R.T.Z. expects lower profit for the year

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32612, 21 May 1971, Page 16

R.T.Z. expects lower profit for the year

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, May 20. The chairman of Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation has warned shareholders that the group’s profits for 1971 are almost certain to be lower 1 than those achieved last year.

Speaking at the annual meeting, Sir Vai Duncan, said “We expect a very substantial rise in income once our new projects come into operation, and this should

start to be reflected in the 1972 acounts.

R.T.Z.’s operating profit last year was £79.2m. Sir Vai Duncan said that the recent rise in profits was “at least in part because of the substantial rise in the iprice of copper, and the j profit of Hamersley Iron.” ! “This year, unless there is a specacular rise in copper prices over current levels, this pattern must inevitably be broken . . . because world economic activity, including that in the United States and Japan is unlikely to expand sufficiently to make up much of the leeway during the remaining months of the year,” he said.

“The £4oom hydro-electric project at Churchill Falls, in Canada, is now about 63 per cent complete, and it is on schedule, and within budget, with the first power expected to be generated during the first-half of next year,” he said. Rio Algom’s copper project at Lomex, British Columbia, the capital costs of which are expected to be “somewhat in excess” of the previous estimate of sCanl33m is now 75 per cent complete. It will come into operation around the middle of next year “when it expected to exceed somewhat” its design capacity of 38,000 tons of ore a year once the complex has been run-in. Developments at Hamersely, including the new mine at Paraburdoo, which is on schedule, and the existing

programme for Mount Tom Price, will allow Hamersley to increase production to over 37m tons a year by 1974, he said. Comalco’s aluminium smelter, at Bluff, will produce at the rate of 73,000 tons of metal a year from July, and it has already started modest production. In Brazil R.T.Z. has been examining the potential of bauxite, and believes that there exists in the areas under examination deposits which may be of some importance. These areas are now under discussion with the government of Brazil, Sir Vai Duncan said.

N.Z. News’ net falls 6 p.c.

(N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 20. The unaudited group net profit of N.Z. News, Ltd, fell $94,682 or 6 per cent to $1,482,854 in the year to March 31. A final dividend of 5f per cent is recommended which, together with the interim dividend of 5 per cent makes a total dividend of 10J per cent for the year, compared with the equivalent of 10.2 per cent on capital after the 2 for 3 bonus issue last year. The increased rate will take $817,118 compared with $793,048 last year. The dividend is payable on July 1, ex dividend June 17.