Nickel Asia Corporation announced a 12 percent improvement in its unaudited attributable net income to P6.90 billion in the first nine months of 2022 from the P6.17 billion earned in the same period last year.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the firm said that, despite the lower ore sales volume sold during the period, revenues inched up 2 percent to P21.51 billion from P21.03 billion last year, owed largely to higher nickel ore prices and favorable exchange rates.

NAC’s five operating mines sold a combined 12.44 million wet metric tons (WMT) of nickel ore during the first nine months of the year, a decrease of 14 percent from 14.44 million WMT in the same period last year.

The drop in sales volume was almost in direct proportion to unrealized workable days caused by unfavorable weather that adversely affected the Company’s mining operations during the period.

The weighted average nickel ore sales price during the period increased by 5 percent to $29.46 per WMT against $28.05 per WMT in the same period last year. The company realized P54.22 per US dollar from these nickel ore sales, a 10-percent increase from P49.17 last year.

Breaking down the ore sales, NAC exported 6.68 million WMT of saprolite and limonite ore at the average price of $38.87 per WMT during the nine-month period from 8.72 million WMT at $38.88 per WMT in the same period last year.

Likewise, it delivered 5.76 million WMT of limonite ore to the Coral Bay and Taganito high- pressure acid leach (HPAL) plants, the prices of which are linked to the London Metal Exchange (LME) and realized an average price of $11.66 per pound of payable nickel.

This compares to 5.72 million WMT at $8.20 per pound of payable nickel in 2021. Expressed in US dollar per WMT, the average price for the deliveries to the HPAL plants were $18.55 and $11.54 in the first three quarters of 2022 and 2021, respectively.

“Despite the challenges in our mining operations due to adverse weather conditions at our mine sites, the favorable LME nickel price and strong US dollar helped drive revenues up by 2 percent from the prior year,” said NAC President and CEO Martin Antonio G. Zamora.

Owing to the higher LME nickel price during the period, NAC also recognized gains from its equity share in investments in the two HPAL plants in the combined amount of P1.02 billion against P340.4 million the prior year.

The strong US dollar further enabled NAC to log a 162 percent hike in net foreign exchange gains from its foreign currency denominated net financial assets to P1.54 billion from P587.2 million the year prior.

NAC’s renewable energy arm, Emerging Power Inc. (EPI), on a consolidated basis, registered a 60 percent increase in revenues to P393.67 million and a 51 percent increase in EBITDA of P239.50 million.

This was primarily due to a 56-percent year-on-year increase in the generation capacity of its operating arm Jobin-SQM Inc. (JSI) to 79,022-megawatt hours after the completion of its 38-MW expansion last June, bringing its total capacity to 100 MW.

JSI logged a net income of P72.83 million, allowing EPI to trim its losses to P133 million from the same period last year, a 53-percent reduction thanks to higher economies of scale and improved market conditions.