Matson Inc. said a 15.1% drop in demand from its China service and easing port congestion in Southern California led to an expected decline in net income in the third quarter, according to preliminary results that the company issued Monday.

The state’s largest ocean transportation firm said it expects net income for the quarter that ended Sept. 30 to be in a range of $257.3 million to $262 million and earnings per share to be in a range of $6.67 to $6.79. Analysts had forecast EPS to be $7.28 a share.

Matson will release its final results after the market closes Nov. 2.

The company “achieved lower year-over-year consolidated operating income as we saw lower demand for expedited ocean services in the Transpacific tradelane compared to the high levels of freight demand during the pandemic in the year ago period,” Matson Chairman and CEO Matt Cox said in a statement. “Within Ocean Transportation, our CLX, CLX+ and CCX services achieved lower year-over-year volumes which contributed to the decline in our consolidated operating income.

“As we mentioned on our second quarter earnings call, we believed rates had likely peaked in the Trans­pacific tradelane for this cycle and would be in a tran- sitional decline from the pandemic highs.”

Cox said due to less demand for expedited ocean services and easing port congestion in Southern California, the company decided to end its temporary CCX service in early September, about six weeks earlier than expected.

“For the remainder of the year, we expect to experience lower year-over-year freight demand and a lower rate environment for our CLX and CLX+ services, but we expect to continue to earn a significant rate premium to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index due to our differentiated, reliable and fast ocean services,” Cox said.

Matson said Hawaii volume decreased 7.1% from a year ago due to the pandemic spike in demand experienced in the year-earlier period. However, volume for the quarter was higher than the pre-pandemic third quarter of 2019.

In other areas, Alaska volume increased 10.6% primarily due to higher export seafood volume from Alaska- Asia Express, higher northbound volume primarily due to higher retail-related demand and volume related to a competitor’s dry-docking, and higher southbound volume primarily due to higher domestic seafood volume.

Guam volume decline 1.8% primarily due to lower retail-related demand.

The China volume was down primarily due to lower demand for CLX, CLX+ and CCX services, as well as due to one less sailing.

Matson said operating income in its logistics division, which helps companies deliver their products, increased year over year with strength across all of the business lines due to favorable supply and demand fundamentals in its core markets.

The company said operating income for logistics will come in at the range of $19 million to $20 million. In the year-earlier quarter it was $16 million.

The company expects third-quarter operating income for its ocean transportation division to be in a range of $310 million to $315 million. That would be down from $361.9 million in the year-earlier quarter.

During the third quarter, Matson repurchased about 1.1 million shares for a total cost of $88.4 million.

Matson’s stock rose 82 cents to $70.30 Monday before the preliminary earnings were released after the market closed. However, in after-hours trading the stock fell 1.9%, or $1.30, to $69.