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Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. announced on
Wednesday that its net income grew six times last year, buoyed
primarily by the ore shipment of its subsidiary, Berong Nickel Corp.
(BNC).
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock
Exchange, the parent mining firm said its profits reached P289
million last year as consolidated revenues surged to P1.344 billion
from P64 million in 2006.
According to Atlas, Berong Nickel shored up
P1.253 billion of the profits, representing earnings from the
shipment of saprolite and limonite ore equivalent to 530,168 wet
metric tons with an average 1.53 percent nickel to Australia and
China.
The company also earned P80 million last year
from interest-bearing deposit instruments. This was a jump from the
previous year’s interest income of P0.340 million. Atlas’
deposit accounts also comprised proceeds from the $100-million loan
secured from Deustche Bank by its other subsidiary, Carmen Copper
Corp.
Cost of sales at end-December last year rose to
P317 million from zero, while general and administrative expenses
grew by 135 percent to P914 million year on year as Carmen Copper
has been rehabilitating its mines in Toledo City, Cebu. The
rehabilitation is 60-percent complete, and Atlas said the Toledo
mine will come on-stream later this year.
Last month, the mining firm announced that
Carmen had signed a power supply agreement with the National Power
Corp. to supply electricity to its mine in Don Andres Soriano,
Toledo City, from 2008 to 2011.
For three years, Napocor will supply Carmen
Copper 40 megawatts from the excess power generated by the Leyte
geothermal power plants of PNOC-Energy Development Corp. and after
the National Transmission Corp. raises the capacity of its
Leyte-Cebu submarine cables, which are currently limited to 360 MW.
Under the accord, supply of power to Carmen
would start after the standard safety tests by TransCo are
completed. Atlas said it expects its copper mine to have an output
of 42,000 metric tons per day and would be exporting its first
shipment of copper concentrate by the third quarter of this year.
Expected average annual copper production from Toledo is 47,000
tons, along with gold, silver, iron ore magnetite and pyrite
by-products.
-- Likha C. Cuevas-Miel
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