TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Despite missing analyst earnings expectations, US miner Arch Coal has narrowed its first-quarter loss and cut its full-year output outlook as a result of weakening coal prices.
Net earnings narrowed to $113.2-million, or $0.53 a share, in the quarter ended March 31, down from a loss of $124.1-million, or $0.59 a share, in the comparable quarter a year earlier.
Excluding special items, the company lost $0.54 a share, more than Wall Street analysts’ average forecast of $0.47 a share.
Revenue fell 8% year-on-year to $677-million.
Coal miners across the globe had been dealing with stubbornly low coal prices, a global supply glut and competition from cheap natural gas, which had forced cash-strapped miners to idle unprofitable mines and retrench thousands of miners. In the US, increasingly strict environmental legislation also had a stranglehold on the thermal coal industry’s growth prospects.
Coal-producing companies, such as Arch Coal, Cliffs Natural Resources and Walter Energy, had suspended dividends as they tried to stay afloat in the low price environment.
NYSE-listed Arch, which produced coal for the global steel and power generation industries through its network of mining complexes straddling every significant US coal basin, said on Tuesday that it now expected thermal coal output of 120-million tons to 130-million tons, down from the 124-million tons to 136-million tons it forecast in its full-year 2014 results published in February.
Arch cut its metallurgical coal outlook from 6.3-million tons to 7-million tons to between 6-million tons and 6.8-million tons.
The average sales price dropped 5% to $19.18/t in the first quarter, compared with $20.09/t a year earlier.
Arch had also reduced its full-year cash-cost-a-ton guidance range for its Appalachian segment, while maintaining its cost outlook for the Powder River basin. The company had raised the 2015 cash-cost-a-ton guidance range for the company’s Bituminous Thermal region to reflect the impact of lower production levels.
As of March 31, Arch had available liquidity of $1.1-billion, including cash and short-term investments of $939-million and undrawn borrowings on its credit facilities.
Since the start of the year, the company’s stock had shed 37% in value, changing hands on Tuesday for $1 apiece.