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Scott and Dan will discuss our investment opportunities to grow profitably across our various geographies and businesses. In aerospace the team continues to deliver on its growth ambitions. Contract performance is strong, hiring is up, and we expect to pursue further investments in this business to keep up with the strong growth that we continue to see. Now from an earnings perspective, our results were up despite tough year-over-year comps given the 2018 steel food can business sale and conclusion of the end sales agreement in South America.

As I mentioned, our North and Central America segment was challenged with previously discussed US aluminum scrap headwinds and sequential project start-up cost. All other segments were at or above our expectations. We expect these near term cost headwinds to mitigate as we progress through the second half of the year and continue to expect year-over-year improvement in each of our main geographies.

Now key highlights for the quarter include as mentioned previously, overall global beverage can growth of approximately 5% driven by 13% specialty can growth. In fact, growth in our three key regions, North and Central America, Europe and South America grew 6% when you exclude the declines we experienced in Asia. Dan will get into this later.

Today's specialty cans represent over 42% of our mix on a global basis. The growth was prevalent our largest markets with North and Central America up approximately 4% year-over-year. South America up 12% and Europe up 7%, while EMEA was down slightly due to continued difficult macroeconomic issues in this region. We received the antitrust approval for the sale of our China beverage can business and we expect the transaction to close later in the third or fourth quarter depending on other governmental approvals around tax closeouts and foreign exchange flows.

Our aerospace revenues were up over 30% and operating earnings were up 55%. While we don't expect this level of growth to continue, we do expect revenues to be up nearly 25% for the full year and operating earnings should continue to grow at revenue growth rates. An aluminum aerosol was up low-single digits with new product innovation we're continuing. We continue to focus on raising awareness on sustainability, the benefits of aluminum packaging and proactively investing in and offer aluminum packaging solutions to our customers. One interesting note regarding our growth is that while many new products continue to move into cans our growth to date has not been meaningfully impacted by any conversions of existing brands from plastic or other substrates to aluminum beverage cans, particularly the non-alcoholic categories including CSD and water.

That said, there have been several public announcements regarding such conversions what that Dan will discuss and they will begin in the -- hit the market later this year or early next year. In addition, this fall we will launch our new infinitely recyclable, brandable aluminum cups that will make their commercial debuts in college and professional stadiums during the fall football season. With an addressable market of over 90 billion units globally, a third which are in the US. We are incredibly excited about this new innovation product launch. Stay tuned for further media announcements.

So in summary, we continue to see strong growth across our various businesses, and while we have been challenged for short-term cost to serve this growth, we believe these headwinds will begin to moderate, anticipate as we move through the second half of the year. We have many exciting opportunities in front of us that set us up well -- set our business up well going into 2020 and beyond. We will continue to execute our long-term strategy of deploying capital in support of growth opportunities, increasing EVA dollars and earnings over time through higher revenues above our cost growth, driving more mix shift to specialty containers, growing new innovative aluminum packaging products like the cup and expanding aerospace, all with the return of value to our shareholders' mindset.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Dan.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Thanks, John. Across our global operations, our team is navigating tremendous growth, complexity and incredibly tight supply demand conditions. Sustainability in new categories are fueling customer demand and looking ahead when existing products convert from single serve PET to cans in 2020 and beyond given the recent announcements by two of the world's largest beverage brands, the growth for beverage cans will accelerate. In the near term, and until we have more assets up and running, cost to serve the surging growth dampened North America's performance. Given the US aluminum scrap situation we called out last quarter and pushing our existing plants and new lines to the maximum to keep customer in cans.

Turning to growth. Our second quarter global beverage can shipments were up 5% and excluding declines in China and EMEA global volumes were up 6%. However, comparable operating earnings were down slightly year-over-year due to exclusively to the previously disclosed US aluminum scrap issues and continued US mine inefficiencies. Completion of the South America ends manufacturing agreement, macroeconomic issues in EMEA and some euro FX earnings translation headwinds, all in, these issues impacted comparable global beverage earnings $55 million in the quarter with roughly $35 million in the North America business, $14 million in South America and $5 million in Europe.

Across the globe, our teams kept pace with tremendous growth in Europe, Brazil and North America, which as John mentioned is still experiencing operational and logistical inefficiencies given the tight US industry and higher-than-anticipated growth in Brazil. The unfavorable impact of US aluminum scrap logistics and customer order and complexities have largely been addressed in context renewing in 2020 and beyond.

Before I move on to the segment commentary, a brief update on some internal talent moves. After decades of successful leading numerous Ball regions, we recently brought Colin Gillis over from Europe, and he will now be leading our North America operations. And Colin's European role will be backfilled by Ron Lewis, who is joining Ball from Coca-Cola European Partners where he was their Chief Supply Chain Officer. Ron worked in the Coke System for nearly 20 years, and we have known him throughout that time. His experience and leadership will be a great addition to our team.

Moving to the individual segments, Ball's North American segment volumes were up 4% in the quarter continuing double-digit growth in spiked seltzers, wine, craft beer, new water brands and developing categories of fitness energy drinks and spirits and premix cocktails in cans led to year-over-year growth in specialty. Inventory levels for our specialty portfolio are low and every plant in our network is running at maximum utilization.

