July 29 (Reuters) – Methanex (MX.TO), the world’s largest producer of methanol, posted a lower-than-expected quarterly profit late Wednesday, hurt by a lower price environment and a two-month outage at its Atlas plant in Trinidad.
For the second quarter, the company earned net income of $11.7 million, or 13 cents a share, compared with a loss of $5.7 million, or 6 cents a share in the year-ago period.
Analysts were expecting a profit of 17 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
While revenue jumped 83 percent to $448.5 million, cost of sales and operating expenses also rose 78 percent to $391.9 million. Average realized price per tonne fell to $284 from $305 in the first quarter.
The company said its produced product inventories at the end of the second quarter was lower by 135,000 tonnes compared to the first quarter due to the 60-day outage at its Atlas facility.
This will likely lead to lower sales volumes of produced product and higher cost of sales in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, the company said.
Shares of Methanex closed at C$23.55 Wednesday on Toronto Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Jennifer Robin Raj in Bangalore; Editing by Valerie Lee)
Radio Pakistan unhappy over criticism of Jaswant Singh book on Jinnah
Abohar, Sep.3 (ANI): The expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh has got a new fan in Punjabi Durbar programme of Radio Pakistan.
In its latest edition, the Punjabi Durbar programme has described all political parties of India be it Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress or Shiv Sena being anti-Pakistan for voicing objection to Jaswant Singh’s book- “Jinnah-India, Partition, Independence”.
In its recent Punjabi Durbar Programme, Radio Pakistan said that Jaswant Singh has paid a huge price for his biography of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
Many Indian scholars have expressed sympathy with Jaswant Singh, but have taken exception to Pakistan Radio describing all Indian political parties as anti-Pakistan.
Anil Kumar, a historian and a commentator on current affairs has stated that political parties in India have tried their best to cultivate good relations with Pakistan ever since independence.
“India has been maintaining friendly relationship with Pakistan since 1947. India parted with funds held by united India, when Jinnah demanded it. Even after Pakistani aggression in 1965 and 1971, India returned to Pakistan the territory which was in India’s possession in the hope that there would be cordial relations between the two countries,” he said.
“Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh have been continuously trying to maintain good relations with Pakistan, but Pakistan continued terrorist attacks in India,” Anil Kumar added.
“India is a secular country. There are more Muslims in India than the total population of Pakistan. Moslems are happy to be in India. Many feel that they are safer than in Pakistan, which is being subjected to violence by the Taliban,” said Anil kumar, who is, an expert on Indo-Pak affairs.
India is continuing talks at different levels despite incidents like Mumbai terror attacks and Pakistan’s ongoing support to militancy in Kashmir.
It is surprising that broadcasters of Radio Pakistan expect political parties in India to sing praise of Jinnah, who was chiefly responsible for the division of the sub-continent on the basis of religious identities.
They accept Jinnah’s contribution during the freedom struggle against the British Raj, but are critical of his role in dividing the country. (ANI)