By Rhiannon Hoyle
Fortescue Metals Group on Thursday said full-year iron ore shipments rose by 2%, despite a dip in fourth-quarter volumes, and forecast exports to rise further in the year ahead.
The world’s fourth-largest iron ore producer reported shipments of 48.9 million metric tons for the three months through June, taking total volumes for the fiscal year to 192.0 million tons. That was up from 189.0 million tons a year earlier and at the top end of the company’s forecast for shipments between 187 million tons and 192 million tons.
“This represents the fourth consecutive year of record shipments,” said Fiona Hick, the company’s chief executive.
Fortescue said it expects to ship between 192 million tons and 197 million tons of the steel ingredient in the year through June 2024.
The miner runs a network of iron-ore mines in remote northwest Australia. The company earlier this year started production at a new site there called Iron Bridge.
Commissioning of the new mine is progressing well despite disruptions including from tropical cyclone Ilsa and a defect in the process water pond that required remedial work, the company said. It estimated fiscal 2024 shipments from that operation of 7 million tons, and said a ramp-up to full capacity of 22 million tons a year is expected within two years.
Fortescue said it has also mined first ore from the Belinga iron-ore project in Gabon, where it expects to report its first shipment by the end of 2023.
The miner reported average annual revenue of $94.74 a ton, down from $99.80 a ton a year earlier.
“The recovery in China has been uneven, but we have been encouraged by recent signals,” said Hick.
An ongoing downturn in China’s property sector, a big buyer of industrial metals, has weighed on the Chinese economy, which barely grew in the second quarter from the first quarter. Earlier this week, one of China’s top decision-making bodies signaled plans to boost the ailing sector, helping to drive up prices of metals and stocks of miners, including Fortescue.
Fortescue shares were down 0.6% at midmorning in Sydney on Thursday amid a pullback in Australian mining stocks.
Write to Rhiannon Hoyle at [email protected]
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