Aurubis reports diminished profit picture

Aurubis AG, which produces copper and other nonferrous metals—many of them with recycled content—has recorded operating earnings before taxes (EBT) of 286 million euros ($330 million) in the first nine months of its 2024/2025 fiscal year.

That figure is down more than 14 percent from the 333 million euros earned during the same nine-month period in the previous fiscal year. Nonetheless, the company says its business model demonstrates its “staying power despite market headwinds.”

The Hamburg, Germany-based company says its results were impacted positively by a considerably higher metal result, underpinned in part by higher metal prices, significantly higher revenues from sulfuric acid sales and robust earnings from copper products.

Offsetting the positives this fiscal year have been lower concentrate throughput coupled with a decline in treatment and refining charges, slightly decreased revenues from recycling material processing and the expected increase in ramp-up costs as well as higher scheduled depreciation for the strategic projects currently in implementation, according to Aurubis.

Regarding project spending, Aurubis refers to the commissioning of its Richmond facility in the United States, noting precommissioning of the first stage has already started and will further intensify in the coming months.

The firm says commissioning of Stage 1 at the plant in Augusta, Georgia, will begin in September, followed by ramp-up over the course of next year.

“Once the second stage, scheduled to start operations in 2025/26, has been completed and ramped up, Aurubis Richmond annually will process around 180,000 tons of complex recycling materials into blister copper every year,” the company says.

This May through July, Aurubis also conducted what it calls the largest shutdown in three decades at the Aurubis Bulgaria site in a project designed to allow the company to extend the interval between scheduled shutdowns from two to three years at the facility.

“Aurubis is on track, [and] with our diverse earnings drivers we once again showed that we continue to deliver, even in the current challenging economic climate,” Aurubis CEO Toralf Haag says. “We are steadily and resolutely driving our corporate strategy forward, and have already successfully realized the majority of our strategic investment projects."

The company says more than 70 percent of the 1.7 billion euros ($1.96 billion) earmarked for strategic projects had already been invested by the end of the quarter that ended June 30.

“With its growth strategy, Aurubis is securing and strengthening its core business, consistently leveraging attractive growth opportunities and further expanding its leadership role in sustainability,” the company says.

Aurubis anticipates higher year-over-year earnings contributions from copper products for the remainder of this fiscal year, which concludes Sept. 30.

“Tightness in the supply of copper concentrates and recycling materials is predicted to persist temporarily as well, however,” the firm says.

Aurubis is narrowing its EBT forecast for the current fiscal year slightly, projecting it to be between 330 million and 370 million euros ($381 million to $427 million), revised from a previously predicted range of from 300 million to 400 million euros ($347 million to $462 million).