Rising revenue from grain and fertilizer, among other sectors, helped offset Canadian National’s (CN) substantial drop in forest products revenue in its third fiscal quarter, the company reported Monday.
CN posted net income of $485 million, down two per cent from the year-earlier quarter ending Sept. 30, on “essentially flat” Q3 revenue of $2.02 billion, the company said in a release.
Forest products, CN’s largest commodity group by revenue, dropped those revenues 13 per cent to $392 million, while the grain and fertilizers sector posted a seven per cent gain at $330 million. Automotive, petroleum/chemical and coal handling income were also up.
Impacts weighing on the bottom line included unfavourable exchange rates on U.S.-dollar denominated revenue, lower revenues from fuel surcharges and “weaknesses in specific markets” such as forestry, metals and intermodal traffic.
However, freight rate increases and volume growth in grain and other sectors helped make up the difference. Grain and fertilizer carloads, at about 152,000, were up just one per cent from the year-earlier period, but rail freight revenue per carload was up five per cent at $2,171.
