Methanex Corporation MEOH has announced that its Geismar 3 (G3) plant in Geismar, LA, faced an unplanned outage in late February. The plant has a production capacity of 1.8 million tons of methanol. This outage is expected to impact second-quarter financial results due to lower produced methanol sales, but the cost of repairs is not expected to be material.

Through inspections and repairs to the autothermal reformer, management currently estimates a plant startup by early May 2025. The completion of other planned maintenance work on G3, which was part of a previously budgeted three-week outage, has been brought forward with this maintenance work.

The MEOH stock has lost 0.3% in the past year compared with the 9.5% decline of the industry.Zacks Investment Research

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The company’s production guidance for 2025 is approximately 7.5 million tons (Methanex interest), which excludes any additional production from OCI assets post-acquisition closing date. Actual production may vary quarterly based on gas availability, turnarounds, unplanned outages and unanticipated events.

In the first quarter of 2025, significantly higher adjusted EBITDA is expected compared to the fourth quarter, with produced sales expected to be near the production levels in the fourth quarter of 2024, and a higher average realized price. The expected average realized price range is between approximately $395 to $405 per tons for January and February.

MEOH’s Zacks Rank and Key Picks

MEOH currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the Basic Materials space are Ingevity Corporation NGVT, Carpenter Technology Corporation CRS and ArcelorMittal MT. While NGVT sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) at present, CRS and MT carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) each. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Ingevity’s current-year earnings is pegged at $4.45 per share. NGVT beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters and missed once, with the average earnings surprise being 202.9%.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Carpenter Technology’s current fiscal-year earnings is pegged at $6.95 per share. CRS beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, with the average earnings surprise being 15.7%. Its shares have soared 168.7% in the past year.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ArcelorMittal’s current-year earnings is pegged at $3.72 per share. MT surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters but missed it in one, with an average earnings surprise of 4.11%.

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