Nickel and lithium miner IGO posts record quarterly earnings

afr.com:

Australian nickel and lithium miner IGO posted a 19 per cent jump in fourth quarter earnings, boosted by record production at its flagship Greenbushes lithium mine in Western Australia.

The June quarter result would have been even better but for lower commodity prices and poor output at its lithium refiner, as well as the performance of IGO’s Nova nickel mine, which produced at the low end of guidance. Its shares dropped 2.9 per cent to $14.04.

Battery grade lithium and nickel are essential commodities for decarbonisation and are heavily sought after by electric carmakers.

The Greenbushes hard-rock lithium mine in Western Australia. Darren Gray

IGO, which owns a majority stake with China’s Tianqi in Greenbushes, said the asset generated a record quarterly production result exceeding guidance. New York-listed Albemarle owns the remaining 49 per cent of Greenbushes mine.

The mine produced 395 million tonnes of spodumene, up 11 per cent, compared to 356 million tonnes in the March quarter.

Despite lower prices for the mineral, increased production pushed up IGO’s underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to $636.2 million for the quarter, a 19 per cent jump from $533.2 million in the prior three months.

Revenue rose 2 per cent to $240.6 million for the quarter, from $235.7 million.

The average realised price for spodumene was $US5431 ($8137) a tonne compared to $US5783 a tonne in the March quarter.

IGO, which has a market capitalisation of around $11 billion, said annual production from Greenbushes was above the top end of financial year 2023 guidance. But production at its troubled lithium hydroxide plant, a downstream project at Kwinana south of Perth which it owns with Tianqi, tanked by 85