Nickel Asia shipments up 52% in Q1

MANILA, Philippines - Listed miner Nickel Asia Corp. reported an increase in the value of nickel shipments in the first quarter of the year on a significant increase in shipment volume.

The company shipped out a total of 2.65 million wet metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore in the first three months of  2014 up by 52 percent from 1.74 WMT shipped out in the same period last year.

The value of shipments during the period rose by 21 percent to P1.45 billion in the first quarter from P1.2 billion reported in the comparative period.

 The estimated realized nickel price applicable to two million WMT of ore shipped in the first quarter of the year averaged at $6.59 per pound of payable nickel as against $7.82 per pound in the same period last year.

“Our first quarter shipment volumes increased substantially as we begin to realize the effects of the commercial operations of the new Taganito processing plant,” said Gerard Brimo, president and CEO of Nickel Asia.

“We are also looking forward to much improved ore price for our various productions, in time for our peak shipment season starting in the second quarter of this year,” he added.

Shipped out in the first quarter of the year were high grade saprolite ore to Japan and high grade limonite ore to the Coral Bay and Taganito processing plants.

Nickel Asia said ore shipments to Japan would continue to fetch good prices as it is benchmarked against prices in China, which have risen because of the export ban imposed by Indonesia.

“Due to the Indonesia ore ban, current prices of similar saprolite ore to China have risen significantly. As result, despite our long-term sales contracts to our Japanese buyers with pricing linked to the LME (London Metal Exchange), the pricing of saprolite ores to Japan will, in the interim, be benchmarked against China effective Aril 2014,” the company said.

 The balance of the company’s ore shipments for the quarter of 650,000 WMT consisting of medium grade saprolite and low-nickel, high iron limonite, were sold on negotiated prices which averaged $19.3 per WMT of ore compared to $22.21 per WMT in the same period last year.