The Philippines' Nickel Asia said Monday it shipped out a record high 14 million wet mt of nickel ore in 2013, up 19% from 2012.
Of the total volume, 3.59 million wmt was saprolite ore, down 15.3% year on year, while 10.41 million wmt was limonite ore, up 39%.
In 2013, the company's limonite ore was sent to the Coral Bay hydrometallurgical processing plant (3.4 million wmt) and the new Taganito hydrometallurgical processing plant (874,000 wmt). The Taganito plant, which was commissioned in the last quarter of 2013, sent out its first commercial shipment of nickel metal in December 2013.
Nickel Asia has 10% stake interest in the Coral Bay plant and a 22.5% interest in the Taganito plant.
Despite shipping out a record high volume in 2013, Nickel Asia said the weaker nickel prices resulted in a 4% year-on-year drop in annual revenue to Philippines Pesos 11.11 billion ($246.1 million), while net profit slipped 16% year on year to Pesos 2.6 billion.
The realized nickel price in 2013 -- applicable to the company's shipments of medium and high grade saprolite ore to Japan and limonite ore to the Coral Bay and Taganito processing plants -- averaged $6.91/lb, compared with $8.10/lb in 2012. The weighted average selling price of the company's low-grade saprolite and limonite ore in 2013 was $20.03/wmt, compared with $24.40/wmt in 2012.
