Clean Harbors 3rd-qtr profit falls, cuts outlook

Clean Harbors Inc., which provides hazardous waste management services, on Wednesday posted a 37 percent decline in third-quarter earnings and cut its full-year revenue forecast, citing ongoing weak demand.

"We saw some pockets of growth and encouraging signs of stabilization across a number of our business lines, but it did not offset the prolonged project delays and ongoing weakness we continued to experience within certain verticals," Chairman and CEO Alan S. McKim said in a statement.

The company said its field services segment was particularly affected by the continued slowdown at many of its utility and refinery customers, as well as limited waste remediation business. Clean Harbors also noted that the third quarter lacked any major disasters requiring emergency cleanup.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, the company said its earnings fell to $9.2 million, or 36 cents per share, from $14.6 million, or 61 cents per share, in the prior-year period. Excluding one-time costs of 23 cents per share related to its recent acquisition of Canadian oil services firm Eveready Inc., Clean Harbors would have posted profit of 59 cents per share in the latest period.

Revenue rose nearly 12 percent to $305.6 million from $273.2 million in the year-ago period.

The results missed expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who had estimated higher profit of 61 cents per share on revenue of $333.3 million, on average. Analysts typically exclude one-time items from their projections.

For the fourth quarter, Clean Harbors forecast revenue of $345 million to $360 million, and lowered its full-year revenue outlook to between $1.07 billion and $1.09 billion from previous guidance of $1.13 billion to $1.16 billion.

The guidance is well below the $374.8 million and $1.13 billion in quarterly and full-year revenue that analysts have predicted.

Looking forward, the company anticipates 2010 revenue will range between $1.40 billion and $1.45 billion - also below Wall Street's forecast of $1.51 billion.

Shares of Clean Harbors fell $1.23, or 2.1 percent, to close at $56.62.