Talivaara swings into the red in Q3

Talivaara Mining has made a loss for the third quarter after production was hurt by technical problems.

Operating profit for the period fell from €10.9m to €5.5m, leading to an overall loss of €3.4m compared to €5.1m profit last year.

Chief executive officer Pekka Per said: "As we announced in our latest operational update, we continued to face reliability and availability issues at our metals recovery plant during the third quarter.

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"Production was hurt particularly by problems in hydrogen sulphide generators, which suffered from the lack of critical spare parts and could only be operated at an overall capacity utilisation level of around 35% during the quarter.

Keen to emphasise the positives, he added: "Despite the production issues, we achieved a solid financial result for the quarter. The significant improvement in net sales compared to the previous quarter reflected deliveries of nickel left in inventory at the end of Q2, and we recorded an operating profit of €5.5m."

The firm, which is currently looking to hire a new chief executive officer, is now focusing on maximising the profitability of its operations rather than the production volume.

The share price fell 5.78% to 212p by 15:19.

NR