Given the combination of strong growth, the upcoming transition of traditional products such as still water from single serve plastic to cans. The demands on our existing operational assets are such that we will not be able to sustain current growth rates without additional investment.

Conversions line speed ups in additions that is existing facilities in Georgia and Texas are in process. We look forward to offering new products and more specialty aluminum can and bottle capability to support our customers growth.

Following these investments, our plant teams will gain some operational breathing room across the system, allowing us to get cost in line and with previously negotiated contracts favorably resetting at the beginning of 2020. I fully expect strong earnings momentum across North America in late 2019 and beyond.

Turning to our South American segment. Volumes were up 12% in the second quarter, led by incredible strength in Brazil. As mentioned earlier, the completion of the end's manufacturing contract required as part of the Rexam transaction led to just slightly lower second quarter earnings. Higher than anticipated Brazilian volume growth led to incremental logistics costs. Comps will improve as we move toward the fourth quarter, which is the seasonally strongest quarter for South America.

Our expansion in Paraguay is on track for late 2019 start-up, and the 2018 expansions of Argentina and Chile are performing to expectations. And similar to North America, overall, South American industry trends remained strong with cans. New product and brand launches for beer, wine, energy and still water in cans, as well as multiple brewery expansions will support additional investment across the industry and specific to Ball, a new customers, multiple brewery expansions will support additional capital in Brazil, including in multi-line greenfield facility.

European beverage earnings were up 16% in the second quarter due to volume growth and improved year-over-year operational performance, despite a $5 million unfavorable operating earnings translation impact in the quarter.

Volumes increased 7% in the second quarter, despite mixed weather during the quarter. Cans are winning and customer's operations continue to add new can filling lines. For 2019, contributions from our new lines, the year-over-year impact of our 2018 G&A improvement and plant cost initiatives will provide further year-over-year earnings growth and margin expansion as we progress through the balance of the year.

Looking ahead, we will leverage our existing Continental Europe network with near term line speed ups. While in Russia, we are executing a capacity expansion strategy in the short and medium term to support and country can growth.

Turning to EMEA and Asia, the demand environment was softer than anticipated as Middle Eastern conflict escalated in the quarter. Operationally, the plants have lowered their costs and focused on controlling what they can control. And as John mentioned in China, Ball has secured antitrust few approval and has begun the multi-stage closing process for the Chinese manufacturing plants sale to ORG.

In summary, global beverage can demand momentum has continued in our three largest regions of North and Central America, Brazil and Europe. Supply demand globally for cans is tight, and our commercial sustainability in recent talent moves will benefit Ball going forward. As John mentioned earlier, the amount of growth we are seeing today and are securing into the future is amazing. We will invest wisely with an eye on EVA returns and a proper pace relative to customers' long-term needs.

Thank you, again, to all of our teams around the globe. With that, I will turn it over to Scott.

Scott C. Morrison -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Dan. Comparable second quarter 2019 diluted earnings per share were $0.64 versus $0.58 in the second quarter of 2018. Second quarter 2019 results reflect $0.04 comparable earnings per share dilutive impact of the July 2018 sale of our US steel food and steel aerosol business. Details are provided in the notes section of today's earnings release and additional information will also be provided in our 10-Q.

Second quarter comparable diluted earnings per share reflects strong global beverage can shipments and solid aerospace contract performance, a lower effective tax rate and lower corporate costs offset by the sale of our US steel food and aerosol business and lower year-over-year end sales in South America and US scrap and start-up cost as Dan just outlined.

Net debt ended the quarter at $6.5 billion and reflects our typical seasonal working capital build and ongoing share buyback. We continue to anticipate year-end 2019 net debt to remain around $6 billion as we buy back stock and invest in our businesses and pay dividends throughout 2019. Close to 90% of Ball's balance sheet debt is at fixed rates, and we've reached our post-Rexam target leverage levels. Ball's balance sheet is healthy and provides ample opportunity and flexibility to service growth and shareholder value return needs.

As we think about 2019, our 2019 financial goals originally laid out in mid-2016 are largely intact with the North America scrap and operational headwinds that we faced in the first half it makes the full-year $2 billion of EBITDA challenging to hit. Having said that, our second half expectations haven't changed as the scrap and operational headwinds begin to moderate in our unit volume growth continues to show strength.

We'll exit this year on a $2 billion EBITDA run rate. Given all the excellent growth opportunities and dependent on the pace of capex spend, an incremental pension funding we see 2019 free cash flow being in the range of $1 billion. Full year interest expense will be a little bit north of $310 million for full year effective tax rate on comparable earnings will be in the range of 19% to 20% and corporate undistributed will likely run just under $75 million representing benefits from strong overall cost management and the benefits of our shared services structure.

We anticipate benefiting from this low cost structure in 2020 and beyond. Year-to-date we have executed nearly $400 million of repurchases of stock and paid out approximately $80 million in dividends. The accelerated stock repurchase program that we announced earlier this year continues to be executed. Following the year-to-date run up in the stock, we get asked a lot about capital allocation plans. The significant long-term growth opportunities we have in cans cups and aerospace will require incremental growth capex over time. And despite this growth capex we will continue for meaningful amounts of free cash flow like always we will manage for the benefit of our long-term shareholders when you invest in volume invest with us.

