April 24 (Reuters) – Australian miner Fortescue narrowly missed third-quarter iron ore shipment estimates on Friday, but reported better performance than last year due to strength in its hematite operations.
Shipments from Fortescue’s Iron Bridge project in Western Australia rose 33.3% to 2 million metric tons (Mt) in the third quarter, whereas production and outload were impacted by weather disruptions related to Tropical Cyclones Mitchell and Narelle during the period.
The Perth-headquartered miner lowered its Iron Bridge shipments forecast to 9 Mt to 10 Mt on a 100% basis, compared to an earlier estimate of 10 Mt to 12 Mt.
The world’s fourth-largest iron ore miner shipped 48.4 Mt of iron ore in the three months ended March 31, marginally missing Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 48.6 Mt.
It was higher than 46.1 Mt reported a year earlier.
The hematite operations shipped 46.4 Mt in the quarter, versus 44.6 Mt last year.
(Reporting by Sneha Kumar and Sherin Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Maju Samuel)
