Polaris Materials announced that sales volumes in the third quarter of 2016 were 810,000 tons, an increase of 11 percent over third quarter 2015. Year-to-date sales volumes were 2.27 million tons, an increase of 7 percent over the same period in 2015, according to the company.
Third-quarter sales volumes included 62,000 tons from the company’s Long Beach terminal, bringing sales volumes through Long Beach to 155,000 tons since the start of operations in February. Shipments in the quarter were 788,000 tons, which was within the company’s expected range of 0.7 to 0.9 million tons.
Volumes in the quarter were characterized by a slower pace at the start of the quarter with a significant ramp-up through September and a high pace of activity continuing into October. The company’s Richmond terminal in particular has shown very healthy levels of activity, including a year-to-date one-day sales record of 3,712 tons.
In Long Beach, the company said it was awarded 100 percent of the concrete aggregate supply for a large project in the Los Angeles area, with work having already commenced. Expected demand for this project is approximately 75,000 tons of aggregate over a 12- to 18-month build.
“We continue to see many other high- and mid-rise residential and multi-use projects with designs that utilize high performance concrete for which Orca aggregates have unmatched benefits,” the company reported. “There is a healthy sales pipeline in Long Beach as we look forward to 2017. We are currently expecting shipments in teh fourth quarter of 2016 in the range of 700,000 to 900,000 tons, which is consistent with our full year expectations of sales volumes in the range of 3.0 to 3.2 million tons.”
Ken Palko, president and CEO, commented: “Activity in the third quarter was very healthy, and we continue to track well for our full-year target of 3.0 to 3.2 million tons, which represents an increase of two to nine percent versus 2015. As we begin to focus on planning for 2017, we see a number of opportunities to achieve ‘same store’ volume growth, continue to demonstrate and achieve value for our high quality concrete aggregates, and diversify our product offering through the development of additional products. We intend to share more detail about these exciting developments in the coming months.”