Brazilian miner Vale reported on Wednesday a $694-million loss in the fourth quarter, missing estimates and swinging from a hefty profit a year earlier, as it logged impairments on some of its base metals assets in Canada.
Vale, one of the world’s largest iron-ore producers, also cut its planned spending for this year and announced fresh remuneration to shareholders through dividends and a share buyback.
The firm’s quarterly net loss, far below the $1.95-billion profit expected by analysts in a LSEG poll and the $2.4-billion profit a year earlier, was hit by impairments of $1.4-billion on its Thompson nickel operations and $540-million on a project to expand its Voisey’s Bay mine, both in Canada.
Its core profit as measured by adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) came in at $3.79-billion in the quarter, down 41% and below analysts’ estimate of $3.96-billion.
Vale last monthreleased its sales and production report, which showed a near 5% decline in its quarterly iron-ore output compared to a year earlier, although the miner notched its highest annual production since 2018 in the year.
In a separate filing on Wednesday, Vale trimmed its projected capital expenditures for this year from $6.5 billion to $5.9 billion.