Graham Corporation has reported significant growth in earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2008, which ended June 30, 2007. Net income grew to $2.7 million compared with $1.1 million in the prior year's first quarter. On a diluted per share basis, first quarter earnings grew 136 percent to $0.66 compared with $0.28 in last year's first quarter.
Global expansion has spurred the growth and expansion of oil refineries, petrochemical and chemical processing plants, which in turn is driving demand for surface condensers and vacuum systems. Graham believes that its strong brand, engineering expertise and quality product will enable it to capitalize on these expanding markets. Net sales for the first quarter were $20.0 million, up $5.4 million, or 37 percent, compared with the first quarter of the prior year. The increase in sales primarily resulted from products shipped to Asia, Canada and South America. Projects in Asia and Canada each contributed 13 percent to sales, while projects in South America represented 6 percent of total sales.
Domestic projects accounted for 46 percent of total sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2008 and projects to other countries comprised approximately 22 percent of sales. Shipments in the first quarter were 48 percent to the refining industry, 23 percent to the chemical/petrochemical industry, 4 percent to the power industry and 25 percent to other industrial applications.
James R Lines, Graham's President and COO, commented: "This was a phenomenal first quarter for us. Our strong results were driven by demand in the oil refinery and petrochemical industries for vacuum systems and condensers that we believe we won as a result of our engineering expertise, customer service and quality products. The quarter's strength also reflects the quality of the projects that we have in our backlog and the benefit of minimal customer delays or engineering change orders."
He added, "We continue to see significant demand for our products and anticipate such demand to continue for the next 18 to 24 months. In our opinion, our success results in part from our discipline in selecting high quality opportunities, our focus on continuous improvement in operating efficiencies and our use of outsourced manufacturing in order to capture as much demand as possible."