Department of Energy contractor Fluor will discuss its quarterly performance during a conference call with financial analysts at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time Thursday. Financial results for the second quarter, which ended June 30, will be reported at market close before the call.
The Irving, Texas-based construction and engineering company is coming off a rough first quarter of 2018, when it recorded a net loss of $18 million, or $0.13 per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $61 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, for the first three months of 2017. Fluor Chairman and CEO David Seaton went so far as to call it a “disastrous” quarter.
The bad numbers were driven by the weak market for construction of new natural gas power plants. As a result, Fluor slashed its guidance for 2018 from the previous range of $3.10 to $3.50 per diluted share to only $2.10 to $2.50 per diluted share.
Fluor’s Government sector, which includes work in the Energy Department complex, provided the company with something of a silver lining last time around. The segment recorded profit of $72 million, up from $29 million in the first quarter of 2017. Revenue increased 73 percent to $1.3 billion, from $765 million a year earlier.
Fluor is a major contractor for DOE, with cleanup management roles at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Idaho Site. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s current 30-month option period for decontamination and decommissioning at Portsmouth expires on Sept. 30. The contract, which dates to March 2011, has a potential value of $3.4 billion.
Separately, power company Exelon has scheduled its second-quarter earnings conference call for 9 a.m. Central time Thursday. In the first quarter, generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) fell from $900 million in 2017 to $585 million this year. However, adjusted (non-GAAP) operating earnings rose from $600 million to $925 million.
Nuclear plant operator Exelon Generation reported a GAAP net income drop from $418 million in first-quarter 2017 to $136 million in the same period of 2018. Non-GAAP earnings spiked from $167 million to $474 million.
