Kaiser Lowers Expectations For Third-Quarter Earnings

After two quarters of strong profits, Kaiser Aluminum Corp.’s earnings were hit with a setback during the third quarter of 1995.

Although the company will show a profit for the third quarter, company officials announced Friday that those profits will fall substantially short of the second-quarter earnings of $23 million, or 27 cents per share.

Third-quarter earnings have not yet been released.

“Kaiser Aluminum’s operations in general are performing satisfactorily in the current market environment,” George T. Haymaker Jr., Kaiser’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a news release Friday. “However, third-quarter net income will be significantly below that of the preceding quarter.”

Haymaker listed several factors in the company’s third-quarter decline.

Lightning struck the company’s Trentwood rolling mill in Spokane County during the quarter, resulting in production delays and maintenance expenses. A work slowdown related to a labor dispute at a Kaiser plant in Jamaica also impacted the bottom line. And the company incurred investment expenses related to its recently-announced joint venture in China.

Haymaker also said the company’s customer shipments of alumina were down during the quarter. Variations in individual customer contracts resulted in lower average price realizations for the company’s primary aluminum sales during the quarter. And a soft can-sheet market resulted in lower fabricated product shipments during the quarter.

For the fourth quarter, Haymaker said the company expects increased alumina shipments, an improvement in price for primary aluminum and a modest increase in fabricated aluminum products.

, DataTimes