Teck Resources Q4 profit beats targets on strong coal sales, copper output

(Reuters) -Canadian miner Teck Resources beat fourth-quarter profit estimates on Thursday, helped by an increase in steelmaking coal sales and record copper production.

The company also benefited from higher copper prices due to supply shortages, which Teck said have accelerated into next quarter.

Teck said its realized copper prices rose 2% and it reported a 58% surge in copper production to 103,400 tonnes in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.

Higher production was reported at its Quebrada Blanca mine in Chile and Highland Valley Copper and Antamina mines in Canada and Peru.

Total adjusted profit came in at C$1.40 per share for the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with analysts' estimate of C$1.33 per share, according to LSEG data.

For the full-year, Teck expects copper production between 465,000 and 540,000 tonnes, above 296,500 tonnes produced in 2023.

Steelmaking coal sales surged 42% to 6.1 million tonnes in the October-December quarter. Production in the unit is expected between 24.0 and 26.0 million tonnes in 2024, compared with 23.7 million tonnes a year earlier.

The miner said on Thursday the steelmaking coal market would remain in deficit in the first quarter amid strong demand from Southeast Asia and India.

In November, a Glencore-led group agreed to buy Teck's steelmaking coal unit for $9 billion and the deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

(Reporting by Seher Dareen, Arunima Kumar, Shivani Tanna and Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Shinjini Ganguli)