NWR - Unaudited 9M 2015 Results

9M 2015 Financial summary

Revenues of EUR 445 million, down 12%.
Coking coal average realised price of EUR 92/t, up 7%.
Thermal coal average realised price of EUR 51/t, down 9%.
Cash mining unit costs[1] of EUR 69/t, up 2% on 10% lower production
Selling and administrative expenses down 14% to EUR 86 million.
EBITDA of EUR (4) million, vs. EUR 4 million in 9M 2014.
Non-cash gain of EUR 47 million on fair value revaluation of mandatory convertible notes.
Basic loss per A share of 0.28 eurocents compared to a basic loss per A share of 15.96 eurocents for 9M 2014.
Net debt of EUR 321 million.
Cash of EUR 57 million as of 30 September 2015.

9M 2015 Operational summary

Safety metrics LTIFR[2] of 5.64 vs. 8.18 in FY 2014.
Coal production of 5.7Mt, down 10% and coal sales of 5.4Mt, down 12%.
Coal sales mix of 59% coking coal and 41% thermal coal.
CAPEX of EUR 28 million, down 38%.
Coal Inventory of 1,014kt, up 66% year on year.
Total headcount including contractors down 5%.

2015 Prices and targets[3]

Average price for coking coal production agreed at EUR 93/t.
Average price for thermal coal production agreed at EUR 52/t.
Production and sales volume of 7.5-8.0Mt and 8.0Mt, respectively.
Coking coal in the sales mix to be below 60% target, principally due to the anticipated Q4 sell-down of thermal coal inventories.
Cash mining unit costs of around EUR 65 per tonne.
CAPEX of EUR 30-40 million.
Improvement in LTIFR towards the target of below 5.

Boudewijn Wentink, Finance and Legal Director stated:

"Our business continues to feel pressure from slower global industrial output. Since the beginning of the year, we have seen a further deterioration in the global coal market: prices for hard coking coal have come down by 33%.

Our region is structurally short of hard coking coal, a commodity essential to the steel-making process, which usually allows us to achieve pricing around import parity. The market for our thermal coal remains subdued due to continued regional oversupply and aggressive pricing by certain competitors.

The still-tough market underlines the importance of our continuous efforts to strengthen NWR's operational and financial performance, including business and portfolio optimisation. In the period under review, while we successfully reduced overhead costs by 10%, our cash mining unit costs have increased by 2% to EUR 69 per tonne due to lower production, though down from EUR 71 at the half year.

Also, we have entered into discussions with the Czech Republic government about the future of our Paskov mine, after the existing agreement with the government ended on 30 September 2015. These discussions are ongoing.

Our realised pricing for the year to date has been stable, as has our sales mix. Production volumes are in line with our full-year guidance and our safety performance continues to improve. The revenue for the nine months was EUR 445 million, down 12% due to lower sales volumes.

We have achieved good cash control, though experienced a one-time negative working capital impact. Accordingly, the net cash balance was EUR 57 million as of 30 September - but by the end of October this had already bounced back up to EUR 77 million. We are working towards our full-year sales target of 8Mt, lowering levels of inventory and thereby contributing to our net cash position.

We have decided to retain our existing management structure in 2016. Gareth Penny will remain as Executive Chairman of NWR and Dale Ekmark as Managing Director of OKD."

full press release (en)