February 18 (SeeNews) - Hamburg-based copper producer Aurubis said that the copper concentrate throughput of its plant in Pirdop, Bulgaria fell by an annual 10% to 323,000 tonnes in the first quarter of fiscal year 2018-2019, started October 1.
The Bulgarian plant's output was affected by an unscheduled shutdown due to boiler damage, Aurubis said in an interim report last week.
The Pirdop site's cathode output lost 5% to 55,000 t in the review period, while sulfuric acid production dropped 17% to 300,000 t.
"Unscheduled shutdowns at our sites in Hamburg, Pirdop, and Lünen had a negative impact of about 25 million euro on the operating result in Q1 2018/19," Aurubis said.
Aurubis' consolidated operating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) slid 38% to 58 million euro ($65.6 million) in the company's first fiscal quarter, following a 10% decrease in revenue to 2.34 billion euro.
The company intends to carry out a 22-day legally mandatory maintenance shutdown at Pirdop in May and June, which is expected to have a roughly 15 million euro impact on the group's operating EBT.
The Pirdop smelter is located 80 kilometres east of the capital Sofia.
Aurubis employs over 800 people in Bulgaria.
($ = 0.8840 euro)
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