Nickel Asia 1Q income down 8%

Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC) recorded an eight percent decline for the first quarter of 2023 following foreign exchange losses and a lower weighted average of nickel ore prices.

NAC disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that its net income is at Php 970 million from January to March, versus the Php 1.05 billion recorded in the same period last year.

The company said that it experienced Php 202 million in foreign exchange losses due to its financial assets.

Meanwhile, company revenues went up by 5.7% to Php 3.51 billion, due to favorable exchange rates and better prices on ore export sales.

Its operating mines sold a combined 2.39 million wet metric tons (WMT) of metric ore.

NAC was also able to export 604,000 WMT of saprolite and limonite ore during the first quarter at an average price of $50.37/WMT.

The company was also able to deliver 1.79 million WMT of limonite ore to the Coral Bay and Taganito high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plants, with an average price of $11.98 per pound of payable nickel for this quarter.

However, the average price of deliveries to HPAL plants went down to $18.84 per WMT from $19.58 per WMT due to weaker cobalt prices.

With this, the weighted average nickel ore sales price for the first quarter went down by 1.4% to $26.80 per WMT from $27.17 per WMT per WMT last year.

“We remain bullish on the nickel sector. Despite the current nickel surplus resulting from the ramp-up in Indonesian nickel production, the accelerating pace of electric vehicle adoption, evidenced by the 25 percent year-on-year increase in electric car sales for the first quarter of 2023, will continue to be the main driver of the nickel sector over the long-term,” NAC president and CEO Martin Antonio Zamora said.