Bumi 2010 Profit Climbs to $311 Million, Beating Estimates

PT Bumi Resources, Indonesia’s largest coal producer by volume, said net income jumped 63 percent last year, beating analyst estimates, as prices of the fuel increased. 

Profit climbed to $311 million from $191 million, the Jakarta-based company said in a statement published today in Suara Pembaruan newspaper. Revenue rose to $4.4 billion from $3.7 billion. That compares with a mean estimate of $276 million in profit and $4.1 billion in revenue from a Bloomberg News survey of 17 analysts. 

Coal producers in Indonesia, the world’s second-largest exporter of the fuel, are benefiting from gains in prices and demand after floods in Australia, the largest shipper, disrupted output. The Indonesian coal reference price rose 18 percent to $103.41 a metric ton in December compared with February 2010, when the government started the benchmark index. 

The unit of PT Bakrie & Brothers sold a “little over” 60 million tons of coal last year at an average $70 a ton compared with 58 million tons at $63 a ton in 2009, Director Dileep Srivastava said Jan. 21. Bumi expects sales and prices to increase by at least 10 percent this year, assuming reasonable weather conditions, he said then. 

Analysts expect Bumi, which has a market value of 69.6 trillion rupiah ($8 billion), to report $515 million in profit and $5.3 billion in sales this year. 

Bumi was unchanged at 3,350 rupiah at the 4 p.m. close in Jakarta trading. The stock has risen 11 percent this year compared with the 0.7 percent drop in the benchmark Jakarta Composite Index. (JCI). Source: Bloomberg