Fortescue quarterly shipments drop
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The news: Miner Fortescue Metals Group is holding on to its full year export guidance despite recording lower shipments in the March quarter following a derailment.
The numbers: Iron ore mined was down 8% from a year ago to 46.6 million wet metric tonnes. Shipments fell 6% in the March quarter to 43.3 million tonnes while average direct iron ore production costs (C1 cash costs) were up 7% to USD18.93 ($29.17) a tonne.
Shares in the company were down 1.7% to $24.19 in early trading on the ASX.
The context: Fortescue attributed the fall in shipments to bad weather and a derailment at its Pilbara iron ore operations in late December, which resulted in a significant outage.
Despite the slowdown, the miner has maintained its full year export guidance at 192 million tonnes to 197 million tonnes.
However, the company flagged a further cut in guidance at its troubled Iron Bridge magnetite project in WA, with full-year shipments now likely to be 2 million tonnes instead of 2 million to 4 million tonnes previously. Fortescue owns a 70% stake in the WA operation.
The source: ASX announcement
