Perma-Fix Environmental Services said Wednesday its GeoMelt radioactive waste treatment system is scheduled to complete its testing by Dec. 31 and should begin operating in the first quarter of 2019.
“We are making progress with the GeoMelt system,” Perma-Fix President and CEO Mark Duff said during the company’s quarterly earnings conference call.
In January, the Atlanta-based nuclear services company announced cooperative deal under which Veolia Nuclear Solutions would deliver one of its GeoMelt systems for use at Perma-Fix’s Richland, Wash., waste treatment facility. Geo-Melt converts radioactive waste into a glass form for disposal.
The two companies said at the time they would carry out treatability studies to show Geo-Melt could be used for processing of metallic, non-bulk sodium-contaminated waste produced from sodium coolant employed at nuclear reactors. Tests are being conducted on small volumes of contaminated sodium wastes from two Department of Energy facilities: the nearby Hanford Site in Washington state and the Idaho National Laboratory.
While Duff has been clear that the system would eventually be put to commercial use, Perma-Fix on Wednesday declined to elaborate on the potential customers it is lining up or on the volumes of waste it expects eventually to process.
Perma-Fix reported revenue of $12 million for the third quarter of 2018, compared to $11.8 million for the same period in 2017. Revenue for the first nine months of 2018 came in at $37.8 million, slightly up from $37.2 million on a year-over-year basis.
The company’s quarterly gross profit was $1.8 million, a slight step up from $1.7 million last year. Over nine months, it recorded a gross profit of $7.2 million, compared to $6.8 million over the same stretch of 2017.
Operating loss for the third quarter of $1 million was nearly half the loss from 2017 of $1.9 million. Meanwhile, net income attributable to stockholders of $221,000 ($0.02) was a turnaround from a $2 million net loss ($0.17 per share) over last year.
