Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) announced today that its LCD glass manufacturing facility in Taichung, Taiwan, experienced a power disruption over the weekend that affected some of its glass-making operations. The company said that although it will be several days before the full extent is known, the disruption is expected to have a material impact on glass volume in the fourth quarter.
"The majority of our Taichung glass production continues to operate normally," James B. Flaws, vice chairman and chief financial officer, said. "However the power disruption caused the shutdown of several of our glass melting tanks. We are in the process of determining how much glass melting capacity was affected, the time to repair the tanks, and the impact on our glass volume available for customers."
Corning said its preliminary assessment of the impact is that fourth-quarter glass volume now could be flat to down slightly sequentially. Without the power disruption, the company said it believes quarterly glass volume would have increased by as much as 5%.
Flaws said, "We are doing everything possible to accelerate repairs and leverage our worldwide supply chain to secure additional glass supply."
Corning will provide more detail on the impact of the Taichung power disruption to glass production when it releases third-quarter financial results on Monday, October 26.