Campbell Brothers Ltd said on Tuesday that it is positively en route to post a high half-year underlying net profit of $63 million, owing to much better trading conditions and strong outputs contributed by acquired Pearlstreet and Ecowise.

The chemical manufacturer is looking at around $63 million to $68 million for the six months leading to September, coming from the $38 million netted on the same period last year and way beyond the $57 million garnered in 2008, right before the onset of the global financial crisis.

Campbell mainly deals with laboratory and technical services and also produces cleaning and chemical products.

Last year, the company purchase mining supplier Pearlstreet and research group Ecowise, which initially delivered a flat effect on Campbell's 2009/10 second half earnings following the consolidation of integration and restructuring costs, though a much stronger turnovers were eventually delivered by the acquisitions in 2010/11.

Campbell attributed the high earnings projection from sustained demand for its mineral, environmental and coal analytical services coupled with improved margins, as it added that sample flows into the Australian Laboratory Service (ALS) jumped by 50 percent during the first 12 weeks of FY2009/10.

The company said that the trend should continue until the end of the current year before subsiding as the traditional off-season sets in even as pricing pressure experienced over the past year is expected to linger as ALS and its competitors pump capacity in line with a busier industry.

For its March 2011 second half earnings result, Campbell said that it is adopting a wary but optimistic view as it anticipates a slowdown in environmental sampling and mineral exploration activity from January to March 2011 due to the creeping northern hemisphere winter around that time.