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Johannesburg - Wescoal Holdings Limited [JSE:WSL] for the first time touched the billion rand turnover mark as the group experienced a revenue surge of 69.5% for the year ending March 2014.
"R1.1bn is a fantastic result," CEO Andre Boje told Fin24.
Watch the full interview:
The group’s gross profits for the financial year ending March 2014 increased by 72.7% to R125.5m largely due the increase in revenue. Operational EBITDA reached R102.2m; a 123.6% increase.
Operating costs intensified by 66.3% to R81.3m and this was as a result of the commissioning of the Intibane Colliery, restructuring costs related to the merger of McPhail and Chandler Coal and the relocation of Wescoal’s head office from Krugersdorp to Isando on the East Rand.
Shareholder funds have increased by 54.1% to R273.2m net asset value per share and headline earnings and headline earnings per share saw an uptick of 37.9% and 28.7% respectively.
Wescoal said that it ended the year with cash and cash equivalents up 143.2% to R51.9m from R21.4m in the prior year.
Boje said Wescoal's trading division was impacted by Eskom.
"The trading division was affected by Eskom because they have rather large exposure to IPPs of South Africa and it is common knowledge that Eskom didn’t renew the IPP contracts on the 1st of January this year.
"This all returned to normality on the 1st of April and indications are that going forward for the balance of this financial year until March of 2015, things will have remained as they are now."
Boje said Wescoal's challenges have always been sustainability.
"We have a distinct probability of extending the life of both Khanyisa and Intibane by a further 2-3 years into 2017, but our flagship project is the Eilandspruit project."
He added that a lot of work has been done on it and that it will be up and running soon.
"We are reasonably confident that we will have our water-use licence for that operation by August of this year and as we proved at Intibane Colliery, once you have your water-use licence four months after that we’ll be on coal."
Boje said the challenges with Eilandspruit were about surface rights, but that the acquisition of the surface licence is "by-and-large completed".
He said that capex that is required is in the region of R170m, adding that the board approved the amount and gave the go ahead of the project.
"We’re looking forward to it...if you can imagine us doing 4m tonnes by 2016, which is what our target is, compared to the current 1.9m tonnes now, plus the integration of Macphail into our operation, it is just a different company," Boje concluded.
- Fin24
"R1.1bn is a fantastic result," CEO Andre Boje told Fin24.
Watch the full interview:
The group’s gross profits for the financial year ending March 2014 increased by 72.7% to R125.5m largely due the increase in revenue. Operational EBITDA reached R102.2m; a 123.6% increase.
Operating costs intensified by 66.3% to R81.3m and this was as a result of the commissioning of the Intibane Colliery, restructuring costs related to the merger of McPhail and Chandler Coal and the relocation of Wescoal’s head office from Krugersdorp to Isando on the East Rand.
Shareholder funds have increased by 54.1% to R273.2m net asset value per share and headline earnings and headline earnings per share saw an uptick of 37.9% and 28.7% respectively.
Wescoal said that it ended the year with cash and cash equivalents up 143.2% to R51.9m from R21.4m in the prior year.
Boje said Wescoal's trading division was impacted by Eskom.
"The trading division was affected by Eskom because they have rather large exposure to IPPs of South Africa and it is common knowledge that Eskom didn’t renew the IPP contracts on the 1st of January this year.
"This all returned to normality on the 1st of April and indications are that going forward for the balance of this financial year until March of 2015, things will have remained as they are now."
Boje said Wescoal's challenges have always been sustainability.
"We have a distinct probability of extending the life of both Khanyisa and Intibane by a further 2-3 years into 2017, but our flagship project is the Eilandspruit project."
He added that a lot of work has been done on it and that it will be up and running soon.
"We are reasonably confident that we will have our water-use licence for that operation by August of this year and as we proved at Intibane Colliery, once you have your water-use licence four months after that we’ll be on coal."
Boje said the challenges with Eilandspruit were about surface rights, but that the acquisition of the surface licence is "by-and-large completed".
He said that capex that is required is in the region of R170m, adding that the board approved the amount and gave the go ahead of the project.
"We’re looking forward to it...if you can imagine us doing 4m tonnes by 2016, which is what our target is, compared to the current 1.9m tonnes now, plus the integration of Macphail into our operation, it is just a different company," Boje concluded.
- Fin24
