HOUSTON (AP) _ Orion Engineered Carbons SA (OEC) on Thursday reported first-quarter earnings of $23.5 million.

On a per-share basis, the Houston-based company said it had profit of 39 cents. Earnings, adjusted for amortization costs and pretax expenses, were 51 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 45 cents per share.

The producer of the chemcial additive carbon black posted revenue of $360.1 million in the period.

Orion Engineered Carbons shares have climbed 30% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $22.20, more than doubling 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 OEC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/OEC

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