August 7 (SeeNews) - German copper producer Aurubis said on Monday that the concentrate throughput of its plant in Pirdop, Bulgaria fell by an annual 17% to 896,000 tonnes in the first nine months of fiscal year 2022/2023 ending on September 30 as a result of a now-completed 40-day maintenance shutdown at the site.
"The routine maintenance shutdown at our Pirdop site with an investment volume of around 60 million euro ($65.8 million) was completed in the planned timeframe and budget," Aurubis said in an interim financial statement. The Pirdop site has been fully operational since June 28.
The large-scale project involved more than 130 maintenance and repair activities designed to improve technology equipment, reliability and sustainability.
During the review period, copper cathode output at Pirdop increased by 2% year-on-year to 171,000 t, whereas sulfuric acid output was 18% lower than a year ago, at 895,000 t., the company said.
In the third quarter alone of Aurubis' current fiscal year, concentrate throughput at Pirdop dropped 52% on the year to 172,000 t and production of sulfuric acid fell by an annual 51% to 176,000 t. Cathode output remained unchanged at 57,000 t between April and June.
"We continue to closely follow economic developments in Europe, which predict a drop in industrial activity in key sectors. And our focus remains on safeguarding our international competitiveness by further lowering our energy costs through active energy management. This is also contingent on consistently competitive energy prices for industry, especially in Germany, " Aurubis CEO Roland Harings said.
Looking ahead, Aurubis expects energy costs to remain high in the fiscal year 2022-2023, despite the current drop in energy prices
"We can partially absorb price risks with our hedging activities. Additionally, CO2 electricity price compensations and the electricity price cap in Bulgaria take effect with a time lag," Aurubis noted.
($ = 0.9114 euro)
Aurubis Bulgaria AD (formerly known as Cumerio Med AD) is among the biggest companies in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here