Semirara Mining expects higher sales despite crisis
abs-cbnNEWS.com | 05/04/2009 6:41 PM
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Semirara Mining Corp., the country's largest coal producer, is still seeing growth in sales this year despite the anticipated fall in demand for coal worldwide.
According to Semirara vice chairman and chief executive Isidro Consunji, the company is expecting volume to grow between 3.8 million metric tons (MT) and 4 million MT this year from 3.31 million MT in 2007, owing to strong demand from local buyers such as power plants and cement firms.
"Because of the recession, the prices went down. Coal before was priced $65 but now it is now about $40. So we really expect it to be soft. According to our buyers, the third or fourth quarter should be good as the economy improves again," he said at the sidelines of the company's annual stockholders' meeting on Monday.
Of the projected production volume, some 1.5 million MT will go to exports, still a growth from last year's volume of 992,749 MT. This year, Consunji said Semirara supplied coal to Taiwan and Thailand, aside from its usual deliveries to India, China, and Hong Kong.
"This year we saw our exports widened. There were some shipment to Taiwan and couple of shipments to Thailand," he said.
Consunji said Semirara has no significant capital expenditures this year, but it can easily tap into its 19 million treasury shares which it bought back from the market in 2006 should the need arise.
"If we want to raise liquidity, we can go to the market and sell these shares," he said. Semirara's shares were valued at P27.50 apiece at the end of Monday's trading at the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Semirara reported a net income of P796.4 million last year from P633.3 million in 2007. The company's revenues, on the other hand, grew 31 percent to P8.49 billion.
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