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China’s Jiangxi Copper Co. reported a 5% rise in second-quarter profit as higher production and a rally in copper and gold prices cushioned the impact of the coronavirus and writedowns on inventory and assets.
For the first half, net income fell 42.7% to 745.3 million yuan ($108.6 million), a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange showed.
That implies a profit of 585 million yuan for the second quarter, up from 558 million yuan a year earlier. In the first quarter of this year, Jiangxi Copper recorded its lowest earnings since 2017.
The Nanchang-based firm is one of the biggest copper smelters in China, the world’s top metals consumer.
London copper prices rose more than 20% in the second quarter, completing a Chinese demand-driven recovery after tanking in the first quarter as the coronavirus shattered consumption.
Jiangxi Copper’s production volumes also climbed, with copper cathode output up 6.9% in January-June at 800,600 tonnes, putting the company more or less on track to hits its annual target of 1.65 million tonnes.
That helped propel a 39.9% jump in first-half revenue to 146.99 billion yuan.
The company also cashed in on a surge in precious metal prices, with gold production almost tripling to 38.5 tonnes in the first half and silver output up 222.4% to 544.85 tonnes following the inclusion of subsidiary Shandong Humon Smelting Co’s output on its books from July 2019.
In a separate filing, Jiangxi Copper said it had made a 221.8 million yuan provision in the first half for an impairment on fixed assets after deciding to close loss-making subsidiary Dongtong Mining Co. It also made a 202.13 million yuan provision for a writedown of inventories.
Total provisions for impairment of assets came to 502.68 million yuan, including 48.72 million yuan for bad debt related to overdue loans to commodities trader Tewoo Group.
($1 = 6.8647 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(By Tom Daly; Editing by Jason Neely and Susan Fenton)
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