With that, I'll turn it back to you, John.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thanks, Scott. In our aluminum aerosol business, which is now reflected in other nonreportable results. And as I mentioned earlier, global volumes grew 1% in the quarter. Industry dynamics are beginning to change and we continue to see opportunities to broaden our global footprint, either through bolt-on M&A or Greenfield investment. These opportunities vary by geography. We are proud of the progress the team is making on innovation and sustainability initiatives.

As mentioned our aerospace business reported 31% revenue growth and 58% operating earnings growth on solid contract performance, partially offset by incremental labor costs. In addition, we have welcome nearly 600 new aerospace employees year-to-date and we anticipate adding at least another 600 employees by year-end. Total aerospace headcount recently surpassed 4,200 people. Our focus remains firmly on onboarding these new employees. Further expansion of our Colorado facilities and executing on our strong backlog.

Looking forward, the two -- the new two year US budget agreement further underpins the growth that we see and aerospace now has the potential growing its earnings in excess of 20% in 2019, and with contracted backlog levels exceeding $2 billion and our won not booked backlog at $4.8 billion. The future continues to look bright for the foreseeable future.

While we've made great strides toward our 2019 financial goals originally laid out in mid-2016, our longer-term prospects have never been brighter, ball is uniquely positioned to lead and invest in sustainable growth in our global aluminum packaging and aerospace while delivering significant value to our shareholders.

We look forward to exceeding our long-term 10% to 15% diluted earnings-per-share growth goal in 2019 and over the next several years. While we are striving in the short-term to manage cost and squeezes many cans out of our existing operations. We're completely immersed in our long-term growth plans and increasing value creation for our shareholders. Our ability to succeed is because of our people, our culture EVA mindset. Our healthy balance sheet and exceptional products and technologies. We will continue to responsibly invest in our businesses for the long-term and do what is best for Ball and our shareholders' long-term success. And with that, Lila, we're ready for questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Please go ahead.

Anthony Pettinari -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst

Good morning.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Anthony Pettinari -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst

John the view that you'll be able to grow earnings beyond the 10%, 15% EPS range over the next few years. I guess, what kind of volume assumptions underlie that on the bev can side. And can you give us any detail on maybe, customer commitments you've secured that give you confidence that you'll be able to increase that volume number.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

First respect to volume growth. As we said in the first quarter, historically we always thought this business to be plus or minus globally about 2% unit volume growth around the world and we think it's double that. We've been outperforming that relative, and I think in the very short term we can continue to see that. But I think over the long-term 4% unit volume growth is a good way to think about it. And if there is upside to that, we're going to be spending more capital, because we assume it's going to be good EVA return projects to meet our customers' needs. In terms of specific customers in the contracts, we don't get into anything before example that new plant we're building to Brazil is secured by a new long-term customer.

In North America, here we've been, as I mentioned in my comments, we've been leaving growth on the table, because we haven't been able to serve incremental. So the demand is certainly is there. We just need to get our supply caught up. So we can get a little breathing room and give our operational folks more opportunity kind of slowed down the conversions they've been experiencing, which have been increasingly short term -- which have been increasing these short-term headwinds that we talked about.

Anthony Pettinari -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst

Got it, got it. Very helpful. And then Dan, you talked about $55 million of headwinds in the quarter from operational inefficiencies and you broke that out between North America, Europe and LatAm. Any view on what that number could look like in 3Q? And then just directionally would you expect those headwinds to abate in all three of the regions that you mentioned or could they intensify or be relatively stable any view on that in 3Q?

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

I think we're very hopeful that the $35 million [Phonetic] in North America in particular will dissipate. And we've got plans in place on the metal scrap issue that will start to trend in a more favorable direction. It will still be a headwind year-over-year, but it'll be less of the headwind than we saw in the first half. The performance in our inefficient lines, we had two conversions that took place in the quarter. And then we still have, we're still a little behind on two lines and the Goodyear start-up. We're seeing progress there.

So I think that momentum will continue through the quarters. I don't know if it dissipates entirely in 3Q, but it will continue to progress in the right direction heading into certainly beginning of '19. And then really, Europe FX that we described, I probably can't give you much guidance there. And the $15 million that I quoted or the $14 million in South America is, that will dissipate in the second half the year the last as it relates to the ORG [Phonetic] amortization.

Anthony Pettinari -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Robert W Baird & Company. Please go ahead.

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

Hey guys, good morning.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

First off on the 13% increase in specialty can volumes in 2Q. John, can you sort of break that out by region? And then you also mentioned growth came in above your expeditions for the second quarter. And I am sorry if I miss this, but which region in particular surprise you to the upside?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think the momentum continues to answer your question first in North America, specialty volume were up single -- upper single digits. As I said, they could have been higher, but we just didn't have enough cans to get out in the marketplace. I know South America was very strong. It was low 20% growth in the specialty and even in Europe, we're seeing a lot -- what fundamentally what's driving this is you're seeing all these new categories and all these new products moving the specialty containers and that's what we get most excited about.

Ghansham, as you know, over the past five to 10 years, we've really been put a focus on putting supply of specialty containers into our system and that only continues to accelerate. I think the answer to your broader question about where were we surprised, I just think overall global growth in a very seasonally strong quarter up 6% if you exclude China. And when you think about that and we left growth on the table for, we could have very, if we had the capacity we are very easily could have replicated the first quarter. But we did, and that's why we're talking about putting more capital in.

