivers of leverage in fiscal '22 and beyond. Gross margins were 26.2% in Q2. Is it possible to get to a 30% gross margin someday?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Yes. I mean if you think about it, the gross margin in Q2, which the gross -- there's some impact of seasonality, which is positive, but there was also a significant impact of SCI, which we talked about was decremental on the margin terms. Chris, I don't want to commit to a 30% number, but -- I mean that remains our long-term target, to get to a 30% margin. And in quite a few of our product lines are, in fact, already there. So it's a matter of as volume comes back, because in places like aerospace and others, we still don't have the volume back from the pre-COVID times. And all our new products typically have higher margins than our existing products. So putting it all together, I think that's a really good target for us.
Christopher Paul Moore - Senior Research Analyst
Got it. How about on the OpEx side? I mean when you look at the kind of the growth in OpEx versus the growth in revenue, kind of how do you see that relationship?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Our OpEx has been relatively flat to down over the past few years, as you can see, and we continue to reduce facilities, control G&A. Going forward, I mean, we would look at OpEx growing that no more than half the rate of the revenue. Now there's obviously going to be quarter-over-quarter variations here and there, Chris. But that's the kind of internal model that we work on, with OpEx growing no more than half the rate than the revenue growth.
Christopher Paul Moore - Senior Research Analyst
Got it. That's helpful. Last one for me. Just you talked about 2 critical suppliers that declared force majeure. Any kind of specifics in terms of the raw materials or your kind of -- your inventory status at this point in time on that front?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Sure. I think the one main supplier that we are very concerned about is our supplier which supplies zircon sand to us. This is a Rio Tinto-owned mine in Richards Bay, Africa, and that's kind of public news. They have declared force majeure and have suspended operations. While we have secondary suppliers, they have been our primary supplier for zircon sand that we use for auto catalyst, industrial catalyst, medical applications. So that's the one that concerns us the most.
We always keep a few weeks of inventory. But at this stage, that's causing conservatism in our second half outlook. And we have had to pull out of any new bids to make sure we can serve our existing customers first. So that's the one that's more concerning to us right now, Chris. The other one I think is also concerning, it's a smaller supplier. And I think -- it's a product where we feel like our secondary suppliers can ramp up and they can get back in action quickly, too.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Craig Irwin with ROTH Capital Partners.
Craig Edward Irwin - MD & Senior Research Analyst
It seems like SCI is off to a particularly strong start, an $8 million contribution in the quarter, kind of points towards execution at the high end of your $20 million to $25 million range that you gave us. Can you maybe talk us through the integration of these assets? Are you seeing sales synergies or other intangible benefits that's always difficult to quantify ahead of an acquisition? Are you seeing other things play out that might contribute to stronger execution of this business than originally thought?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
That's a great question. I mean you are right, SCI is off to a good start. We originally talked about $20 million to $25 million and Q2 was a strong $8 million quarter. Now from our perspective, we did talk about $20 million to $25 million sort of in this year range. So it's a little better than expected.
From an overall position, given the ongoing material and supply challenges, our current focus is to make sure we can serve our customers well. And we have got good reception from the customers who are benefiting a lot from this acquisition and getting more stability to SCI. So on-time delivery is getting better. I mean we're able to work through customer relationship. So at this stage, it's still early days. I mean we are 3 months into it. We are pleased with the first quarter. We have taken some immediate steps such as we have announced that, currently, they were occupying 2 buildings and we are going to, within the same existing space, reduce one of the buildings and consolidate footprint. We are putting more capital into the business. So things are going as expected or slightly better. And our focus in the short term is to serve our customers, work with our customers and make sure that this becomes a win-win situation for everybody.
Craig Edward Irwin - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Excellent. Excellent. My second question is about the mix benefit, particularly at Elektron. Can you help us understand which products are lifting the EBITDA margins there? Which products are outperforming in this current environment? And do you see this improvement in mix as something that's likely to be sustained over the next couple of quarters?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Heather, do you want to take that?
Heather Harding - CFO
It's always difficult to predict mix. However, what I would say, in the current quarter, when you peel back the onion, we talked at great lengths about industrial products. And certainly, in the Elektron segment, those performed well. And I think that's one of the main contributors to the increased mix. And we also talked about some increase in military products, and those tend to have a good mix benefit as well. I wouldn't want to predict what will happen going forward. It's difficult with our range of products because mix can be very tricky. But those are some of the major contributors in Q2.
