Huntway Reports Loss of $1.82 Million for Quarter

Huntway Partners, a Valencia-based refiner of liquid asphalt and other oil-related products, posted a loss of $1.82 million for the third quarter.

The loss, which contrasted with earnings of $326,000 a year earlier, came on a 3% increase in Huntway’s revenue, to $23.5 million from $22.8 million.

Huntway blamed the loss on increased competition in the asphalt market, which put downward pressure on prices and profit margins in the quarter that ended Sept. 30. The company also suffered a one-time, $300,000 loss stemming from its start-up of a refinery in Arizona.

In the first nine months of this year, Huntway’s profit tumbled to $734,000 from $3.60 million a year earlier, and its nine-month revenue edged up to $65.3 million from $64.8 million.

Huntway went public a year ago and used the proceeds in part to reduce its debt. Its year-earlier financial results are on a pro forma basis, that is, they reflect what Huntway’s results would have been had Huntway gone public and reduced its debt in the third quarter of 1988 instead of later that year.