Singapore 01/02/2016 - China’s largest copper producers, Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group and Jiangxi Copper Co, have separately warned of dismal 2015 fiscal year results due to falling copper prices.
Tongling Nonferrous expects a net loss of 620-670 million yuan ($94-102 million) in 2015 on falling product prices and depreciation of the Chinese yuan against the US dollar, the company said in a Saturday filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
The forecasted loss compares to a 300.66 million yuan net profit in 2014.
With 1.4 million tonnes per year of copper cathode production capacity, Tongling Nonferrous is China's largest and the world's second-biggest producer of refined copper, according to the company.
It had produced 663,200 tonnes of copper cathode in January-June last year.
Meanwhile Jiangxi Copper Co expects its net profit to fall by 60-80 percent in 2015 after a significant drop in the selling prices of company products including copper and gold, Jiangxi Copper said in its filing to the Hong Kong exchange on Friday after market close.
The company had made a 2.85 billion yuan net profit in 2014.
Jiangxi Copper had expected to produce around 1.2 million tonnes of copper last year.
The London Metal Exchange three-month copper price has fallen by around 30 percent since May this year. It was last at $4,523 per tonne on Monday, down $38 from Friday’s close.