Craig Edward Irwin - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Okay. Excellent. And another thing that's sort of moving in the right direction is your return on invested capital. Can you remind us sort of what you'd like to achieve there over the next few quarters? You have had a very nice rebound off the trough. But what are the goals and what do you think key things are that we should monitor to see progress towards those goals?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Sure, Craig. I mean if you think about it, we are not a very capital-intensive business. And over the past few years, the team has done a great job ensuring that any new capital deployed has good returns, and also with the portfolio cleanup that we executed, that's moved in the right direction. We like to be over 20%. I think, in the past, as you've seen, we were there, and this is the pre-COVID days. So our goal would be to kind of get back to that level. And any of the acquisitions that come in, I mean, that's a key metric that we use, looking at what's going to be our ROIC in year 2 or year 3. So again, a good progress, we are pleased with that, but we are not done. We want to get up to 20%.
Craig Edward Irwin - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Great. Last question, if I may. Free cash flow, I know this can be volatile based on timing. Were there any specific sort of last week of the quarter items that were an impact on free cash flow? Anything that you can potentially call out? And how should we look at the free cash flow potentially tracking with EBITDA over the next several quarters?
Heather Harding - CFO
Yes, Craig, I'll take that one. So when I think about the second quarter, there's nothing I could point to in that last week. We tend to have a pretty thoughtful and disciplined approach to cash. And since the transformation plan with our focus on operating working capital, I think you see some of the benefit there. So I would say it was pretty disciplined throughout the quarter. There wasn't anything unusual at the end of the quarter. As I said and as we outlined in the presentation, our goal is to deliver free cash flow that's 100% conversion, excluding restructuring. So we continue to look at that over the back half of the year, and that would be our expectation. As you mentioned, quarter-to-quarter, it can be a little volatile, but certainly, that's our expectation for the full year.
Craig Edward Irwin - MD & Senior Research Analyst
Great. Well, congratulations on a really solid result this quarter. We look forward to continued success.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Sarkis Sherbetchyan with B. Riley Securities.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
Just had a few quick ones here. Alok, I wanted to kind of get a sense for any potential adjustments to your critical supply stock. Are you anticipating on maybe increasing that safety stock going forward? Any thoughts there just kind of given the environment and maybe if that shifts your way of thinking? And then I have a few more.
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Sure. I think if you go back to our working capital guidance, we've talked about 20% to 23% will be the range of our working capital. At this stage, I don't think we see ourselves going beyond the 23%. But clearly, given the supply situation and things that I talked about and whether it's zircon or carbon fiber or anything else, yes, we are increasing safety stock to any of the constrained supply chain. Now fortunately, for us, most of our supply chain is very local with suppliers in the same region. So we have to have increase of safety stock only for a few months. So I don't see ourselves breaching the 20%, 23% range that we have mentioned in the past, but we are making a huge conscious effort for any time we are constrained or material coming from overseas to increase the supply. But it should not impact our cash flow guidance for the full year, Sarkis.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
That's helpful. And was carbon fiber the other product that you are looking for alternative suppliers on?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Yes, carbon fiber and kind of associated hardeners and resin, the entire supply chain. So the carbon fiber, we buy through multiple sources. And yes, we are concerned about every material, including carbon fiber. The force majeure situation was with one of the components that go in carbon fiber manufacturing of the tanks.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
Got you. And would that be the resin?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
That's right. Resin and hardeners.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
Okay, cool. Yes. No, that's good to know. I've been hearing the same from others on the resin. So good luck on getting some of that stuff. And then with regards to kind of the labor, I think in your slide, you're calling out maybe some accelerated investments in automation. As you kind of look at your playbook here, do you think this is an opportunity to really do some homework on which areas of your manufacturing processes you can automate further and, obviously, if you look at kind of your human worker versus automation, maybe get a better mix in place to avoid any of these potential hiccups going forward? Just want to get your sense there.
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Yes, absolutely. And I think -- I mean I actually believe that these labor shortages, especially on the hourly one, are more permanent and are not going to go away with any changes in federal incentives. It might ease a little bit. So yes, we are very much aggressively moving towards automating our equipment, automating production lines, looking at newer ways of manufacturing and, frankly, looking at automating most of the workers that do work that we were doing using temporary labor.
