Atlas Mining losses widen to P1.9 billion

MANILA, Philippines — Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. registered a bigger  consolidated net loss of P1.97 billion last year, more than double the P879 million loss incurred in 2016.

In a regulatory filing, Atlas said core income was lower by close to 40 percent to P746 million, while revenues decreased to P11.9 billion.

“Underlying earnings improved, but provisions for mark to market losses for copper price hedges and for effective interest rates on certain loans affected the bottom line,” the company said.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization went up 20 percent to P3.8 billion.

Production levels in the company’s wholly-owned Carmen Copper Corp. milled 14.24 million metric tons (MT) of ore and produced  78.2 million pounds of copper metal, 24 percent lower than last year.

Copper concentrate shipments declined 26 percent to 130,000 dry MT with copper metal content decreasing to 75.1 million pounds and gold content dipping 41 percent to 19,112 ounces.

Atlas said the lower tonnage of ore delivered to the processing plant was caused mainly by the unusually high levels of rainfall experienced in the first quarter of 2017 which restricted mine operations.

Production showed steady improvement in the second half with a total of 41.58 million pounds of copper metal produced or an increase of 14 percent.

Atlas said copper prices improved by 26 percent to $2.78 per pound, while average realized gold price remained stable at $1,259 per ounce.

Average cost per pound, however, increased 25 percent to $1.75 per pound due to higher waste charged to operations, lower by-product credits and lower volume shipped.