February 16 (SeeNews) - Canada's Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) said on Thursday its Bulgarian mine Chelopech recorded adjusted earnings before income taxes of $49.9 million (46.8 million euro) in 2016, down from $61.8 million the year before.
The drop in adjusted earnings before income taxes can primarily be explained by the 27% decrease in realized copper prices and impairment charges of $7.7 million on certain equipment that Chelopech does not expect to use, DPM said in its annual report.
The mine recorded net revenue of $161.6 million last year, up from $131.7 million in 2015, mainly due to higher market gold prices and lower transportation costs, DPM said.
Cost of sales dropped to $108.2 million in 2016, from $112.6 million the year before.
In the fourth quarter of 2016 alone, adjusted earnings before income taxes rose to $19.2 million from $8.1 million a year earlier.
Net revenue in the October-December period rose to $45.5 million, from $22.6 million in 2015.
The mine’s output of gold rose to 118,428 ounces in 2016, from 114,951 ounces in 2015, while silver output fell to 227,673 ounces, from 242,094 ounces.
Copper output fell to 38.5 million pounds in 2016, from 39.8 million pounds the year before.
The mine sold 107,944 ounces of gold, 160,537 ounces of silver and 36.1 million pounds of copper in 2016.
($ = 0.9383 euro)