Nickel Asia Corp. said nickel shipments jumped 52 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2014, following the completion of the new Taganito hydrometallurgical processing plant in Surigao del Norte province, despite the lower prices of nickel in the world market.

Nickel Asia said it shipped 2.65 million wet metric tons of nickel in the January-March period, up from 1.74 million WMT recorded in the same period last year.

The higher output also led to a 21-percent increase in the value of shipments to P1.45 billion in the first quarter from P1.20 billion a year ago.

“Higher revenues were achieved despite lower prices when compared to the same period last year. It will be recalled that last year, nickel prices were at fairly high levels during the early part, and started to trend downwards towards the second half of 2013,” Nickel Asia said.

The company’s Rio Tuba mine shipped and delivered 474 WMT of saprolite ore and 1 million WMT of limonite ore, including 871,000 WMT which were delivered to the Coral Bay processing plant.

The Taganito mine shipped and delivered 202,000 WMT of saprolite ore and 931,000 WMT of limonite ore to the new Taganito plant.

“Our first-quarter shipment volumes increased substantially as we begin to realize the effects of the commercial operations of the new Taganito processing plant. Our Taganito mine is scheduled to deliver over 4 million wet metric tons of limonite ore to the plant this year,” said Nickel Asia president and chief executive Gerard Brimo.

• [Editor:Juan]