Nickel, copper and cobalt had a golden tinge for Perth-based Independence Group yesterday which reported record revenues and profits from the first full-year of operation at its Nova mine in WA and improved operating performance at its Tropicana joint venture.
Directors declared a final dividend of 2 cents for a total for the year of 3 cents a share, up from two cents a share in 2016-17.
Independence Group shares were up more than 2% at one stage before easing back to close the day up 0.6% at $4.34.
Directors said net profit was up 210% to $52.7 million on record revenue of $781 million and record underlying earnings of $339 million.
Independence said the jump in cash flow from the Nova mine and higher gold prices at Tropicanna helped to cut net debt over the period to $4 million from $164 million previously.
The Nova mine reported revenue of $348.8 million over the 12 months on sales of nickel, copper and cobalt, while revenue from Tropicana was up 13% to $240.4 million on the back of higher Australian-dollar gold prices and higher gold sales.
Cash at bank increased by $102.9 million to $138.7 million at year end while gross debt fell from $200 million to $142.9 million.
The company sold its Stockman and Jaguar projects over the period and transitioned its Long nickel mine to care and maintenance.
CEO Peter Bradford said Nova had demonstrated the capability to operate at 20% above its rated capacity over the period both underground and through the processing plant.
“We also completed grade control drilling of the entire known resource at Nova-Bollinger in July delivering improved geological understanding and greater certainty,” he said.
“We enter full-year 2019 with a strong balance sheet, strong free cashflow generation, a strong portfolio with a robust mix of high quality production assets and belt scale exploration projects with the potential to deliver multiple tier one discoveries.
“Our focus now is on unlocking additional value from both Nova and Tropicana through ongoing enhancement projects and delivering step change growth through exploration and discovery, downstream processing to produce nickel sulphate, and the expansion of the portfolio to become a globally relevant supplier of metals critical to the energy storage and electric vehicle market.”
IGO gave full-year 2019 guidance from Nova of 27,000 to 30,000 tonnes of nickel in concentrate (22,258 in 2017-18), 11,000 to 12,500 tonnes of copper in concentrate (9,545 tonnes) and 850 to 950 tonnes of cobalt in concentrate (217 tonnes of metal).
For Tropicana, it issued full-year guidance of between 500,000 ounces and 550,000oz of gold (467,100 oz in 2017-18).
