Muhamad Al Azhari

Collapsing Nickel Prices, Higher Costs Bury Antam’s Earnings in First Half

PT Aneka Tambang, the country’s second-largest nickel producer, said its first-half earnings dove 84.7 percent from the year-earlier period because of falling prices for the metal in the first sixth months of this year.

Antam, a state-owned miner that relies on nickel sales for most of its revenue, said its first-half net profit fell to Rp 223.8 billion ($22.2 million) from Rp 1.47 trillion a year earlier, according to a financial statement published in Bisnis Indonesia on Monday.

Alwinsyah Loebis, Antam’s president director, said falling nickel prices had decimated the firm’s revenue, pushing it down 27 percent to Rp 4.4 trillion from Rp 5.57 trillion a year earlier.

“The average price of nickel in the first half was down by 56 percent,” Alwinsyah told the Jakarta Globe in a phone interview. He did not reveal further details, but Bloomberg reported on Monday that nickel for three-month delivery on the London Metals Exchange averaged $13,147 a ton from April through June, 49 percent lower than its average of $25,859 a ton a year earlier.

The company’s successful efforts to push down operating expenses were not enough to mitigate the soaring costs of goods sold, a measure which includes only core costs directly linked to the production of goods and which excludes all other indirect expenses such as distribution and sales force.

Antam’s operating expenses dropped to Rp 248.2 billion in the first half of this year from Rp 388.8 billion in the same period a year ago. The cost of goods sold, however, jumped to Rp 3.96 trillion in the first six months of this year from Rp 3.19 trillion in the year-earlier period.

Poltak Holtadero, the head of research at PT Recapital Securities, said the increasing cost of goods sold was partly because of a rebound in global oil prices. Antam uses diesel and gasoline to fuel mining vehicles in many of its operations.

Antam’s shares retreated 5.2 percent to Rp 2,275 as of the market close on the Jakarta Composite Index on Monday.

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