WESTERN Australian nickel miner, Jubilee Mines will soon be embarking on a cost-cutting drive.
WESTERN Australian nickel miner, Jubilee Mines will soon be embarking on a cost-cutting drive.
The cost study will be implemented during the next few months and comes after a record after tax profit of $48.4 million for 2002-03 and with nickel prices at 13-year-highs.
At October’s annual general meeting, shareholders heard the 2002 to 2003 reporting period had been the 16-year-old company’s most successful year, capping off an extremely profitable three-year period.
At the meeting Jubilee executive chairman Kerry Harmanis said the company had achieved a gross sales revenue of more than $405 million and net profits after tax of $95.4 million, representing total earnings per share of 78 cents since commencement of mining at its highly profitable Cosmos nickel deposit almost three years ago.
Mr Harmanis told WA Business News that the cost study would run from November to early next year and examine cost structures at all levels of the company from mining operations through to its head office in West Perth.
With the company turning over between $120 million and $130 million, he said the review made sense.
Mr Harmanis down played any implications arising from the study, saying it was part of any normal company’s procedures and likened it to a “spring clean-out”.
“We just want to see if we are wasting money . . . see if we are overspending here or there and see if we can tighten things up,” he said.
“It’s just a good time to review [these] sorts of things.”
Jubilee recently wound down its open cut mining operations at Cosmos and is now preparing to mine the deeper Cosmos Deeps nickel deposit.
Jubilee had conducted a similar cost study previously. That study resulted in only minor cost saving procedures being implemented.
Mr Harmanis said he did not think this review would be much different.
