RE:Stinky earningsFor making a like-to-like comparison with 3rd quater results, after removing impairment loss of $43.6M from net loss of $51.7M, the remaining net loss in 4th quater is $8.1M. 3rd quater, on the other hand had a net profit of $1.1M.
Despite the zinc price being substantially hiigher in 4th quarter as compared to 3rd quater, the main reason for adverse results is the deterioration in AISC. AISC deteriorated to 0.97 in 4th quarter as compared to 0.91 in 3rd quater.
Some of the adverse effect of deterioration in AISC could have been mitigated if zinc inventory build-up in 3rd quater had been cleared in 4th quarter. However, TV did not do that. 4th quarter zinc payable production was 74.2Mlbs and zinc payble sales were 74.8Mlbs. Therefore only 0.6Mlbs was cleared out of the 3rd quater build-up of 8.8Mlbs.