Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Thursday reported a 30.2% spike in its second-quarter revenue, from $13.2 million in 2018 to $17.1 million in 2019.
That encompassed a 75.4% sales boost in the Atlanta-based waste management specialist’s business, from $4 million last year to $7 million in the latest reporting period, along with a more modest 10.4% revenue bump for the treatment business, from $9.1 million to $10.1 million.
“I am pleased to report we achieved solid revenue growth in both our Treatment and Services Segment, as well as $1.0 million of Adjusted EBITDA and positive net income for the second quarter of 2019,” Perma-Fix President and CEO Mark Duff said in a Thursday teleconference with analysts. “We believe that this improvement reflects the success of our strategic business development initiatives as well as our efforts to further streamline the business.”
Perma-Fix recorded a major turnaround in operating income for the quarter, from a $799,000 loss last year to being $344,000 in the black in 2019. That came on a steep year-over-year reduction in closure costs for its M&EC waste treatment plant in Tennessee, from $1.2 million to $165,000. Duff announced completion of closure on July 25.
However, net income fell to $289,000, or $0.02 per share, in the latest quarter from $610,000, or $0.05 per share, in 2018. The earlier numbers were assisted by a $1.6 million gain from a May 2018 stock exchange.
A number of new contracts contributed to quarterly revenue growth in the services business, Duff said in the company’s earnings release. They should also generate higher sequential revenue in the current third quarter, according to the CEO. Perma-Fix is “aggressively” pursuing new contracts, now with support from three recently hired executives with a deep background in the nuclear and environmental sectors, he added.
Some of the new contracts are with Canadian companies, which would take the lead on releasing information, Duff said during the conference call.
Duff also referred questions on the Hanford Site Test Bed Initiative to the U.S. Department of Energy. The Test Bed Initiative is a three-phase trial program for disposing of low-activity radioactive waste from the DOE facility in Washington state after mixing it with a concrete-like grout.
Ninety-percent of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored at the former plutonium production complex is believed to be low-activity. That material is otherwise intended to be converted into a glass form for disposal starting by 2023 at the Waste Treatment Plant being built on-site at Hanford.
Perma-Fix’s waste treatment facility in Richland, Wash., in November 2017 completed the first phase of testing, involving 3 gallons of waste that after processing was shipped to Waste Control Specialists in West Texas for disposal.
In January, DOE issued a $4.8 million contract for the second phase of the project to the Aerostar Perma-Fix TRU Services joint venture for processing 2,000 gallons of waste. However, the federal agency in June withdrew its state permit application for the Test Bed Initiative after the Washington state Department of Ecology requested in-depth discussions on the matter. At that time, DOE indicated those talks could last six toning months.
Meanwhile, Duff said Thursday that completion of closure of the M&EC facility focuses the company’s treatment operations at three other sites. “At the same time, we continue to upgrade our facilities and deploy new technologies that we believe position us to support new procurements within the U.S Department of Energy (DOE),” Duff said.
