Nickel Asia temporarily suspends Taganito operations

MANILA, Philippines - Nickel Asia Corp. said the mining operations and nickel ore loading activities of its unit Taganito Mining Corp. (TMC) had been temporarily halted after an armed group stormed the latter’s premises.

In its disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange yesterday, Nickel Asia said certain equipment of TMC were burned, prompting the company to suspend operations until the situation has normalized.

TMC, 65 percent owned by Nickel Asia, is primarily engaged in the exploration, mining and exporting of nickel ore located in Claver, Surigao del Norte.

Nickel Asia posted a net income of P2.78 billion in the first half of the year, more than double from what it reported the same period in 2010. The strong performance was attributed to higher sales of nickel ore, which saw revenues increasing 68 percent to to P5.33 billion.

Total volume of nickel ore sold and delivered from the company’s four operating mines reached 4.22 million wet metric tons (WMT) as against 3.39 million WMT in 2010.

Of the total volume of ore shipped, 1.82 million WMT was saprolite ore and 2.4 million WMT was limonite ore, of which 1.31 million WMT was shipped to the Coral Bay hydrometallurgial processing plant. The average realized exchange rate during the period under review was P43.52 to the dollar.

The realized London Metal Exchange nickel price applicable to 1.96 million WMT of ore shipped averaged $11.42 per pound of payable nickel compared to $9.18 per pound of payable nickel in the same period last year.