Property, Plant and Equipment

12 Months Ended

Aug. 31, 2015

Property, Plant and Equipment [Abstract]

As of August 31, 2015 and 2014, major classes of property, plant and equipment, which include capital lease assets, consisted of the amounts in the table below. We have revised prior period amounts in this table to include capital lease assets that were previously accounted for as operating leases. See Note 18, Correction of Immaterial Errors for more information on the nature and amounts of these revisions.



	2015		2014
	(Dollars in thousands)
Land and land improvements	$	233,666	$	212,609
Buildings	838,386		691,273
Machinery and equipment	5,563,370		4,792,352
Office and other	163,026		133,599
Construction in progress	1,337,633		1,018,011
	8,136,081		6,847,844
Less accumulated depreciation and amortization	2,943,154		2,667,696
Total property, plant and equipment	$	5,192,927	$	4,180,148

We have various assets under capital leases totaling $222.2 million and $238.8 million as of August 31, 2015 and August 31, 2014, respectively. Accumulated amortization on assets under capital leases was $101.3 million and $89.6 million as of August 31, 2015 and August 31, 2014, respectively.

The following is a schedule by fiscal years of future minimum lease payments under capital leases together with the present value of the net minimum lease payments as of August 31, 2015:



	(Dollars in thousands)
2016	$	41,069
2017	34,924
2018	25,259
2019	14,281
2020	6,241
Thereafter	14,521
Total minimum future lease payments	136,295
Less amount representing interest	10,401
Present value of net minimum lease payments	$	125,894

We announced in September 2014 that our Board of Directors had approved plans to begin construction of a fertilizer manufacturing plant in Spiritwood, North Dakota that was anticipated to cost more than $3.0 billion. In August 2015, we made the decision to not move forward with the construction of the Spiritwood facility and evaluated the assets and other capitalized costs related to the project for recoverability under ASC Topic 360-10. Consequently, we concluded that these assets were impaired and we recorded an overall charge of $116.5 million in marketing, general and administrative costs in our Ag segment. This charge was primarily comprised of the impairment of construction-in-progress, land and equipment totaling $94.3 million. The remainder of the charge included the impairment of other assets and various contract termination costs associated with the cessation of the project.

Depreciation expense, including amortization of capital lease assets, for the years ended August 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013, was $344.4 million, $292.4 million and $259.3 million, respectively.