Peko profit rise helped by tungsten price

Press, 23 February 1977, Page 23

Peko profit rise helped by tungsten price

NZPA Sydney | A higher average tunsten! price, and expanded Indus-h trial activities helped PekoWallsend, Ltd, increase itsj. net trading profit in the! half-year to December 31 57.5 per cent to Au5t6,028,684. The average price for; tungstic oxide received by the King Island Scheelite di-! vision rose from $72 to $105! a tonne. Production rose 319 per cent to 103,725 tonnes. If ail of the production were sold tunsten would have provided about $10.9X1 of group revenue in the latest period, against $5.7M previously, and this could have been responsible for more than SSM of the SI4M! : increase in group revenue. The industrial and trading d i vi s i o n . could have] accounted for the other major share. Group revenue was up [from 547.0 M to $61.1M. Industrial results should 1 ihave ben fitted from an in-: creased contribution from! Gunnedah Colliery, upgrading of mining equipment [facilities and extension of! products available at Warman International, and a; i potential improvement in re- : [turns from the Toll-Chadw-ick freight business at New-1 castle. Toll-Chadwick suffered in

i the previous period from the ;deep recession in Newcastle, I severe competition, and industrial-action. Copper provided a higher (income in the latest period. The prices was down $7 a ! tonne of $1172 a tonne, but production rose 26.7 per i cent to 5374 tonnes. Bismuth was steady in price at $l2 a kg. but output ! was down from 349,724 kg to 240,205 kg. Gold utoutput fell from 95,509 ounces to 70,068 ounces, and the price fell from $ll2 to $96 an ounce. The latest increase in net profit was made despite continued heavy rentals on the moth-balled Tennant Creek smelter. However, the devaluation (of the Australian had a favourable effect on earnings jfor the half-year. Drilling is continuing on a new coal development area near Jerry’s Plains, in the upper Hunter Valley. “Several coal seams have been intersected, and economic appraisal of mining (seams of coal within the area is being carried out. “Closed space drilling is proceeding to delineate areas of open cut potential but it I is not possible at this stage ■to be speetve in estimating such coal resource economically recoverable,” the chairman (Mr J. S. Proud) says.

The company is -planning to increase the productivecapacity of Gunnedah Coal, and a coal preparation plant is being considered to ensure coal quality-control. At King Island scheelite concentrator upgrading was successfully brought to a rate of 350.000 tonnes of ore a year from the previous level of 300,000 tonnes. The company plans to commission a plant to produce artificial scheelite in January. Gold production for the half-year was well below the budgeted rate of 200,000 [tonnes of ore a year, not because of any significant shortfall in the Warrego Mine and concentrator on [copper production to clean up residual smelter products ; for final realisation, and to produce copper concentrates for special test work in the Mount Morgan smelter. “It is expected that, the full budgeted gold ore tonnage will be treated by the end of the financial year on resumption of treatment of gold ores both currently stockpiled, and yet to be mined,” Mr Proud says. The subsidiary Austirex Aerial Surveys Proprietary, Ltd, won a contract in September to conduct an advanced geophysical survey over large areas in Iran.