Australian Movers: Woodside, Mount Gibson Production Surges

Marcus Jacob
17 Jul, 2014
New York City

Resource stocks traded higher in Australia after mining companies reported higher quarterly production. Guildford Coal received unsolicited offer for its coal assets. Mount Gibson reported record annual sales and production. Woodside Petroleum second quarter oil production increased 17.5%.

[R]5:00 PM Sydney, Australia – Resource stocks traded higher in Australia after mining companies reported higher quarterly production. Guildford Coal received unsolicited offer for its coal assets. Mount Gibson reported record annual sales and production. Woodside Petroleum second quarter oil production increased 17.5%.[/R]

Stocks barely edged up in active trading and resource stocks led the trading direction in the session after companies reported quarterly production and released outlook for the year.

Australian dollar closed at 93.75 U.S. cents and stock trading turnover climbed to 847 million shares worth $5.42 billion.

ASX 200 index edged up 3.50 to 5,522.40 and the broader All Ordinaries rose 5.40 to 5,509.90.

Stocks in Review

Guildford Coal Limited and the stock was halted at 0.059 cents the company received unsolicited offer from Singapore-based company to acquire its Australian coal assets for US$22.5 million.

Mount Gibson Iron Limited climbed 4.4% to 71.5 cents after the iron ore producer reported record ore sales in the year ending in June and built cash reserves to a record year-end total of $520 million and full-year free on board iron ore sales revenue of $890 million.

The miner increased annual iron ore sales 11% to 9.7 million wet metric tons. Koolan Island sales increased to 1.2 million wet metric tons in the fourth-quarter ending in June and to 3.7 million wet metric tons for the year.

Woodside Petroleum Limited gained 0.6% to $41.87 after the oil and gas producer reported production in the second-quarter ending in June climbed 17.5% to 23.5 million from 20 million barrels of oil equivalent a year ago period.

The company said revenue in the quarter surged 25% to US$1.68 billion.

The company raised its production target for the year to a range between 89 million and 94 million barrels of oil equivalent from the prior range of 86 million barrels to 93 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Wesfarmers limited rose 0.6% to $43.29 after the company said coal production for the quarter increased 4% to 3,334,000 tons comprising 2,406,000 tons of metallurgical coal and 928,000 tons of steaming coal compared to the previous quarter.

Metallurgical coal production increased 1.3% and steaming coal production climbed 11.8% from last quarter.

For the year ending in June, metallurgical coal production soared 19.4% to 8.8 million tons and steaming coal production jumped 7.5% to 3.5 million tons.