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

Okay. And then just based on your current projects that you've announced including line speeds -- speed ups and debottlenecking. How much incremental capacity were your footprint generate in the developed markets going into 2020? And then up the new categories that you're benefiting from? How is the filling location dispersion -- different relative to your legacy customers. I'm just going to get a sense as to how logistics cost are different for these new customers and how or so it may impact your capital allocation plans related to any new capacity going forward?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I would say by mid-2021, what's -- what we're signaling here is somewhere between $4 billion to $5 billion of additional capacity and the reason 2020 is a difficult comment for us is, I think in Texas specifically, that is the most difficult environmental permitting area that we deal with anywhere in the world. So you can't even start civil engineering projects until the permitting is officially signed off and that could take as long as a year.

So 2021, I've got good line of sight that the new facility the two lines and the speed ups that are all in process will be up and running and we should be executing against those by mid-2021, maybe 60% of what I've described falls in the second half of 2020.

Scott C. Morrison -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So that's the way to think about it, if you break it in the line speed ups versus new lines versus new facilities, kind of a third, a third, a third, it's best way to say, if line speed ups will -- that will be able to help us out for most of 2020. Certainly the summer selling season in North America, and then as Dan said, the lines -- the two lines we're putting in North America, one we have a pretty good line of sight that should be able to help in the second half of next year, and then the other one in Texas is dependent upon the permitting. And then as we go into South America, I think that's really more for 2021.

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

And just the new categories in the filling locations. Thanks so much.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, definitely benefiting from new categories in North America and the -- one of the investments will be targeted to a new filling location. The rest of the incremental investments will be falling into existing filling locations.

Scott C. Morrison -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

And Ghansham, as you know, we don't talk about the specific customers, contracts and our growth plans. But we are aware of a variety of a specific customers that are adding, filling, can filling capacity, whether it's in North America, whether it's Europe, and we're dovetailing are geographic investments with those. And so there have been some customers that have been having to buy cans from us and one geographic location shipping across country to another one where they fill it. We're aiming and looking to work with them on streamlining, a lot of that. So it will not only help us, but it also help them.

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

Understood. Thanks so much.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

I think one last question on the new category expansion or one that's comment is we absolutely are looking at what products and what customers are winning in the market in which ones we want to be with and those definitely played into some of these expansion and investment call-outs.

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

Thank you, Dan and John.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Edlain Rodriguez with UBS. Please go ahead.

Edlain Rodriguez -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, guys. John quick question for you. I mean, you will be adding new capacity, your main competitor is adding more capacities like any concerns that the industry may be expecting too much capital too soon. Or do you feel that volume will be strong enough to absorb it all over the next couple of years.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

We feel pretty, pretty darn strongly that the growth in the various markets is more than sufficient to cover that off. As I mentioned, just give you context here. In North America, it's approximately 100 billion can market has been growing at 4%, that's 4 billion cans right there alone in any given year. You multiply that over a couple of years and next thing you're looking at $8 billion to $12 billion of new capacity and that's $8 billion to $12 billion new lines. That is why we're getting out ahead.

As you all know, we've invested depends on where you look, but across the our whole system globally. We've invested in 11 new lines over the last 18 months and we've been able to keep up with a lot of that growth, but not completely all of it. And so what we're doing is, this is just the next phase of trying to get out ahead. Because I know, we believe strongly that by 2021 that in given everything that our customers have been talking about, that's in the pipeline right now that we see this growth continuing, and that's not even talking about the broader picture of this whole anti-plastic sustainability, and if that continues to accelerate this is it -- we're going to be talking about more capital as we go forward also.

Edlain Rodriguez -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst

Okay. And in terms of capital allocation. So that new and all those new investments you're making, are they going to be coming at the expense of share buyback or do you think you can still do that $1 billion that you've talked about over the next couple of years share buyback.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, here's the way I would think about it. And I'll turn it over to Scott a minute. When you talk about this growth as we all know, we've talked about this. Our DNA is approximately $550 million. And we set our maintenance of no growth capital is in the range of $250 million. We've also said people have asked over time saying how much does it cost for new line, and it varies tremendously by region and what capacities you want to put it. But if you say roughly a new line is approximately $75 million, and you get anywhere from 800 million to 1 billion cans on it depending on how many swings you have in that.

That means, to keep up with this growth on a global basis. You're talking about a growth for us on a base of 105-plus billion [Phonetic] cans is growing 4%. That's about four new lines a year, and if it's a $75 million that is about 300 million. So you layer on top of that, you get the 250 maintenance plus 300 of growth that gets about DNA then you layer on the growth that we have for aerospace. And then you grow on cups and other things that you can quickly see how we get the kind of 700 million. If that, global beverage can growth continues and we need to put more in, we have the capacity to because I'll turn it over to Scott now. Even with all this elevated capex, we're still generating a tremendous amount of free cash flow.

Scott C. Morrison -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I think we're going to continue to invest in our business on all these projects where we can grow EVA dollars grow our earnings. We're going to continue to be buying back our stock paying dividends. I think the 50% increase earlier this year is pretty strong evidence of that. And I think we'll both kind of a consistent buyer of our stock, but also an opportunistic repurchase of our shares and take advantage of volatility. So that means, in any quarter two we made by more or less depending on that volatility. But we're going to continue to invest in our business and return a lot of capital back to the shareholders.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, let me just reiterate over the last 20 years, we have done that exact same model. We've invested in our business and we've generated a tremendous amount of our shareholders value for our shareholders by being consistent allocator's capital back to our shareholders. Yes, we have elevated capex which is exciting, because that's going to provide the growth. And we also have the flexibility to be consistent and over the long-term and returning value to shareholders.

