Yanzhou Coal Mining, a listed unit of the mainland's fourth-largest coal producer, expects profit to rebound this year after two consecutive years of decline, on the back of expected higher coal prices and sales volume.
Executive director Wu Yuxiang yesterday said the company aimed to raise sales volume by 8.2 per cent to 37.5 million tonnes, including two million tonnes from its Australian mine, which started operations in October and one million tonnes from its Tianchi mine in Shanxi province that started in November.
Sales target of its six mines in Shandong province is 34.5 million tonnes compared with last year's actual sales of 34.33 million tonnes.
The company has signed contracts to sell 13.03 million tonnes of coal this year at an average 19.2 per cent price increase from last year.
Mr Wu expected the remaining 21.5 million tonnes of the sales target to be sold in the spot market at higher prices than last year, both in the domestic market and overseas.
'Our net profit should be higher this year than last year; it is just a matter of by how much,' he said.
Yanzhou Coal last Friday posted a 17.6 per cent fall in net profit to 2.37 billion yuan, below the 2.83 billion yuan mean estimate of 21 analysts polled by Thomson First Call.