We still need very qualified workers, and we will continue pushing those. But those would be more towards machine operators, people who are actually programming or using program machines. At the lower end of the workforce, we have no choice but to automate, and we are going to move aggressively, including in our Cincinnati operation, our Riverside operation and our St. Louis operations, continue moving in that direction. So I do think it's a step change needed, not just for us but all sort of U.S., European-based manufacturing companies.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
And just kind of on this stock point, right, are you finding it difficult to get the robotics in automation? Or is this more of a longer-term kind of planning process and you feel comfortable with deploying the investments over time?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
We feel comfortable with deploying the investments over time. Now we started on this journey 2 years ago. COVID may have had put a little bit of pause in that. We have quite a few cases. We have our machines specked out and our vendors identified and we are moving forward. So our lead times are longer than we'd like, but no, I'm not concerned about supplier. But those are different types of workers. Our largest shortage is in the hourly low-wage workers where you'll end up competing with the warehouse operators and others. And on the higher end of skills -- keep in mind, majority of our workers have been with the company for many years and are very skilled. And I think that's same true for some of our automation suppliers. So no -- to that end.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
No, that's good. And I want to kind of come back to the mix of Elektron. I think in the 10-Q, the oil and gas magnesium alloy product got a shout out. So anything changing there in regards to expectations there? Are you seeing some of those higher-margin products or the demand for that, I should say, come back in kind of given where, let's say, oil prices have reset and maybe those customers are feeling a little bit better? Just want to get a sense for that, if anything has changed or if we should kind of still expect that to baseline and kind of trough at kind of COVID levels.
Heather Harding - CFO
Yes, I'll take that one, Sarkis. Last year, we said oil and gas was around $7 million or $8 million, and we guided to something flat to that for this year. And certainly, Q2 was slightly stronger than Q1, but we're talking about sales in terms of low single million dollars. So we did continue to see sales of SoluMag, and we kind of maintain that we expect it to be flat to maybe slightly up from prior year, but we haven't built in a huge increase. Certainly, we're actively watching what goes on in the oil and gas with regards to the price of oil, but we aren't planning for a huge rebound, nothing like we saw in some of our historical periods. So it was stronger in Q2, but it was in the low single million dollar range.
Sarkis Sherbetchyan - Associate Analyst
No, no, understood. And I guess if I were to step back and think about that product in general, I mean, I think the feedback was that it's a fantastic product and could displace some of the older things that were used. So maybe it's not a $8 million per year product, but maybe it's not also what we saw, I think it was in '17 or '18. So like what would you think is an appropriate aspirational level to get that product maybe in the next year or 2 on an annual basis?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Sure. I think let me take that one, Sarkis. So I mean, clearly, some of the peaks that we hit in '18 was caused with some stocking levels being higher than normal. And then we saw destocking going forward, right? So I think that had an impact. And then we saw the COVID lows, which was not good as well. I think going forward, we remain very optimistic about the product. We have added new customers, which is one of our key strategic initiatives in there. And the product is getting -- especially the new formulations, continues to get very positive reviews in terms of substitution. So I think going forward, we do expect the product to continue growing, especially as oil prices improve. We would say it needs to go back into the double-digit millions on an annual run rate instead of sticking around in the single-digit millions. And then let's -- we're going to talk more in Q3, Q4 when we have more numbers to share there.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Leshock with KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Michael David Leshock - Associate
So first, I just wanted to ask on some of the recent market and supply chain challenges. How will those impact your year-to-date cost reduction progress going forward? Do you see any giveback there given inflationary pressures or otherwise?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
Michael, let me take that. I mean from our perspective, as you saw, Q2 was a strong quarter from net cost reductions, and that's kind of net of any additional cost impact that we may have faced because of rate inflation and others. Now for things like general inflation, we have always done well and continue to expect doing well in matching that with pricing, so it turns out in the long term not to be a big winner or loser. That continues. So while we don't like it, in many cases, we have had to do 2 to 3 price increases since the beginning of the year given really rapid material inflation, so I think we'll be able to do that.
Net-net from cost reductions, I think some of the freight disruptions and air freighting and other expenses did impact us negatively this quarter, and we hope that those -- and plan to make sure those become less. But no major impact beyond the guidance that we've already looked at. We're just going to do a better job managing things like air freight costs. And material, we will continue offsetting through pricing.
Michael David Leshock - Associate
Got it. And then how much in cash restructuring costs do you have remaining for the year?
Heather Harding - CFO
Yes. In our guidance, Michael, I think what we talked about, it's unchanged from the prior quarter at $16 million to $20 million. And year-to-date, it's been low single millions that we paid out so far.
Michael David Leshock - Associate
Okay. And lastly, for me, how should we think about top line in the third quarter versus second quarter given some of the macro and other market challenges that you're seeing? And what do you see primarily driving your view there?
Alok Maskara - CEO & Executive Director
So Michael, from a backlog perspective, we're in a very strong spot right now. So our concern, which is why I'm not actually going to give you a quantitative answer to your question, Michael, is all around supply disruptions and labor availability and raw material availability. So we have very strong backlog, but we are concerned given some of the material supply issues on overall ability to fulfill those. So we need some time to work through the uncertainty. And we hope to report better numbers in Q3, but there's lots of uncertainty with supply disruptions.
Operator
At this time, there are no further questions. Thank you for joining us today. The next regularly scheduled call will be in October of 2021 when the company discusses its 2021 third quarter financial results. This ends the Luxfer conference call. You may now disconnect.