Northwest Pipe Co., the Vancouver-based manufacturer of welded steel pipe products, on Wednesday reported sales of $57.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 that ended Dec. 31, a 61.5 percent increase over its $35.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The acquired Ameron operations contributed $19.1 million of the increase in fourth-quarter 2018 sales. Excluding the impact of the Ameron acquisition, the increase in fourth-quarter 2018 sales compared to 2017 was due to a 23 percent increase in selling price per ton partially offset by a 12 percent decrease in tons produced, the company said in a news release.
Fourth-quarter 2018 profit increased 270 percent to $6.8 million compared to $1.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. The increase was primarily due to improved pricing coupled with the addition of the Ameron operations, the company said.
“The increase in bidding opportunities and selling prices that we began to see in the second half of 2018 resulted in a year that ended with a record backlog and the highest quarterly revenue and gross profit in nearly four years,” Scott Montross, president and CEO, said in a written statement. “We expect that the first quarter of 2019 will have similar revenue and gross profit to the fourth quarter of 2018, bucking the normal seasonal trend and a significant improvement over the first quarters that we have experienced over the past three years.”
