KINGSPORT, Tenn. (AP) _ Eastman Chemical Co. (EMN) on Thursday reported third-quarter profit of $161 million.

On a per-share basis, the Kingsport, Tennessee-based company said it had profit of $1.18. Earnings, adjusted for asset impairment costs and non-recurring costs, were $1.57 per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.40 per share.

The specialty chemicals maker posted revenue of $2.12 billion in the period, also beating Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.1 billion.

Eastman Chemical shares have increased slightly more than 3% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed 2.5%. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $81.89, an increase of roughly 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 EMN at https://www.zacks.com/ap/EMN

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