By Sourasis Bose
(Reuters) – U.S. chemicals maker Dow cut its third-quarter revenue forecast on Thursday after Hurricane Beryl caused a partial shutdown at one of its Texas plants.
The company’s CEO Jim Fitterling said at a Morgan Stanley conference that one of its ethylene crackers was offline as it ramped up operations after a hurricane in July.
Fitterling added that the impact of the outage could range between $125 million and $150 million as a combination of lost production and costs.
Dow now expects third-quarter revenue to be around $10.6 billion, down $11.1 billion from its previous estimate. The news sent shares down 1.1% in afternoon trading.
Wall Street analysts had estimated revenue of $11 billion for the third quarter, according to LSEG data.
“We expect the cracker to be back in business at lower rates by the end of the quarter,” Fitterling said.
The Midland, Michigan-based company is facing higher input costs and margin compression in Europe, but expects market dynamics to improve in the US and Europe following expected rate cuts.
Fitterling added that plants were able to operate through Hurricane Francine and the company expects fewer weather-related events in the fourth quarter.
