Semirara bullish on H2 as prices improve

Tycoon Isidro Consunji’s Semirara Mining and Power Corp. (SMPC) expects to book higher income in the second half of this year on the back of stabilizing coal prices.

Maria Cristina Gotianun, SMPC president and chief operating officer, said the group may record “better” figures this semester compared to the 34-percent drop in earnings in the January to June period, which was blamed on weakened coal prices and more expensive production costs.

Gotianun said that the firm’s mining operations usually contribute more to the bottom line, compared to the group’s other businesses.

“It’s really the coal operations. But the coal price already stabilized,” she said in Filipino, talking to reporters in a chance interview when asked about the drivers of the income growth.

Coal prices decreased by 16 percent in the quarter ending June, with the average Newcastle Index—the benchmark price for seaborne thermal coal in the Asia-Pacific region—declining to $135.60 per metric ton. The Indonesia Coal Index, meanwhile, also fell to $55 per MT.

According to Gotianun, Semirara already made a trial coal shipment to Japan, as part of its plan to expand its overseas market amid declining industrial output in China. She also said that the group continues to export to South Korea and Brunei.

Meanwhile, although the company had to conduct scheduled power plant outages during the period, Gotianun said they already completed the rehabilitation of the Sem-Calaca Power Corp. Unit 2, allowing it to run at 300 megawatts (MW).

“Hopefully, that will cover the outages,” she said.

Meanwhile, affiliate DMCI Mining Corp. is targeting to produce 1.4 million wet metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore by the end of this year. This would be 17.9 percent lower than the 1.71 million WMT of output booked in 2023.

So far, its total nickel ore production shrank by 30 percent to 782,000 WMT in the January to June period from 1.122 million WMT in the same period last year.

DMCI Mining president Tulsi Das Reyes said the first three quarters of this year have been “terrible” so far, as prices declined by about 40 to 50 percent.

However, he noted that the firm observed an uptick in prices in the last 30 to 45 days and their lower-grade nickel ore “are now marketable.” INQ