Albemarle Corporation, one of the world's largest lithium producers, saw its first-quarter 2023 net sales increase 129% year-over-year to $2.6 billion, while its profit for the period soared 389% to $1.2 billion or $10.51 per diluted share.
The company, however, adjusted its 2023 guidance to reflect current lithium market pricing, expecting net sales to increase about 35% to 55% year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA now expected to range from -5% to 15% from 2022.
Its outlook sent shares of Albemarle down nearly 5% in Wednesday’s after-hours trading session.
“We see strong sales volume growth for the rest of the year but have modified our guidance to reflect softening lithium market pricing,” Albemarle CEO Kent Masters said in a statement.
The company added that its capital expenditures are anticipated to be between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion for 2023 while maintaining positive free cash flow.
Earlier in the day, Albemarle said it plans to double the capacity of a lithium hydroxide plant in Western Australia, spending up to $1.5 billion to build two additional processing trains at the Kemerton plant, near Perth, which would increase annual production capacity there to 100,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide.
That’s enough to produce batteries for more than two million electric vehicles a year, it noted.
Albemarle, which operates lithium production facilities in several locations worldwide, is also involved in other businesses such as producing bromine, catalysts, and other specialty chemicals.
Contact Sean at sean@proactiveinvestors.com