RS Technologies Inc., which manufactures utility poles at a Tilbury, Ontario plant, released its financial results Friday, reporting a 36-per-cent increase in fourth quarter sales and a $7.8 million loss in 2011. Customers include Hydro One and wireless cellular carrier Public Mobile. Its target customers include power transmission utilities and telecommunications service providers
RS Technologies Inc., which manufactures utility poles at a Tilbury, Ontario plant, released its financial results Friday, reporting a 36-per-cent increase in fourth quarter sales and a $7.8 million loss in 2011.
RS Technologies, formerly known as Resin Systems Inc., has its head office in Calgary.
Last November RS Technologies appointed then-chief operating officer Howard Elliott to the position of president and chief executive officer .
Its products include modular utility poles and the RStandard polyurethane composite monopoles, designed for power transmission and for telecommunications service providers. Canadian customers include Hydro One, which was originally the power distribution arm of Ontario Hydro, and wireless cellular provider Public Mobile, which launched service in Toronto and Montreal in 2010 and is building its own network in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor.
RS Technologies says its poles are more easily transported, stored and installed than those made from traditional materials. In its management discussion and analysis posted to SEDAR Friday, the firm said the market for utility structures over 100 feet in height and up to 240 kilovolts is a growing market "due to the need to connect renewable generation sources, such as wind energy, to the existing grid."
Although fourth-quarter sales increased, sales for the full year in 2011 were $5 million, down 59 per cent from 2010, when sales were $12.1 million. In 2010 the company lost $12.1 million.
Its fourth-quarter loss dropped sharply, from $4.5 million in 2010 to $1.7 million in 2011.
During the fourth quarter of 2011, RS Technologies received its first order received for RStandard poles to be used in Hydro One's transmission pole replacement program. It also received two orders totalling 187 poles for transmission projects with Xcel Energy.
Other customers include EPCOR, Grand Bahama Power Company, San Diego Gas & Electric, Fort Loudoun Electric Cooperative and Electronica IYC of Mexico.
More recently, in January, RS received an order for NTE of Norway for 210 poles for a 50-kilometre transmission line.
The firm has been cutting costs.
"Over the year, specific improvement projects included: installation and commissioning of a high-performance resin mixing and metering system for one of the two filament winding lines to significantly reduce operational downtime and improve resin matrix consistency; optimization of automated filament winding programs to reduce material waste and improve product surface appearance; manufacturing cycle time reductions were accomplished by programming various process segments to occur simultaneously rather than sequentially, improving sawing and finished part extracting equipment and optimizing resin cure cycles; and qualification of additional and/or alternate raw material suppliers to expand supply base and achieve competitive cost, quality and logistics advantages," RS Technologies stated in its MD&A.
Greg Meckbach
DCN DIGITAL MEDIA
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