Property, Plant and Equipment

12 Months Ended

Aug. 31, 2016

Property, Plant and Equipment [Abstract]

As of August 31, 2016 and 2015, major classes of property, plant and equipment, which include capital lease assets, consisted of the amounts in the table below.



	2016		2015
	(Dollars in thousands)
Land and land improvements	$	266,016	$	233,666
Buildings	1,040,943		838,386
Machinery and equipment	6,747,865		5,563,370
Office and other	250,879		163,026
Construction in progress	523,817		1,337,633
	8,829,520		8,136,081
Less accumulated depreciation and amortization	3,341,197		2,943,154
Total property, plant and equipment	$	5,488,323	$	5,192,927

We have various assets under capital leases totaling $206.3 million and $222.2 million as of August 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. Accumulated amortization on assets under capital leases was $103.3 million and $101.3 million as of August 31, 2016 and 2015, 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, 2016:



	(Dollars in thousands)
2017	$	38,357
2018	28,064
2019	16,542
2020	8,285
2021	7,095
Thereafter	16,395
Total minimum future lease payments	114,738
Less amount representing interest	9,030
Present value of net minimum lease payments	$	105,708

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, 2016, 2015 and 2014, was $437.6 million, $344.4 million and $292.4 million, respectively.