Edlain Rodriguez -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for the commentary. I just wanted to ask a question kind of a point of clarification to start the additional 4 billion to 5 billion cans of capacity 10 that you said you think you get to on an annualized basis by mid-21. Does that include capacity, does that include within the number 4 aluminum cups or does it not. And similarly, I thought it would have but given John's commentary earlier. Does that include anything for any of these still water conversions or not. [Speech Overlap] What with those add.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

I would say cups, no, it's not in there. And still water conversions. That's a -- we don't have much built into that 5 billion. And as you would imagine, George, we're having very different conversations with the customer base. All the three major markets are incredibly tight. And so, if there was going to be a move in the water and there are certainly conversations about that. It will require some significant collaboration between us and our customers to make the supply chain, they will have to invest in filling, they'll have to invest in potentially different logistics structures and warehousing and we will have to add capacity for him. And so those conversations would be in very early innings, right now.

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

And I would take it probably not prudent to size what the opportunity could be either for cups or for still water. Maybe not '21, but '22, '23 because you'd obviously since you don't have a full agreement yet on the water side, you can't bring in permitting, you can bring in capex yet, but is there a way to size what it could look like maybe in '22 or '23.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Yeah, I'll let John comment, it would be difficult, it's a massive market. I think single serve water 500 billion units in global cans is 300 billion, so a 2% move, 3% move would require a very different investment pattern for us. On the cup side, we are commercializing the product. It will be in some sporting venues now. The thing that we're trying to get our head wrapped around is exactly the outputs that will come from a massive line or footprint, expansion. We're working through those and those details right now. So giving you commentary on the specific volumes for the investment still a little premature, but we will know that in the next 60 to 90 days I think.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, George, just to amplifying the cups are completely agree on the water side. Just on the cups as I mentioned in my comments, around the world in terms of the addressable market for this, it's over 90 billion units, a third of which are in the United States. This will come at a premium on aluminum's not inexpensive, but what we see is so far is a very strong willingness to pay a premium for a sustainable product, particularly as college campuses and professional sports venues go plastic free.

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Understood. I thought that some of the investment in lines that you're talking about now would include some capacity for cups, is that incorrect. So if I know you're commercializing you're doing some pilots this coming football season. Am I mistaken that if you really go full force with this that the investment really hasn't been lined up yet for that -- those revenue streams?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, that is correct. That is correct. We have already put in a pilot line that we're currently serving for this fall, but to really scale it out, it requires a new investment that we have not announced yet.

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks for all the back and forth on that. Last question on investment and I'll have one shorter-term one, and I'll turn it over to just kind of fairness. So the return on capital that you're seeing out of these new investments. Is there a way to say whether it's at -- perhaps a lesser rate than what you've seen, but you're getting so much growth you're willing to take a lower return than what you've seen in the past are the returns on these new projects equivalent or above what you've seen with returns on your last two or three years worth of growth capex.

And then separately, and maybe shorter term given all the growth you're seeing what gives you confidence? What's at the investor take away as why we should be confident? That the start-up costs and all the other variable expense that's been sort of every quarter has been something that will dissipate by 2020. Is it mostly in the contracts? Or is it the learnings that you're getting from all of the work you're doing right now. What would it be. Thank you guys, and good luck in the quarter.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Thank you. I'll answer the return question. First, the conversations that we're having with our customers are very different. I think John's indicated this, and that is resulting in at least all the projects that we've approved thus far are at north of historical norms returns on these projects. In Europe, North America and South America, the markets are tight, and so the conversations are -- and many of those markets that used to have excess capacity, there is very different, and so we should be -- we should be doing better from a return thresholds standpoint at this point. Fair question, and I think when John indicated, the three buckets of capital investments where how we'll get units, the easiest units to get our speed ups and conversions, the second most difficult our full line expansions and the third are Greenfield and where we have admittedly struggled whether it's Monterrey or it's Goodyear or it's Cabanillas over the last couple of years. We've generally had an 18-month time horizon on seeing the commercialization of the products and getting up to a run rate. And I think, it's probably going to take a little longer than that, and we'll probably communicate that more explicitly.

One thing that we do know that's we have to spin in hell of a lot more time on training, and the other thing in some of these markets, these are the first -- in North America Goodyear is really the first market where we built a Greenfield plant in 30 something years. So we will get better at it, and I think we'll hire better, I think we'll train better, and we're fully committed to that.

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Tyler Langton with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Tyler Langton -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thank you. I think you just mentioned from the sustainability, you really haven't sort of seen a benefit yet. And then you kind of mentioned just in Northern Europe, you're starting to see some customers convert from PET to cans, could you just talk about how significant that move is or just provide a little more color on that?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, well, this is John. Maybe I'll turn it over down. We didn't say we haven't got the benefit from sustainability. All these new products, I think are being driven by sustainability. What we haven't seen in any meaningful way is existing brands that are already in existing subsidiaries converting to aluminum. We -- there have been some public announcements by customers. We are obviously aware of other investments that they are making for those conversions and that's what gives us some conviction as we look forward into it.

