WARSAW, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Poland’s KGHM, one of the world’s biggest copper and silver producers, will achieve its 2018 copper production plan despite a fall in output in the first half of the year, the company’s chief executive said on Friday.
“Looking at the results planned for 2018 we are optimistic and we assume that they will be achieved,” Marcin Chludzinski told a press conference after KGHM reported a 50 percent fall in second-quarter net profit.
Earnings were hit by lower output due to planned maintenance at its key smelter in Glogow, Poland.
KGHM said that in the first half of the year production of electrolytic copper from its own concentrates fell by 7 percent to 171,000 tonnes, compared with a full-year plan of 381,000 tonnes.
Copper production at the Chilean Sierra Gorda mine, KGHM’s flagship foreign project in which it has a 55 percent share, fell by 10 percent year-on-year to 25,000 tonnes, versus a full year target of 59,000 tonnes.
Chludzinski added that KGHM is working on a strategy update which he expects to be published by the end of the year.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko; Editing by David Holmes)
