Net profit of Nickel Asia Corp., the country’s biggest nickel producer, jumped to P1.54 billion in the first six months of 2017 from just P24 million year-on-year.
Nickel Asia said in a disclosure to the stock exchange earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization surged to P3.64 billion from P1.84 billion a year ago.
“The combined effects of the company focusing more on shipments of its higher-value saprolite ore, more particularly in the first quarter when prices were firmer, a stronger US dollar and a turnaround in profits from the company’s equity share in its investment in both the Coral Bay and Taganito processing plants, resulted to a significant improvement in earnings during the first half,” Nickel Asia said.
The company shipped 8.92 million wet metric tons of nickel ore from 8.54 million on year. The shipment consisted of 4.19 million MT of saprolite ore and 4.74 million of limonite ore, including 4.24 million MT delivered to both the Coral Bay and Taganito processing plants.
The company realized an average price of $4.40 per pound of payable nickel on its shipments of ore to the two HPAL plants from an average price of $3.92 on year.
Export sales averaged $25.88 per MT, up 42 percent from $18.24 realized during the same period last year.
“The impressive improvement in the financial results of the Coral Bay and Taganito processing plants driven by strong cobalt prices has certainly contributed to our performance in the first half,” said Nickel Asia president and chief executive officer Gerard Brimo.
“We are also seeing nickel prices bouncing back from the lows experienced in recent months, a good sign as we are now in our peak shipment season,” Brimo added.
Nickel Asia said its board also approved an additional equity contribution of P1.5 billion in Emerging Power Inc. clearing the conversion to equity of a current company loan of the same amount in EPI.
It said the additional equity contribution would increase the company’s equity to over 90 percent and allow EPI to trim debts and interest costs substantially.