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The producer reaffirmed its full-year met coal production guidance and provided an outlook on its performance for the second quarter.
“Second quarter met coal production is expected to be solid and in line with our 2012 guidance,” chief executive officer Walt Scheller said.
Additionally, he confirmed Q2 sales volumes of metallurgical coal would increase over the prior quarter.
Walter, however, is not immune to issues plaguing the nation’s miners.
“Revenues and income will be adversely affected by lower second quarter pricing across the industry and we anticipate approximately flat sequential quarterly costs per ton,” Scheller said.
In the meantime, the producer said Q2 met production would be about 2.8 million tonnes (metric), a 10% jump from 2.5Mt.
Whole-year, it projected a production range of 11.5-13Mt, about 75% of which would be high-margin hard coking coal. The remaining 25% would be pulverized coal injection.
On the sales side, Walter expects Q2 volumes of about 2.8Mt, up from 2.4Mt in the 2012 first-quarter.
Taking global market trends into account, the company said Q2 prices would average about $US200 per tonne for HCC and $160/t for low-volatile PCI.
It includes the impact of carryover tonnage, or about 12% and 15% less, respectively, over the prior quarter.
Officials said costs per tonne sold would remain steady over the year’s first quarter and the adverse effect of reduced pricing should be offset in part by favorable non-operating gains.