I do think that many brand owners are struggling as their retailers are demanding more sustainable products and a reduction of their footprints both environmentally and from a greenhouse gas perspective and they're turning to products such as aluminum and that's what I was talking about. You're absolutely right in Europe, you're seeing it. I think you're starting to see it in North America. I think someone asked the question earlier about how big could that be. We're in early innings. So it's too early to tell, but so far so good in terms of what we've seen.

Tyler Langton -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And then, in terms of the corporate expense, Scott, I guess, I think $16 million this quarter had been in the low '20s, is that $16 million kind of a good run rate going forward, and is that mainly from sort of the shared services initiatives?

Scott C. Morrison -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

It's a ton of different things, but that run rate should be pretty good. I said it end up kind of just under $75 million for the full year. We're benefit -- we're doing a lot of things whether it's the restructuring, legal entities. Some of these we've done on pensions, shared services it's all of those things that are adding to that basically lowering our costs that will get the benefit of not just this year, but into the future.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, let's not forget a couple of years ago, we talked about over the 2018, really it's a latter half of '17, we're going to actually be making investments in standing up shared services and we should start to get the benefit as we get into the second half of '19, and that's exactly what we're seeing. But to Scott's point, that's just one of it. There is hundreds of different projects that all incrementally may not look that exciting, but cumulatively, they start to add up.

Tyler Langton -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Okay, that's I missed. Final question in terms of capex. Most for these new projects well most of that be in 2020 and just kind of how to think about capex for this year?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think capex we initially set up $600 million for capex, I think it could be more than that. I think next year, it could be a little higher than this year. All of these projects we just approved at our Board meeting a week or so ago, $350 million of capital to be spent over the next 18 to 24 months to add capacity across our beverage system and another $150 million in our aerospace business to keep up with the growth in that business. So I think we could spend a little more than $600 million this year, and I think we'll spend a little bit more than that next year.

Tyler Langton -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Great. Thanks so much.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Arun Viswanathan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great, Thanks. Good morning. Just wanted to understand the outlook statement of EPS growth of greater than 10% to 15%. It sounds like volumes potentially trending a little bit better than you thought. You also discuss contract renegotiation in the statement in the release and -- but you have experienced quite a bit of cost. So it's implicit in that statement that contract renegotiations in pricing improvements and mix is going to more than offset the logistics issues and the cost inflation that you're experiencing? Or is it a greater pivot to buybacks as well or maybe you can just size, what kind of drove that statement?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, qualitatively, I'm not going to hash through all the numbers because I think we've in one way shape or form talked about them already. But number one, we've had a variety of headwinds that we said we're going to dissipate. Certainly, as we get into the back half of this year but more importantly going into 2020. So that's a source of a year-over-year improvement. We also have unit volume growth that is much stronger than we had historically have seen and or anticipated and the mix of that more in specialty is a kicker on top of that. So that's a big data point relative to our historical 10% to 15%.

You think about the growth in aerospace that we've been going. It's been growing much stronger than we historically have, there's other things as well but those -- and then you talk about the new capital we're putting in and we're an EVA company. So we better darn well be generating the returns on that. So you put all that together and absent just normal share repurchases, you can see a line of sight of why we feel bullish about the next few years.

Arun Viswanathan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks for that. And then just from another perspective I was just wondering, South America, you guys have experiencing very strong growth there has been some extra capital, it's come in there though, any concerns that the growth there could slow down eventually with new entrants and a little more capacity. Thanks.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Yeah, probably less concerned about the new entrants, just more concerned with the volatility of the region. But the reality is the movement and I think, John, we talked about this historically, but what you're seeing an accelerated growth rates in North America and then Europe is a sustainability impact. What you're seeing in South America which is a real tailwind and it should continue for some period of time. Obviously, given the macro environment is remain somewhat healthy. It's a shift from returnable glass by the largest incumbent to cans meaningfully and they're making significant filling investments to support that. They have lost share over the last two to three years in that marketplace by premiumization of beer and all of that went into specialty aluminum packaging. And so they have made a conscious decision to move from -- away from returnable glass. And so that's why you're seeing these accelerated growth rates in that marketplace and they're committed as best we can tell to do in that for a long period of time. So we like the growth trajectory in that market in particular.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Also further underpinning it over the last few years, we've actually seen very strong growth, but that was despite overall consumption of beverages to be down. I can tell you year in the second quarter of 2019, beer -- total beer consumption irrespective of what package type it was in, was up by 2%, soft drink was also up by 2%. That's the first time in a long time those have been positive. And so we had good growth underpinning with negative overall volume and now let's turn positive, then you layer on what Dan said, that's why we feel constructive over the next several years.

Arun Viswanathan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Okay. The last follow-up. On free cash flow, assuming that you do growth EPS in the 10% to 15% or above range. Given that your investments you look like you are increasing your capex outlook. Would you expect slightly lower free cash flow growth and how should we think about that? Thanks a lot.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

No not necessarily. I think we'll get as Dan talked about the projects that we're investing in and the mix of those projects gets better. And I think the earnings acceleration will offset some of the growth in capital over the next few years. So I don't necessarily seeing free cash flow going to big hit as we go forward.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Yeah. And the other thing I'd point out is actually cash flow from operations is going to be growing quite strong. I mean when you really think about free cash flow is a function of the cash we generate from running your business, less the maintenance capex, you need to support that business and then plus or minus growth capital that growth capital could be M&A, it could be Greenfield investments as we talked about. So we actually over the long-term that growth investment is a one-time type of thing. And so, yes, in 2019 or 2020 or '21, we may have elevated capex. But it's one time growth capex that's going to accelerate the free cash flow from operations.

