Lundin Mining Q4 profit higher on acquisitions, but misses expectations
Source: AFX
metalsplace.com
Lundin Mining Corporation said its fourth-quarter profit rose to 84 mln usd from 14 mln usd, boosted by the consolidation of the Eurozinc acquisition on Nov 1 last year, and gains on derivative contracts.
But market expectations were for a pretax profit of 117 mln usd, according to SME Direkt.
Gains on derivative contracts were 15 mln usd in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of 6 mln in the same period a year earlier.
Sales rose to 236 mln usd from 63 mln, boosted by the Eurozinc purchase and 'significantly' higher metal prices, and were above market expectations of 215 mln usd.
A total of 545,535 tonnes of ore were milled in the fourth quarter of 2006, up 7 pct from the comparable period in 2005. Ore hoisted increased by 13 pct compared with the fourth quarter of 2005.
'The increased output was directly attributable to improved performance in mine development and production preparation work, and to the addition of zinc ore production in 2006,' the company said.
Lundin Mining said the outlook for metal prices for 2007 is mixed. It said the low LME inventory for zinc and lead and the growth in demand for these metals, particularly from Asia, is expected to continue, and it anticipates zinc and lead prices will remain high during 2007.
'The demand for copper has slowed and the LME inventory has increased. We expect that the fundamentals for copper will not be as strong as the fundamentals for zinc going forward in 2007. Nonetheless, we expect the price of copper to stay at historically high levels throughout the year,' it said.
Lundin Mining said it expects the operational performance of all its mines to improve during 2007 from 2006.
In addition, overall production of contained zinc will increase with the addition of the Aljustrel zinc production in September and increased output from Neves-Corvo and Zinkgruvan, it said. |
