DMCI Mining Corp., a unit of publicly-listed DMCI Holdings Inc., on Wednesday said it is targeting to ship 1.5 million wet metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore this year.
The company said this will happen after its subsidiary Zambales Diversified Metals Corp. (ZDMC) was granted an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) in January to produce 2 million WMT of nickel ore.
Prior to the ECC issuance, ZDMC was only allowed to extract 1 million WMT.
“We have the necessary facilities and mitigating measures to minimize the impact of our operations on the environment. With these in place, we’re targeting to produce anywhere between 1.7 million to 2 million tons of nickel ore this year,” DMCI Mining President Tulsi Das C. Reyes said.
From January to March, ZDMC nickel ore production soared by 88 percent to 599,000 WMT from the previous 318,000 WMT, its highest-ever quarterly output.
This led to a 16-percent improvement in total inventory, from 154,000 WMT to 178,000 WMT.
Total shipment, however, declined by 21 percent from 620,000 WMT to 487,000 WMT owing to the depletion of the Berong Nickel Corp.’s mine and stockpile, cushioned by the double-digit growth of ZDMC shipment.
Average selling price rose by 11 percent from to $49 from $44 owing to higher Zambales shipments of higher-grade nickel ore.
Despite the mine and stockpile depletion of Berong, DMCI Mining standalone revenues declined by 8 percent to P1.3 billion from P1.4 billion during to the first quarter of the year due to better selling prices while reported net income contracted by 15 percent to P463 million from P543 million.
DMCI Holdings Inc. reported in March that its net income surged to an all-time high of P31.1 billion in 2022, a 69-percent increase from the previous year’s P18.4 billion, mainly on the spike in commodity prices.
Consolidated revenues climbed 32 percent to P142.6 billion from P108.3 billion as a result of higher coal and electricity prices.
Consolidated core net income rose 80 percent to P31.2 billion from P17.4 billion.
DMCI Mining’s contribution improved by 7 percent to P1.3 billion last year from the P1.2 billion recorded in 2021.
