Methanex (MEOH) Provides Update on Egypt Methanol Operations
Methanex Corporation MEOH said that an unplanned outage in mid-October caused by a mechanical breakdown in the synthesis gas compressor disrupted its 1.26-million-ton Egypt methanol production facility (Methanex 50% equity interest of 0.63 million tons per annum).
The facility has since been taken from operation and is being repaired on an accelerated basis at the manufacturer overseas. The company now expects production to restart toward the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Egypt produced 320,000 tons in the third quarter of 2023 (MEOH interest - 160,000 tons), compared with 326,000 tons (Methanex interest - 163,000 tons) in the previous quarter.
Shares of Methanex have gained 9% over the past year against a 14.7% decline of its industry.
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Methanex logged third-quarter 2023 adjusted earnings of 2 cents per share compared with 69 cents in the year-ago quarter. Third-quarter production was 1,545,000 tons, up around 23.4% from the previous year. The third quarter's total sales volume was 2,720,000 tons, which was more than 2,677,000 tons in the prior-year quarter.
Methanex anticipates that actual production in 2023 will be somewhat higher than the production outlook of about 6.5 million equity tons, excluding any G3 output. Actual output may vary per quarter due to turnaround timing, gas availability, unscheduled outages and unanticipated events, MEOH noted.
Methanex Corporation Price and Consensus
Methanex Corporation price-consensus-chart | Methanex Corporation Quote
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Methanex currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Better-ranked stocks in the basic materials space include Denison Mines Corp. DNN, Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. AXTA and The Andersons Inc. ANDE.
Denison Mines has a projected earnings growth rate of 100% for the current year. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). DNN delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of roughly 225%, on average. The stock is up around 52.9% in a year. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Axalta has a projected earnings growth rate of 5.4% for the current year. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #1. AXTA delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of roughly 6.7%, on average. The stock is up around 15.7% in a year.
Andersons currently carries a Zacks Rank #2. The stock has gained roughly 36.5% in the past year. ANDE beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the last four quarters. It delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 64.4%, on average.
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