NICKEL Asia Corp. said profit and revenues declined in the nine months through September on lower prices, a Philippine Stock Exchange filing on Tuesday showed.
The country’s largest nickel producer said net income for the first three quarters was down 31 percent to P2.24 billion, while revenues also dipped 6 percent to P9.61 billion. The company said total volume of nickel ore sold was up 16 percent to 9.56 million wet metric tons (WMT) but not enough to offset lower London Metal Exchange spot nickel prices.
Nickel Asia shares added 0.23 percent to P17.20 each on Tuesday, giving it a market value of P34.6 billion.
The company said in its filing that total volume of ore shipped during the nine-month period comprised of 3.34 million WMT of saprolite ore and 6.22 million WMT of limonite ore, of which 2.57 million was shipped to the hydrometallurgical processing plant of unit Coral Bay Nickel Corp.
This is up from 3.25 million WMT for saprolite ore and 5 million WMT for limonite ore in the same period in 2011.
Nickel Asia said the realized price applicable to 3.62 million tons shipped during the period averaged $8.25 per pound, which is 24 percent lower than the same period last year. It said the balance of shipments of the low and medium-grade ore was sold to China-based customers, which averaged $24.52 per WMT in 2012.
“Despite weaker prices, our company was able to meet the increase in demand due to our ability to consistently supply quality ore at various ore grades,” Nickel Asia president and chief executive officer Gerard Brimo said in the statement.
Nickel Asia said in the same statement that the Taganito nickel-processing plant in Surigao del Norte in Mindanao has exceeded the 74-percent completion mark. Plant commissioning is expected in the second quarter of 2013 with commercial production seen in the latter part of the year.
