17th Mar 2014 08:51
LONDON (Alliance News) - Weatherly International PLC Monday said it swung to a pretax loss in its first half as higher costs and weak production rates offset increased revenues.
The Namibia-focused copper mining company posted a pretax loss of USD2.6 million for the six months ended December 31, 2013 from a pretax profit of USD521,000 in the same period during 2012, despite revenues increasing 2.1% to USD19.3 million from USD18.9 million the previous year.
The company said its revenues increased as it opened a new primary mining area, Hoffnung Fault West, which is now delivering relatively low-grade copper to the company.
However, the company's cost of sales rose 25% to USD18.1 million from USD14.5 million in 2012 and the company said its swing to pretax loss was largely attributable to a reduction in copper prices during the period.
Weatherly also said half-year production from its Central Operations fell 14% to 10,448 tonnes of concentrates from 12,279 tonnes in 2012, while its copper contained rate fell 10% to 2,512 tonnes of copper from 2,798 tonnes.
The company said additional initiatives have been started at its Central Operations to improve poor productivity and costs, while progress on the development of its Tschudi site is running on schedule and is expected to meet its previously announced start-up date towards the delivery of first copper during the second quarter 2015.
The introduction of the Tschudi project is expected to add 17,000 tonnes of copper cathode to existing production from the company's Central Operations.
In early trade Monday, Weatherly shares were up 1.4% at 3.17 pence.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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