https://www.miningweekly.com

Turquoise Hill beats profit estimates on higher copper, gold production

9th March 2021

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

Canada's Turquoise Hill Resources posted a surprise rise in quarterly profit on Monday, helped by increased production of copper and gold at its Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia.

The results come a week after CEO Ulf Quellmann resigned amid a protracted dispute between the company and its top shareholder, Rio Tinto, over funding for the underground expansion of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine.

Oyu Tolgoi is one of the world's largest copper-gold-silver mines. Rio owns 51% of Turquoise Hill, which in turn owns 66% of the mine. The rest of the mine is owned by government of Mongolia.

Turquoise on Monday also cut its 2021 capital expenditure outlook for the open-pit mine to between $110-million and $140-million from a prior range of about $120-million to $160-million, to reflect the deferral of certain non-critical projects.

Copper production rose 26.4% to 41 600 t in the fourth quarter, while gold production surged 266.7% to 88 000 oz, the company said.

Copper prices rose 21.7% and gold prices rose 26.5% as parts of the world, particularly China, began to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Copper demand is closely linked to economic health.

All-in sustaining costs halved to $1.45 per pound of copper produced in the quarter, the company said.

Rio Tinto-controlled Turquoise said income attributable to owners of the company was $159.9-million, or 79c a share, for the three months ended December 31, compared with $113.1-million, or 56c a share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average were expecting profit to fall to 41 cents per share, according to Refinitiv IBES.

Edited by Reuters

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION