gear-up for planned commercial aircraft build-rate increases starting this year. Demand for new airplanes is driven by the recovery in air travel and increased demand for business jets and freighters, in addition to the economic advantages to airlines of new airplanes. Defense spending remains solid.
“Heavy equipment market sales resumed growth in the fourth quarter, increasing 18.8% sequentially aided by recovery in industrial businesses as well as model changeovers to electric vehicles in the automotive market. Heavy equipment remained our second largest market at 21% of sales. Sales to the power generation and general industrial markets also showed strong sequential improvement in the fourth quarter, rising 39.4% and 17.6%, respectively.
“Our sales to the oil & gas market remained level with the third quarter but rose 77.6% from the fourth quarter of 2020. Drilling activity continues to point to further recovery in market demand with oil prices remaining at a seven-year high and natural gas prices up 25% in the fourth quarter alone.
“Our operating leverage continued to improve in the fourth quarter with a rise in our activity levels, including a 12% sequential increase in our shipments. In addition, our surcharges and base price increases are offsetting increases in raw material costs and general inflationary trends.
“We remain focused on restoring our profitability and controlling working capital in 2022, even as we ramp up operations to meet our record backlog. Through our capital investment in 2021, we successfully added a new vacuum arc re-melting (VAR) furnace in our North Jackson facility, which has been installed, commissioned, and integrated into our operations. We have also added an 18-ton vacuum induction melting (VIM) crucible, which expands our vacuum induction melting capacity to support the growth of premium alloy products, and improves the efficiency of our melt operations. The VIM crucible is in the final stage of commissioning.
“As part of our strategic plan for 2022, we are pleased to announce that our Board has now authorized the acquisition of two additional VAR furnaces to further support our growth and efficiency, and expand our product applications.”
Mr. Oates concluded: “As 2021 came to a close and 2022 begins, we see our markets coming back and, through our operational initiatives, we are in a much stronger position than one year ago. While supply chain and other issues will continue to present challenges, we remain determined to make further progress in the coming year and take full advantage of our recovering markets, especially aerospace. Our plan is to achieve sequential improvement in each quarter of 2022. The tireless efforts of our team, the support of our customers and our focus on providing critical products to our markets give us confidence in our future.”
Quarterly and Full Year Results of Operations
For full year 2021, net sales totaled $155.9 million compared with $179.7 million in 2020. Sales of premium alloys were $26.4 million, or 16.9% of sales, in 2021, compared with $35.2 million, or 19.6% of sales, in 2020.
The net loss for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $1.6 million, or $0.18 per diluted share. In the third quarter of 2021, the Company recorded net income of $7.9 million, or $0.87 per diluted share, which included a gain of $10 million due to forgiveness of a term note from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Before the PPP gain, the net loss for the third quarter of 2021 was $2.1 million. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the net loss was $7.3 million, or $0.83 per diluted share. Results included pretax fixed cost absorption charges of $1.5 million in the third quarter of 2021 and $3.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020. There were no pretax fixed cost absorption charges in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The Company’s EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $4.1 million while adjusted EBITDA was $4.0 million.
Managed working capital was $136.9 million at December 31, 2021 compared with $124.4 million at September 30, 2021, and $114.1 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. Inventory was $140.7 million at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, compared with $135.6 million at the end of the third quarter of 2021, and $111.4 million at the end of the 2020 fourth quarter. The increase in inventory in the most recent quarter reflects increased work in process to support backlog growth and higher raw material prices.
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