Atlas Mining posts 52% drop in H1 profit

Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. suffered a 52-percent year-on-year drop in its first semester net income to P750 million.

In a statement, the firm said the plunge was “due mainly to unrealized foreign exchange losses on dollar-denominated debt.”

Atlas Mining said it had foreign currency risks arising from its cash and cash equivalents, receivables, deposit, accounts payables and accrued liabilities, loans payable and long-term debt.

Losses are incurred when the peso depreciates against foreign currencies like the dollar.

The copper and gold miner also said that without such losses, its net income would have been P1.35 billion, or a year-on-year decrease of some 13 percent.

Also, Atlas Mining saw its core income fall by 11 percent to P1.17 billion, attributed mainly to lower realized metal prices.

Its revenue fell by 14 percent to P7.05 billion.

“As we recognize the challenges of weaker global commodity prices, we remain focused in our strategy to continually reduce costs, increase production and improve further our operational efficiency,” Atlas Mining executive vice president Adrian Ramos said in a statement.

Ramos said that in July, wholly-owned Carmen Copper Corp. reached a peak milling capacity of 50 thousand tons daily.

“(This) tells us that we are gaining some momentum as a result of a more efficient operation,” he said. “Likewise, we are expecting to deliver better ore grades to the mill by the second half of the year as we continue developing the Carmen pit.”