Nickel Asia Corporation’s (NAC) attributable net income for the first quarter of 2019 saw a 68 percent decline from last year’s P 456.7 million to P 147.6 million.
“The lower earnings during the first quarter was due primarily to the impact of a strengthening Peso relative to the US Dollar resulting to a net foreign exchange loss of P6.7 million, a turnaround from a gain of P344.0 million recognized last year,” NAC said in a disclosure released on Tuesday.
In the same disclosure, the company reported a decrease of 11 percent on its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization or EBITDA. From P 686.3 million from January to March of 2018, NAC said it only reached P 613.8 million on the same time duration this year.
Compared the P194.7 million NAC earned from its equity investments during the same period last year, the company had a P 25.3-million net loss in Coral Bay Nickel Corp. (CBNC) and Taganito HPAL Nickel Corp. (THPAL).
Due to falling nickel and cobalt prices, CBNC’s earning dropped 53 percent to P 53 million in the first quarter of the year.
Cuts on yield prices also caused a P 78.3-million loss to THPAL plant which already faced disadvantage after spending most of March undergoing a necessary three-week maintenance shutdown.
Even NAC’s sales fell on the downside as it only sold around 2.89 million metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore dring 2019’s first quarter – six percent lower than last year’s 3.08 million WMT.
“Ore deliveries to the two processing plants, which increased from 2.0 million WMT in 2018 to 2.14 million WMT this year did not sufficiently offset the decline in ore export volumes, which fell to 749,000 WMT from 1.09 million WMT last year,” the company explained.
According to NAC, $ 5.56 per pound of payable nickel on its shipments of ore to the two plants was realized which, if compares to 2018’s $ 6.02 per pound, is lower by eight percent.
On the other hand, an average price of $ 19.01 per WMT was realized by NAC for exports sales – seven percent higher than $ 17.82 per WMT in 2018.
“Nickel ore shipments from Indonesia are expected to increase further for a third successive year and will continue to put pressure on ore export prices this year,” Martin Antonio G. Zamora, President of NAC said.
