Pilbara’s record lithium profit blew out office calculator
Pilbara Minerals has raised the prospect of paying a special dividend and buying back shares after the lithium miner produced what chief executive Dale Henderson described as an “incredible set of numbers” in 2022-23.
Indeed, the company’s shipping manager, Melody Thornton, had to buy a new calculator to crunch them after Pilbara Minerals’ volumes outgrew her display.
Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora lithium project in Western Australia.
Mr Henderson highlighted just how far the company and the lithium market had come in five years, after posting a full-year net profit of $2.4 billion on Friday. Pilbara Minerals’ result came on the back of a near doubling in price for its spodumene concentrate, and a 68 per cent increase in sales volumes to 607,500 tonnes.
The company received an average price of $US4447 ($6928) a tonne for spodumene concentrate in 2022-23, up from $US2382. Two-and-a-half years ago, the company sold a cargo for a paltry $US400 a tonne.
Pilbara Minerals identified potential to boost production at its flagship Pilgangoora lithium mine beyond a million tonnes a year. It has pushed back a decision on bringing in another downstream lithium processing partner after announcing a 35 per cent boost in its ore reserves to 214 million tonnes, and extending Pilgangoora’s mine life to 34 years.
Pilbara Minerals is targeting producing a million tonnes of spodumene concentrate by 2025-26, but may have more product to play with based on the ore reserve boost.
Pilbara Minerals boss Dale Henderson. Trevor Collens
It has been fielding strong interest in a downstream processing partnership that would be in addition to its existing partnership with Korea’s POSCO in a lithium hydroxide plant, a deal with ASX-listed Calix aimed
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