Codelco achieves new low in costs, despite falling surpluses
The State Company dropped 12% in total costs and expenses for the first nine months of the year. By contrast, the surplus fell to $ 4,000 million
One of the main objectives proposed for 2013 by Codelco has until now optimum compliance.
In the period January-September 2013 the plan to reduce costs in which the State Company was involved in this year helped to reduce by 12% the total costs and expenses compared to 2012, from U.S. $ 2.645 last year to U.S. $ 2.338 on average in 2013.
This is the second consecutive quarter of positive results in this plan, after the June results were also in that line.
¿Why the decline ? “Significant declines in costs for the year 2012 are the result of progress in the structural design of increased productivity and cost containment that drives the company since late 2011,” the company officially stated. But despite this, the surplus of the corporation were reduced by more than $ 4,000 million from U.S. $ 6,940 million in January-September 2012 to U.S. $ 2.672 million, equivalent to a decline of 61% in the period.
Codelco explained that the sharp drop, is due to the high comparison base product business with Anglo American closed last year. “The fall is mainly attributed to the lower prices we’ve seen for the price of copper and in the case of by-products.
Additionally, it must be considered that in 2012 the purchase of the percentage of Anglo American South had an effect on the surplus, “said Ivan Arriagada, Vice President of Administration and Finance of the State Mining Company.
However, this effect discounted falling mining payments made to the Treasury would have decreased by 22%, which anyway is significant for Codelco.-
Another aspect that affected the performance of the corporation in 2013 was 7.3% reduction in the price of copper compared to 2012, to a low of 29% is added to the price of molybdenum, 39% for sulfuric acid, and the like drops of gold (- 12%) and silver (-19%). Besides copper, Codelco sells these products, so any change in its price delivered in surplus.
With this, the copper by-product sales generated $ 291 million in the period, while a year earlier had generated $ 560 million for this purpose. In terms of copper production, this amounted to 1,310,000 tons, 4.5% higher than in 2012, representing about 60 thousand tons.
Source: Pulso