Arun Viswanathan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Kyle White with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Kyle White -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just curious if you guys what kind of volume impact you saw from the weather conditions in the quarter. And then what have you seen in July. Any impacts from kind of the heat wave that we're seeing.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

No, no issues in North America. I assume that's with a quick question is coming from, but we did see in the second quarter, kind of some dissipate about as good as our volumes were in Europe. The weather wasn't on our side, and that is certainly turn. So, but from a weather perspective, as long as it's not over 95 consistent with people, people are going to drink can products. I mean that's kind of the temperature range we usually see.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, and as Dan's point in Europe, we did qualitatively the volumes were quite strong, but we do think that they were more muted than they otherwise would have been because of bad weather, you go into July, it's actually got incredibly hot, it's almost too hot where people stay indoors. But having said that volumes continue along the growth pace that we've always talked about. So there is for different reasons, it really hasn't impacted it over the longer term, but you're going to have short-term dislocations because whether good -- both good and bad.

Kyle White -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

That's it. And then turning to aerospace continues to grow nicely. The won-not-booked backlog close to about 5 billion. Can you just provide some details on these backlogs in kind of the typical timeline that we should expect them to materialize into one contracts and materialize into actual sales.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, it's truly across the board. When you look at the won-not-booked, we have things such as -- I'll just give you two book ends. We have on one hand, the shorter term. In that, is contracts we have won for specific satellites with specific customers in the classified arena that because the government didn't have a budget they couldn't sign an agreement. Now that that budget is behind us, it's significantly improves the prospects over the near term that we will go on contract and that will move from won-not-booked into a funded backlog status.

On the other extreme we do all the sensors that are on the fuselage and wings of the F-35. That contract will go out to 2030 or 2040 in the various lots that we have produced. Some of them will move in the short term to from won-not-booked to funded backlog. Others will stay out there for a number of years as these planes continue to be built. So those are just two extremes. And there is hundreds of programs in it that have similar characteristics within that those parameters I just laid out.

Kyle White -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Got you. Thank you. And good luck in the quarter.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Neel Kumar with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. The line of Neel Kumar with Morgan Stanley is now open and interactive. Please proceed with your question.

Neel Kumar -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Sorry, I was on mute. I said another question on aluminum cups. Do you have a preliminary sense with the receptivity of customers is to cups and aluminum versus plastic? And are there any other new revenue opportunities outside beverage cans that you're considering.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Maybe I'll take the first one. We've done a bunch of quantitative and qualitative research that says, this could be very -- there could be a lot of upside here. I think what we've seen at a high level that people see the experience of the container as much better than all the existing alternatives. They see a colder, they see sturdier, they see a willingness to pay more as a result of that. And so everything that we've seen says, yeah, there could be a lot of interesting upside in the year. And as it relates to other innovations, we always have other innovations pretty consistently revolve around the markets in which we currently serve. And so, this is for beverages. I would not anticipate us growing in the food for example, which consciously made a decision to exit that, but we have a lot of things in the pipeline. Now, Dan, you want anything to add.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

I would say, I mean, obviously you're presenting this and kind of the entertainment space and foodservice space and look, we are 100 for 100 in terms of the percent of showing this cup to a -- to potential customer and then wanting to place an order right now. We're turning down, we're allocating is what we're doing. But where you will see this is entertainment venues and you'll see it in sports venues where there is a massive push to at a green facility.

Neel Kumar -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

That's very helpful.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

It further helps leverage us on the college campuses for example. Because when college campuses in terms of sustainability, that is probably the greatest area. When you think about demographics, you think about people 18 to 25 years of age of those are probably the -- those that are most conscious about sustainability. And when college campuses talk about going plastic free, yes, they can convert their soda, yes they can convert their beer, yes, they are starting to convert the water, but they never had an alternative for on-premise in terms of cups now they do, and so that's what we've been talking about them using this as an opportunity to accelerate going plastic free that their customers being the students are asking for.

Neel Kumar -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Okay. Great. That makes sense. And I was just wondering if you can also update us on how sustainability conversations with customers have been progressing aerosol. I recall you mentioned those conversations started surfacing in the space in the first quarter of this year. So any update there would be helpful.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, as I said in the first quarter and kind of continues there is discussion, but it's further behind the beverage category. I think sustainability and recycling in the personal care space is far more difficult. You have many more residents, you have many more colors within those residents. And so as they try and think about how they're going to deliver their products in a sustainable world, it's just taking longer, it's much -- I won't say easier, but you can see it have a much more clear line of sight when you're talking beverages and you see what you need to do. I think it's a little bit more challenging when you get to the aerosol side, but we still think there's great potential. It's just we cannot point to you right now any specifics like we can in the beverage. Any specifics in the aerosol side that we said that is a direct result of sustainability.

