Nickel boost for Inco

摘要

One of the speediest companies in producing its annual report, Inco Ltd, benefited from a year of significant recovery in the nickel market. At the operating level, Inco converted an 8 million US dollars loss in 1993 into a 98 million dollars profit. Net earnings, however, were down 6 million dollars to 22 million dollars after including charges of 104 million dollars, recorded in the first quarter, associated with planned production shutdowns and employment reduction. Results were especially strong in the fourth quarter due to a sharp rise in the price of nickel. Net sales improved to 2,484 million dollars, from 2,130 million dollars. Capital expenditures were reduced by 25 percent to 139 million dollars to conserve cash although expenditure for 1995 is budgeted at some 315 million dollars, with a major portion of the increase directed to mine development in Canada. Inco reduced nickel unit production costs for the third consecutive year, and announced plans to increase nickel output by at least 20 percent by the end of the decade. It also reached an agreement with the Government of Indonesia for an extension of PT International Nickel Indonesia's Contract of Work until the year 2025 and began engineering for a planned 500 million dollars expansion, which will raise output by 50 percent. In 1994, PT Inco produced a record 45,360 t (100 Mlb) of nickel in matte, up 25 percent from its previous record in 1992. Still in Asia, Inco has interests in nickel refineries in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, where it recently increased its ownership of Tokyo Nickel Co., and it entered into a joint venture agreement to produce nickel salts in China.