Posted on 29 Aug 2023
Australian miner FMG on Monday reported falling profit for the fiscal year ending 30 June (FY23), despite the company processing and shipping more iron ore compared with FY22, Kallanish learns.
In FY23, the company mined 217.9 million wet metric tonnes of iron ore, which was 5% lower than a year earlier. Annual shipments however hit a record high of 192m wmt, an increase of 2%.
This was contributed by first production at the Iron Bridge Magnetite project, and first ore mined from the Belinga Iron Ore project in Gabon as part of the early stage mine development (see Kallanish passim).
As for the average selling price and C1 cost, the two figures stood at $94.74/dry metric tonne and $17.54/wmt, falling 5% and rising 10% from the year-ago level, respectively.
As a result, the company saw its revenue fall 3% on-year to $16.87 billion during the reporting period. While the underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) and NPAT slumped 11% and 23% respectively to nearly $5.5 billion and $4.8 billion respectively.
The huge gap between underlying NPAT and NPAT was due to a $726 million impairment on the Iron Bridge magnetite project. The project ended up costing $4 billion to build, way above the $2.6 billion expected in 2019. The commissioning was also about one year behind schedule.
On the same day, FMG announced Fortescue Metals boss Fiona Hick’s shock exit just half a year after filling the position. “The departure of Fiona has been both friendly and mutual, and we warmly wish her the best for her future,” FMG controller Andrew Forrest said. Dino Otranto has been announced as the successor.
In a three-year period of turbulence, a total of 10 senior executives have left Fortescue.
Source:Kallanish
