IRVING, Texas (AP) _ Celanese Corporation (CE) on Thursday reported first-quarter net income of $502 million.

The Irving, Texas-based company said it had profit of $4.61 per share. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions and non-recurring costs, came to $5.54 per share.

The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $4.49 per share.

The chemical company posted revenue of $2.54 billion in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.27 billion.

For the current quarter ending in July, Celanese expects its per-share earnings to be $4.50.

Celanese shares have declined 15% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $142.93, a drop of 8.5% 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 CE at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CE

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