Nickel Asia Corporation, a listed mining company, said in a regulatory filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) that its net income rose sharply in 2020 due to higher ore export prices.
Its net attributable income (net of minority shareholders' equity) was 4.07 billion pesos in 2020, up 51% from the 2.68 billion pesos reported in 2019.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) also increased 42% to 9.34 billion pesos from 6.54 billion pesos in the same period of 2019.
In 2020, the Asian nickel industry exported a total of 10 million wet tons of nickel ore, down 4 percent from 10.4 million wet tons in 2019.
However, nickel ore export prices rose 45% from US $23.52 / WT in 2019 to US $33.99 / WT in 2020.
In addition, regarding to the Taganito HPAL Nickel company (THPAL) and Coral Bay Nickel Corporation (CBNC) HPAL Nickel ore delivery of the plant, its pricing linked to the London metal exchange (LME), wet metric tons in 2020, the company delivered 8.2 million average $6.22 per pound deal with Nickel, wet and delivered in 2019, a total of 8.4 million tons of Nickel ore, the average price of $6.23 per pound deal with Nickel.
That is, the company sold 18.2 million wet tons and 18.8 million wet tons of nickel ore in 2020 and 2019 at $22.46 / wet ton and $16.69 / wet ton, respectively.
Nickel Asia explained that a significant increase in the 2020 realized price of ore exports and total nickel delivered to the two plants was more than enough to offset the small decline in sales volume and the adverse effect of the peso on the US dollar exchange rate, resulting in a total revenue increase of 21% to 21.8 billion pesos in 2020 compared to 17.9 billion pesos in 2019.
The company's total operating cash cost also increased by 1% to 10.68 billion pesos compared with the same period in 2019 of 10.73 billion pesos.
As one of the largest nickel mining companies in the Philippines, Nickel Asia's nickel ore and nickel by-products -- mixed nickel-cobalt sulfide and scandium oxalate -- totaled 68.48 billion pesos in 2020, accounting for 51.80% of the country's total metal production.
