Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Mike Harrison from First Analysis.
Mike Harrison – First Analysis
Hi, good morning, everyone.
Joe Scaminace
Good morning Mike.
Mike Harrison – First Analysis
I was wondering; I had a question around advanced materials operating profit. You provide the bridge from the second quarter last year into this year, but I was wondering, as I look at Q2 compared to Q1, I guess I was surprised to see the margin decline, given what has been going on in cobalt prices and presumably a sequential improvement in volumes.
I was wondering if maybe you could give us sort of an informal bridge between the first quarter and second quarter, to give us a sense of sequentially what was going on with operating profit, and maybe specifically talk about the impact on operating profit of the refinery downtime.
Joe Scaminace
I’ll be happy to do that, and maybe Steve might want to fill in some things. I think when you look at quarter-over-quarter as we indicated; volumes are fairly flat in our basic end market, so the improvement you saw on revenue was really driven by bi-product copper and the resale which has minimal margin impact on that.
Second is, certainly the plant shutdown always has an impact on a quarter-to-quarter sequential basis from that regard. Also, certainly as you know, we always pull in on a delayed basis the impact of the smelter process, so we’re pulling some of that. Some of that has declined also on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
Steve Dunmead
Mike, this is Steve. Relative to the price moment, most of the price moment actually happened during the second half of the quarter, and so in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t have a significant impact on second quarter versus first.
Joe Scaminace
I think if you look at average for the first quarter to the average of the second, the average sub maybe a dollar.
Steve Dunmead
Most of it was in the second part.
Joe Scaminace
Most in the second part and again, there is a one month lag and you seen that pricing impacting our product selling prices.
Mike Harrison – First Analysis
In terms of the specific magnitude of the operating profit hit from the plant shutdown, is it a couple million?
Joe Scaminace
I don’t have that specific number to give you.
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