Kemira Oulu employees protest

Newspaper Kaleva writes that Kemira (OMX: KRA1V) Chemicals employees in Oulu refused to bring factories back online following an outage. They are said to be protesting due to safety concerns. The action means that Formic acid factories are currently not production and hydrogen peroxide production will also stop for the duration. The location has around 120 blue collar employees. They will stay on their post to “monitor safety” to be able to collect pay but will not engage in production and overtime work.

Kemira confirms Sachtleben strategic options review

Kemira Oyj (OMX: KRA1V) has confirmed Financial Times Deutschland article on Sachtleben Chemie GmbH dated 24.4.2012. Sachtleben is joint venture of Rockwood Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ROC 61%) and Kemira (31%). The owners have retained investment bank Lazard as financial advisor to analyze strategic options. These may include a sale or listing of the company.

Sachtleben is a white pigments and extenders manufacturer with a long history based in Duisburg. Its titanium dioxides capacity is 230kT and functional additives capacity of 100 kT. Environmental products such as Sulfuric acid, copperas and Iron oxide concentrates are also provided.

It has an annual turnover of around 700 million Euros and 1700 employees with productions sites in Duisburg, Germany, and Pori, Finland with offices in New York, Helsinki and Shanghai. More than half of the annual sales come from Europe with a fifth from Asia-Pacific and Americas each.

Kemira still far from reaching internal goals

Water focused chemical industry group Kemira Oyj (OMX: KRA1V) had a stagnant first quarter of 2012. Revenues were down a notch to just above 550 million Euros whilst operational EBIT decreased 15% to 38.2 million with a typically weak bulk producer margin of 6.9% in comparison to corresponding period last year.

The company attributed the decline mainly to higher fixed costs. Earnings per share were down to 0.19 Euros as fair value of electricity derivates declined. When compared to Q4 2011, the development looks better and some price hikes have been made.

Kemira lowers its revenue and EBIT outlook. Both of them are now expected to be on par with 2011. Previously the company had been guiding for both to be slightly higher than last year. The company aims to accelerate efficiency measures to reach its target EBIT of 10%. It aims to focus more to Asia and South America. In the long term, Kemira envisions itself as the leading water chemistry company. The stock has slid 3% for the day.

Weak Q2 2011 for Kemira, expects improvement

Chemical group Kemira (OMX: KRA1V), which is focusing in water-intensive industries, is down sharply after releasing quarter numbers. Kemira’s revenue was up a notch to 548.8 million Euro and operative EBIT down slightly to 37.3 million. Kemira said it was not fully able to offset higher variable costs. Specialty chemicals segment, which has customers in food, feed, and pharmaceutical, was the main culprit.

Kemira still expects 2011 revenue to slightly best 2010 number and operative EBIT to be above 2010 numbers as well on implemented sales price increases. Titanium dioxide producer Sachtleben, in which Kemira holds a 39% stake continued to perform extremely well. More information is here.