Nickel Asia Q1 earnings down 8%

MANILA, Philippines — Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC) reported an eight-percent drop in its first quarter net income due to foreign exchange losses and lower weighted average of nickel ore prices.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, NAC said its net income reached P970 million from the January to March period compared to the P1.05 billion registered in the same period last year.

The company incurred foreign exchange losses of P202 million while its revenues rose by 5.7 percent to P3.51 billion due to the combination of favorable exchange rates and better prices on ore export sales.

Its operating mines sold a combined 2.39 million wet metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore, which remained stable compared to the same period last year.

The company exported 604,000 WMT of saprolite and limonite ore at the average price of $50.37 per WMT during the period compared to 651,000 WMT at $47.48 per WMT from the previous year.

Additionally, the company delivered 1.79 million WMT of limonite ore to the Coral Bay and Taganito high pressure acid leach (HPAL) plants, realizing an average price of $11.98 per pound of payable nickel for this quarter.

However, the average price for the deliveries to the HPAL plants decreased to $18.84 per WMT from $19.58 per WMT a year ago due to weaker cobalt prices.

As a result, the weighted average nickel ore sales price during the period decreased by 1.4 percent to $26.80 per WMT.

NAC realized P54.80 per US dollar from nickel ore sales, a 6.4-percent increase from P51.51 year-on-year.

The company also recognized gains from its equity interests in the two HPAL plants in the combined amount of P252 million against P305 million a year earlier.

“We remain bullish on the nickel sector. Despite the current nickel surplus resulting from the ramp-up in Indonesian nickel production, the accelerating pace of electric vehicle adoption, evidenced by the 25 percent year-on-year increase in electric car sales for the first quarter of 2023, will continue to be the main driver of the nickel sector over the long-term,” NAC president and CEO Martin Antonio Zamora said.

For its power business, Emerging Power Inc.’s subsidiary, Jobin-SQM Inc. (JSI) increased its electricity generation by 61 percent to 37,628-megawatt hours.

This led to revenues increasing by 84 percent to P182.25 million, operating at 100-MWp capacity since adding an additional 38-MWp in July 2022.

Higher revenues and effective cost management kept JSI’s EBITDA margin at 83 percent, with EBITDA rising by 90 percent to P151.35 million compared to year ago levels.

JSI also saw an 85-percent increase in net income to P26.3 million.

It is currently constructing an additional 72-MWp solar farm in its existing Sta. Rita site, which is scheduled to go online by the fourth quarter of 2023.