In a third quarter during which it announced a major acquisition in its commercial nuclear power business, BWX Technologies, of Lynchburg, Va., essentially held steady, registering small gains in revenue amid a slight dip in profit, the company reported late Monday.
Overall, BWXT posted quarterly operating income of just over $62 million, down sharply from about $130 million in the same quarter of 2015. The year-ago quarter, however, included a one-time gain of roughly $65 million from litigation. Excluding that non-recurring event, quarterly income fell only about 5 percent. Income for the nine months just ended fell about 1.5 percent to just over $190 million. Quarterly revenue rose 6 percent to just under $380 million.
Despite a revenue bump, operating income for BWXT’s Technical Services segment, which includes nuclear cleanup for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) and nuclear propulsion work in support of the U.S. Navy, plunged more than 40 percent to just over $4.5 million in the quarter, the company said Monday.
The decline for Technical Services reflected the end this spring of BWXT’s Idaho Treatment Group joint venture, which wrapped up a five-year contract worth about $500 million for managing transuranic waste processing at the Idaho National Laboratory, and waste processing at the site’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Unit. The decline also reflects “increased business development costs” for the segment, according to the earnings report.
Technical Services revenue rose just over 20 percent year over year to about $26 million, “due to higher activity at our Naval Reactor decommissioning and decontamination project,” BWXT said.
Operating income at the Nuclear Operations segment, which specializes in component manufacturing for the U.S. government, was about flat at roughly $62 million. Segment revenue rose about 4.5 percent to just over $315 million.
At the Nuclear Energy segment, which is focused on the commercial nuclear power industry, operating income fell about 25 percent to roughly $1 million, while revenue rose 9 percent to $38 million. During the quarter, BWXT announced it would acquire GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Canada, which will be folded into the Nuclear Energy segment. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, the company said.
