MINING company Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC) on Thursday said the total volume of nickel ore it shipped in 2015 rose by 10 percent to 19.7 million wet metric tons (WMT), from the 17.9 million WMT recorded in 2014.
In a disclosure, the firm said the increase in shipments could be attributed to the direct exports of ore during the period. NAC’s exports of ore in 2015 grew by 13.46 percent to 11.88 million WMT compared to 10.47 million WMT in 2014.
NAC said the Taganito mine accounted for 39 percent of the total shipment.
“The mine shipped a total of 2.5 million WMT of saprolite ore and 5.24 million WMT of limonite ore, including 4.43 million WMT of limonite to the Taganito plant,” NAC said.
This was followed by the company’s Rio Tuba mine, which contributed 33 percent of the shipments. The mine shipped 3.18 million WMT of saprolite ore and 3.37 million WMT of limonite ore to the Coral Bay plant.
About 2.56 million WMT of limonite ore and 650,000 WMT of saprolite ore was also shipped by the company’s Hinatuan mine, while its Cagdianao mine shipped 1.44 million WMT of limonite ore and 729,000 WMT of saprolite ore, NAC said.
However, the company also said its record volume of ore shipments in 2015 was not sufficient to offset the fall in nickel prices during the year. Due to this, the estimated value of the NAC’s shipments decreased to P14.4 billion in 2015 compared to P23.7 billion in 2014.
The year 2015 marked the seventh consecutive year of increasing production and shipment volumes. Unfortunately, the slowdown in China’s economic growth coupled with a strong US dollar clobbered metal prices across the board, and in the case of nickel, resulted to a steep reversal of the strong prices we experienced in 2014,” NAC President and CEO Gerard H. Brimo said.
Despite the fall in prices, Brimo said the NAC’s operations continue to remain profitable.
“Our position as a low-cost producer in our mining operations will help the company ride-out the challenges in the current down cycle,” he said.
The mining firm said the estimated realized nickel price on 11.9 million WMT of its direct exports of ore in 2015 averaged $22.66 per WMT, lower than the average of $45.10 per WMT realized in 2014.
“It will be recalled that there was a surge in ore prices in 2014, due to the expectation of supply tightness resulting from the effects of the Indonesian export ore ban, which did not occur,” NAC said.
With respect to low-grade limonite ore sold to both the Coral Bay and Taganito plants, which continue to be linked to LME prices, NAC realized an average of $5.36 per pound of payable nickel in 2015, also lower than last year’s average of $7.69 per pound of payable nickel.