Neel Kumar -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Okay. And then just lastly, with specialty can growth of 30% and global volume growth of 5%, your portfolio mix of about 43% seems to imply that traditional can volumes came down during the quarter, is that generally a fair characterization that all the growth came in specialty cans.

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Yeah, overwhelmingly yes. I mean, relatively flat some slight declines especially in EMEA and Asia contributed to that, but almost overwhelmingly all the growth came from specialty, and that's what you -- that's what was reflected in that mix.

Neel Kumar -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from the line of Brian Maguire with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Brian Maguire -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Hi, good morning, everyone.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Brian Maguire -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

John back at the Investor Day, which seems like a long time ago now, back in October, you talked about just one of the challenges in adoption of the cans historically was just the difference in the price point at the retail level between beverages bottles in PET, for example, versus aluminum cans. I just wondering as you've seen this take off and growth, how you think customers are getting around that and presumably input costs are up you're doing an admirable job of renegotiating contracts to capture the value you guys create. Do you see customers being able to kind of price appropriately to maintain or improve margins on cans. And just a general kind of how do you see the growth in specialty helping customers with that price conversation?

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Yeah, hey, this is Dan, good question. I think this lends itself to, when I think when John's describing -- he is really talking about kind of core brands shifting out of high margin packaging and it was established because a higher retail price that they put on those packages in plastic. The growth that we're seeing is coming in specialty packages, new products, those are still being launched by the large CPG companies. And they're being launched at a far greater rate. And I think we've been touched on it's basically two times, the amount of new product launches in both North America and parts of Western Europe that are going into cans versus the historical rate of about 35%. Those products are -- they're able to garner a higher price point, which is not been much of a conversation, because they are in some of these emerging categories like fitness energy, spiked seltzers. So they are able to step in the cans with new products at really nice margins and although they probably won't say this, they won't see a publicly -- they also don't want to compound in issue in their supply chain by putting more plastic into that supply chain and that's why we're inferring there is absolutely a correlation to sustainability.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. And the only thing I'd add on top of that is even with the existing brands, which I will specifically talk about. Dan is actually right. That's why specialty growth is growing so much. But let's not forget that many of our existing brands, they have put packaging and whether it's a 7.5 once here in North America or 250-ml, or 150-ml in Europe and they've been able to ride that price curve up to reduce and or eliminate the retail price per fluid ounce delta between their plastic offerings and their specialty can offerings.

Brian Maguire -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

And your comments just about the forward look on can opportunity to maybe take some share from other substrates in those traditional markets. Are we at the point where the concerns around customer perception on sustainability overwhelmed the more challenging retail price point or the fact that cans costs more than plastic. You mentioned you haven't seen much benefit to date from such date substitution but the forward look sounded positive there. Are we just seeing in your conversations with customers that really sustainability is trumping economics in these decisions?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

They won't necessarily say that directly, but what we do know is the investments in can filling lines are happening at a massively accelerated rate versus historical norms. And we also know that some of our major customers are putting in a lot more can filling capacity over the next two years. So the combination of those two would suggest that there is absolutely contemplation that they need to get out ahead of us for a potential move, whether it's regulation or they're willing to take a slight margin dilution by moving into aluminum. I think there is an addition to all that. I think there is a recognition that the consumers are acquiring, that's the most important thing.

Brian Maguire -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Got it. Thanks very much.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. We will -- if we could maybe just have one more question.

Operator

Very well, in that case, sir, the final question is from the line of Chip Dillon with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Chip Dillon -- Vertical Research Partners -- Analyst

Yes, thanks for taking my question. I just had a quick one on the -- a cup introduction that you're going to roll out, obviously, the water bottle is very similar to an aluminum beverage can for beer, let's say, but the cup is a different concept, and I just didn't know if you were able to use similar machinery or if you've had to go out and neither put something together on your own or by a different type of technology or set of equipment to make aluminum cups?

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, great question. What I'd say is parts of a similar, but it's a good chunk of it is very different. This has been in development for nearly seven years within Ball. And we think there is a lot of proprietariness to this, that we'd rather not disclose, but it's very easy to make cups when you're banking amount it 100 to 200 per minute, but the key is to do it at scale to get to a price point that actually opens up the market we think we've done that, and that's why we started with a pilot. We wanted to test it with three or four weeks in the pilot things are working well with brand new technology and some parts of it. And so I think it's, and that's will gives us a lot of hope. But it is, it's similar but different than making a beverage can.

Chip Dillon -- Vertical Research Partners -- Analyst

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks very much.

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thanks. Okay. Lila, well, thank you very much for everyone's participation and we look forward to a great second half of 2019, and as we go forward. Thank you all for your support.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 65 minutes

Call participants:

John A. Hayes -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Daniel W. Fisher -- Senior Vice President, Ball Corporation and Chief Operating Officer, Global Beverage Packaging

Scott C. Morrison -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Anthony Pettinari -- Citigroup Inc -- Analyst

Ghansham Panjabi -- Robert W. Baird & Co -- Analyst

Edlain Rodriguez -- UBS Investment Bank -- Analyst

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Tyler Langton -- JP Morgan -- Analyst

Arun Viswanathan -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Kyle White -- Deutsche Bank -- Analyst

Neel Kumar -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Brian Maguire -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst

Chip Dillon -- Vertical Research Partners -- Analyst

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