Banpu Pcl, Thailand’s biggest coal producer, reported first-quarter profit more than doubled to a record after higher prices for the fuel boosted sales.
Net income in the three months ended March 31 climbed to 4.8 billion baht ($139 million), or 17.65 baht a share, from 2.07 billion baht, or 7.63 baht a share, a year earlier, the company said today in a filing to the stock exchange. That exceeded the 3.38 billion-baht median profit estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Bangkok-based Banpu, which has mines in China, Indonesia and Thailand, benefited from locking in contracts as prices surged to a record in July.
“Banpu is one of the few companies with solid earnings growth in 2009,” said Avin Sony, an analyst at ABN Amro Securities Co. in Bangkok. “Coal prices are also expected to be robust in the second quarter.”
Banpu’s shares gained as much as 2.3 percent to 318 baht and traded at 316 baht as of 10:14 a.m. local time, heading for its highest close since Sept. 26.
Sales rose 58 percent to 13.6 billion baht, according to Banpu’s statement. Coal shipments dropped 10 percent to 4.08 million metric tons in the quarter as the company closed a port in Indonesia for a week in February for maintenance, it said in separate statement.
The company’s average selling price of coal in the period surged 71 percent from a year earlier to $84.23 a ton as it signed forward contracts and increased the proportion of high- quality coal, it said.
Spot prices at Newcastle port in Australia, a benchmark for Asia, touched a record $194.79 a metric ton in July. The weekly price index gained 2.3 percent to $63.70 a ton last week, according to the globalCOAL NEWC index. Banpu gets almost all its coal from Indonesia, where it acquired its first mine in 1997.
The gross profit margin from its coal business widened to 55 percent in the first quarter from 37 percent in the same period last year on higher selling prices and lower fuel costs, the company said. The average diesel price was at 44 U.S. cents in the quarter, 52 percent lower than a year earlier, it said.
The profit increase was achieved by locking in contracts “when coal prices in the world were soaring,” Chief Executive Officer Chanin Vongkusolkit said in an e-mailed statement today. “The production cost at Indonesian coal mines also decreased due to lower diesel prices.”
The company also booked a gain of 793.6 million baht from “the settlement of coal swap contracts” in the quarter, compared with a loss of 142 million baht from transactions in the same period last year, it said.
Coal sales in 2009 may rise 13 percent from the previous year to 20.5 million tons, Chanin said today, reiterating the forecast he made March 6. About 57 percent of the output this year was sold in advance at an average price of about $72 a ton, little changed from 2008, according to his statement in March.
The profit contribution from units in the first quarter climbed 34 percent to 2.06 billion baht, boosted by its coal business in China, the company said.
Banpu paid $420 million last June to buy the shares it didn’t already own in Asian American Coal Inc., which holds a 56 percent stake in China’s Shanxi Asian American-Daning Energy Co. Shanxi Asian has operated a mine in Shanxi province since 2006 under a 25-year concession. The mine has reserves of 88 million tons and produces 4 million tons a year, Banpu said at the time of the purchase.
Source: Bloomberg
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