CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) _ Albemarle Corp. (ALB) on Wednesday reported first-quarter net income of $95.7 million.

On a per-share basis, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company said it had profit of 84 cents. Earnings, adjusted to extinguish debt and for non-recurring costs, were $1.10 per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 79 cents per share.

The specialty chemicals company posted revenue of $829.3 million in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $754 million.

Albemarle expects full-year earnings in the range of $3.25 to $3.65 per share, with revenue in the range of $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion.

Albemarle shares have increased 13% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $167.15, nearly tripling in the last 12 months.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on ALB at https://www.zacks.com/ap/ALB

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