SG:Nickel Asia 9M 2011 net profit up by 131pct YoY
Nickel Asia Corporation reported that its attributable net income for the first nine months of 2011 surged 131% to PHP 3.26 billion from PHP 1.41 billion in the same period of 2010.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said its strong performance was the result of higher sales of nickel ore, combined with higher nickel prices, mainly to Chinese customers. This boosted revenue to grow by 74% to PHP 10.19 billion from PHP 5.87 billion in the first nine months of 2010 as total volume of nickel ore sold and delivered from the firm’s four operating mines reached 8.25 million wet metric tons as compared with 5.78 million WMT in 2010.
Mr Gerard Brimo president of Nickel Asia said that "Laterite ore imports into China have been at record levels this year, owing to the strong position of nickel pig iron as the primary choice for nickel and iron among stainless steel producers. Our company was able to meet the significant increase in demand due to our ability to consistently supply quality ore at various ore grades."
O f the total volume of ore shipped during the nine months of the year, 2.85 million WMT was saprolite ore and 5.4 million WMT was limonite ore, of which 2.15 million WMT was shipped to the Coral Bay hydrometallurgical processing plant. The corresponding figures for the same period in 2010 were 2.37 million WMT, 3.41 million WMT, and 1.78 million WMT, respectively. The average realized exchange rate in the first three quarters of 2011 was PHP 43.10 to the dollar.
The realized LME price applicable to 3.27 million WMT of ore shipped in the first nine months average USD 10.88 per pound of payable nickel as against USD 9.57 per pound of payable nickel in the same period last year. However, as of October 24th 2011, LME spot nickel price has dropped to USD 8.63 per pound.
The balance of the shipments sold, mostly the low and medium grade variety ore sold to Chinese customers, was on the basis of a negotiated price per WMT of ore which averaged USD 23.79 per WMT of ore in 2011 as compared to USD 17.86 per WMT of ore in 2010.
