Bumi's Q1 profit falls on high production costs

PT Bumi Resources, Indonesia's biggest coal exporter, said first-quarter profit fell 48 percent as higher fuel prices bolstered production costs, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Net income declined to US$24.67 million or 0.13 cent a share, in the three months ended March 31, Bumi said in a statement to the Jakarta Stock Exchange.

The company reported a net income of Rp 446.7 billion ($47.65 million) in the year-earlier period. Bumi didn't provide comparative numbers in the statement.

Sales were $425 million in the quarter, the company said. That's a 29 percent gain from last year's reported sales of $330 million.

Prices of fuels used by mining companies and manufacturers have more than doubled after the Indonesian government removed subsidies last year. Fuel accounted for 13 percent of Bumi's production costs in 2005, a proportion that may rise to 24 percent in 2006, Peter Tabalujan, the company's head of investor relations, said on March 13. (*)