Strategic Minerals PLC on Wednesday said its annual profit increased despite a drop in revenue and difficulties facing its Cobre stockpile, and said it was encouraged by its outlook after a ‘testing’ two years.
Strategic Minerals is a London-headquartered mining company with projects in New Mexico, South Australia and the UK.
The miner said its pretax profit for 2022 was up 45% to $372,000 from $257,000 the year before. Revenue however decreased 6.3% to $2.4 million from $2.6 million.
The company’s cost of raw materials and consumables decreased 5.7% to $494,000 from $524,000. Overhead expenses decreased 11% to $1.5 million from $1.7 million.
Strategic Minerals said sales from its Cobre magnetite stock pile in New Mexico fell by 6.3% to a ‘respectable’ $2.4 million from $2.6 million. The company said that sales to Cobre’s largest client ‘significantly reduced’ in the fourth quarter due to recessionary concerns affecting the construction industry on the US west coast, although this was offset by a 20% price increase in July 2022.
‘While we are confident of their return as a client, we are unsure of timing due to a large stockpile of our material that they have on site,’ Strategic Minerals explained.
The company declared no dividend for 2022, unchanged from the previous year.
Strategic Minerals said its outlook ‘is encouraging having weathered testing times in both 2021 and 2022.’ It said the ‘robust performance’ of commodities like copper and tin were not yet reflected in its shares’ market valuations, but increased its optimism nonetheless.
Shares in the company were down 0.6% at 0.17 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.
The miner also said it is actively pursuing funding to restart production at the Leigh Creek copper mine in South Australia, and to progress the Redmoor tin and tungsten project in Cornwall, England. Strategic Minerals expects production at Leigh Creek to start later this year. At Redmoor, pre-feasibility and bankable feasibility studies first must be completed and are anticipated to take up to two and a half years.
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