By John Stang
US Ecology posted net income of $33.1 million on $685.5 million in revenue for 2019. That translated to income of $1.40 per diluted share, the Boise, Idaho-based waste management provider said Wednesday in its latest earnings report.
By comparison for 2018, the corporation tallied $49.6 million in net income on revenue of $565.9 million.
US Ecology’s Environmental Services division (ES) collected $453.1 million in revenue for 2019, compared to $400.7 million in 2018. The led to an ES gross profit of $174.8 million in 2019, up from $147.5 million in 2018. The ES business line covers US Ecology’s waste treatment and disposal operations, including its low-level radioactive waste disposal facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
Environmental Services revenues increased due to a 12% hike in treatment and disposal revenue, plus a 1% increase in transportation revenue compared to 2018, according to a US Ecology press release. The ES gross profit for 2019 includes $7 million in business interruption insurance recoveries for lost profits related to hurricane damage at the company’s Robstown, Texas, facility in 2017 and a November 2018 explosion at the corporation’s Grand View, Idaho, waste facility.
The explosion killed one employee at the facility and injured eight. It led to a $50,000 fine from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It was not discussed in US Ecology’s earnings conference call with analysts.
US Ecology’s Field and Industrial Services (FIS) branch — covering most of its non-ES work — recorded a gross profit of $35 million in 2019 on $232.4 million in revenue. By comparison, FIS posted a gross profit of $22.6 million on $165.3. million in revenue in 2018.
For the fourth quarter of 2019, US Ecology reported a net loss of $3.5 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, on $231.3 million in revenue. In its press release, management blamed increased development expenses for the net loss. By comparison in the fourth quarter of 2018, US Ecology posted net income of $13.7 million on $157.5 million in revenue for an income of $0.62 per diluted share. It received $2.1 million in insurance payments in the fourth quarter of 2019 for the Idaho explosion.
For the quarter, Environmental Services recorded gross profit of $50.8 million on $125.7 million in revenue. In the same quarter in 2018, ES tallied a gross profit of $39.2 million on $108.1 million in revenue.
The FIS division posted a gross profit of $17.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 on $105.5 million in revenue. For the same period in 2018, FIS recorded a gross profit of $6.5 million on $49.5 million revenue. US Ecology cited a new acquisition — NRC Holdings — as the reason for the big boost in revenue.
For 2020, US Ecology is predicting revenue of $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion — with the increase based on the acquisition of NRC Holdings last November. The NRC business is expected to contribute roughly $445 million within US Ecology’s Field and Industrial Services business. Environmental Services revenue is expected to be between $537 million and $588 million.
Houston-based NRC Group Holdings, formed by the 2018 merger of National Response Corp. and Sprint Energy Services, has more than 50 service locations and operates three landfills for waste from the Permian and Eagle Ford oil and gas basins. The company is one of two top U.S. oil spill removal organizations.
