TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Denver, Colorado-based Thompson Creek Metals has improved headline earnings for the year ended December 31, as its new Mount Milligan copper/gold mine, in British Columbia, almost put in a full year of commercial production, providing respite from low molybdenum prices.
The NYSE- and TSX-listed company, which reports results in US dollars, on Thursday said it booked adjusted net income for 2014 of $54.6-million, or $0.25 a share, compared with an adjusted net loss for 2013 of $5-million, or $0.03 a share.
For the three months ended December 31, the company reported an adjusted net loss of $10-million, or $0.05 a share, more than average analyst expectations of $0.02 a share, derived on revenue of $159.22-million.
Consolidated revenue for the three-month period was $168-million, up 43% year-on-year when compared with $168-million a year earlier.
For the full year, the company reported an 86% increase in revenues to $806.7-million, up from $434.4-million in the comparable period.
Thompson Creek president and CEO Jacques Perron said the quarter brought challenges to the mining industry with falling copper and molybdenum prices.
Despite the Thompson Creek and Endako mines not currently being in operation, the company expected to generate enough revenue from the conversion of third-party material at the Langeloth metallurgical facility, in Pennsylvania, and sales of inventory from its molybdenum mines to have positive cash flow from the molybdenum business in 2015.
The company, at the end of December, suspended operations at the Endako mine, in British Columbia, and the Thompson Creek mine, in Idaho, as a result of the continued weakness in the molybdenum market.
However, the company in February last year declared commercial production at the Mount Milligan mine, with copper and gold sales accounting for $350.7-million in revenue in 2014, compared to $14.3-million in 2013.
Payable output at the Mount Milligan mine for 2014 was 64.6-million pounds of copper and 177 606 oz of gold, compared with 2013 payable output of 10.4-million pounds of copper and 19 879 oz of gold.
The company’s NYSE-listed stock rose almost 4% in after-market trading to $1.56 apiece.