Nickel miner Oriental Peninsula earns P280M in net profit in Q2

MANILA, Philippines—Nickel miner Oriental Peninsula Resources Group (ORE) swung to profitability in the second quarter as the mining firm started commercial operations and the shipment of nickel ore to overseas buyers.

The company posted a net profit attributable to controlling equity holders of P280.38 million in the second quarter, a turnaround from the P8.7 million net loss incurred a year ago when it was still in a pre-operating state. This shored up the first-semester net profit to P277.16 million, a reversal of the P16.6 million net loss in the first half of 2010.

In a regulatory filing, ORE’s total gross revenue from mining for the second quarter amounted to P312.9 million as it began commercial operations at the end of March 2011. There wasn’t any comparative revenue in the same quarter last year since it was still at pre-operating state.

The group sold a total of 370,603 wet metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore in the second quarter.  Of these, 269,314 WMT were sold to Chinese clients and 101,289 WMT to an Australian client.

All revenues booked by the company for the six-month period came from the second quarter.

On the other hand, ORE incurred P193.42 million in production expenses and P14.88 million in administrative expenses for the semester.

Macquarie Research earlier reported that ORE’s margins were supported by low operating cost model, in turn made possible by the minimal requirement for infrastructure needed in open pit mining.