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Johannesburg - Diversified miner Exxaro Resources [JSE:EXX] on Thursday posted a 33% drop in full-year earnings, hit by lower coal export prices and volumes.
The company, South Africa's second-largest coal producer, with interests in iron ore and base metals, said headline earnings per share for the year to December fell to R14.01 from R20.98 the previous year.
The drop was in line with its own projection of a fall of between 31% and 40%.
Exxaro, a big supplier of coal to power utility Eskom, said full year revenue dropped 2% to R16.1bn.
Overall coal production was stable at 40 million tonnes, while export sales dropped 21%, primarily due to limited capacity on the railway line connecting the mines with the port.
"The 2013 financial and operational results are expected to be impacted by commodity price volatility, the ZAR/US$ exchange rate fluctuations, as well as the availability of trains in the export coal business," it said in a statement.
Exxaro declared a final dividend of 150c per share.
Shares in the company are up 2.4% this year, compared with a 3.7% rise in the JSE Top 40 - (Tradeable) [JSE:J200] blue-chip index.
