NORTH BILLERICA, MA — BTU International extended its third-quarter net loss to $2.4 million, down $300,000 from the previous year.

For the period ended Sept. 30, net sales were $14.1 million, down 3.2% sequentially and down 16.2% from a year ago.

Net sales for the nine months ended Sept. 30 were $45 million, down from $61.3 million in 2011. The net loss was $6.6 million, down from a loss of $400,000 last year.

BTU chairman and CEO Paul J. van der Wansem said, “Our electronics business continued to be the main contributor, followed by nuclear, to the third quarter revenue. In our solar business, activities predominantly focused on working with solar cell producers on increasing cell efficiencies at a lower cost and new technology applications. We are on target with our development projects for new products in our electronics-assembly and solar cell processing businesses. These products are geared towards reducing processing cost with increased throughput per capital invested. The company has taken additional expense reduction steps to preserve its strong cash position.”