Melbourne-Incitec Pivot Ltd. (IPL) reported net profit after tax (NPAT) of A$99.6 million ($.115 per share) on sales of $1.7 billion for the six months ending March 31, 2009, compared to the year-ago $169.8 million ($.17 per share) and $749.3 million, respectively. “This is a solid result in a period heavily impacted by the global financial crisis and during which demand for our products was down in all sectors, some by more than 50 percent,” said Acting CEO James Fazzino. “The result demonstrates the benefit of bringing together two complementary businesses – fertilizers and explosives – and was essentially driven by the focus of our people on managing ‘the controllables’ such as safety, customer relationships and efficiencies. The mix of earnings in the period was 53 percent fertilizers and 47 percent explosives, demonstrating the value of the Dyno Nobel acquisition.” Dyno Nobel added $1 billion in revenues, with some 1.2 million mt being sold. Fertilizer tons were down 26 percent, to 1 million mt from 1.37 million mt. Fertilizer revenues were $697.1 million, down 7 percent from the year-ago $749.3 million. The company had $70.2 million in material charges during the period, including $34.6 million for imported phosphate rock inventories, $20.5 million for the Dyno Nobel integration, and $11 million for the early closure of the Cockle Creek SSP plant. IPL also announced May 11 that due to low demand for SSP it has decided to close the Geelong plant, effective June 30, 2009. The immediate cost will be $2 million and 29 jobs. As previously reported, IPL has slowed down the construction of its Moranbah ammonium nitrate project and reports that the construction crew has been demobilized and a skeleton crew remains to preserve the value of the construction to date. Detailed design engineering has continued. IPL has reduced its guidance for annual 2009 NPAT to $380 million from the earlier $450 million, citing both weaker fertilizer prices and the strengthening of the Australian dollar.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain