Cleveland-based Cliffs became the second mining company in five days to cut its production outlook. On Friday, Patriot Coal trimmed its expected third quarter 2010 coal production guidance to a range of 7.5 million to 7.7 million st, down about 10% from its previous target.
The Pinnacle Mine, located in Wyoming County, West Virginia, produced 2.11 million st of coal in 2008, but that figure plunged to 517,511 st in 2009, according to US Mine Safety and Health Administration data.
MSHA data through Q2 2010 puts production from the mine at 774,652 st.
Including coal assets acquired through its purchase of INR Energy, Cliffs' full-year 2010 sales volume is targeted to be 3.9 million st, "with an approximate sales mix of 3.4 million st of metallurgical and 500,000 st of thermal." The incremental increase from the INR acquisition added 500,000 st each of met and thermal coal.
Because of the increased tonnage of thermal coal sales and reduced tonnage of met coal sales, Cliffs cut its North American revenues for 2010 to a range of $115/st to $120/st, down from a $140/st to $145/st range, while production costs for 2010 rose to a range of $115/ton to $120/ton from a prior
range of $110/st to $115/st.
Cliffs' shares opened Tuesday at $65.14/share, down from Monday's closing price of $67.55/share. As of 2:00 pm EDT (1800 GMT), Cliffs shares continued to trade 5.29% below Monday's close at $63.97/share.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
