In an interview with the BusinessMirror on Friday, Citinickel president and ORE vice president for administration Ferdinand Pallera said the company has already reached its earlier forecast of at least 16 shipments this year. Each shipment contains about 50,000 tons of nickel ore.

He said additional shipments during the last quarter could bring the year- end figure to 22 or 23 shipments, mainly to customers in mainland China and Australia. In 2012, Citinickel is targeting to ship 2.4 million tons of nickel ore, added Pallera.

Citnickel started operations at its mine in Española, Palawan during the third quarter. It commenced operations at its Narra site in March. “We are still in the fine tuning mode,” Pallera said, while reiterating plans for Citinickel to ramp up production at its mines.

Last month, ORE chief executive officer Caroline Tanchay said Citinickel expects to release at least six shipments per month by the summer of 2012. She said a capital budget of P500 million is needed to complete the expansion program.

ORE reported earlier that net income in the three months to June jumped to P280.38 million, reversing a net loss of P8.73 million in the same period last year, while revenues amounted to P506.33 million. Gross mining revenues stood at P312.91 million as production costs hit P193.42 million.

The miner did not book mining revenues last year as it only started commercial operations toward the end of the first quarter of 2011.

ORE said it sold a total of 370,603 wet metric tons of nickel ore in the second quarter alone.

(Miguel R. Camus)