Cliffs Natural Resources beats by $0.91, beats on revs
- Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.62 per share, $0.91 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of ($0.29); revenues fell 31.4% year/year to $306 mln vs the $271.8 mln Capital IQ Consensus.
- Maintains guidance: For 2016, Cliffs is maintaining its full-year sales volume expectation of approximately 17.5 million tons from its U.S. Iron Ore business. The Company is also maintaining its 2016 production forecast of 16 million tons of iron ore pellets. Cliffs is maintaining its cash production cost per long ton2 expectation of $50 - $55 and the cash cost of goods sold per long ton expectation of $55 - $60. The cash cost of goods sold per long ton expectation includes expected idle costs of $65 million for the full year. Cliffs anticipates depreciation, depletion and amortization to be approximately $5 per long ton for full-year 2016.
- "The steel market in the United States has started to show consistent signs of a real recovery, with a direct positive impact on our steel clients' order books and, consequently, a totally expected improvement in our clients' appetite for the pellets we supply them. Also, the announcement of a newly adopted supply discipline going forward by the two Australian majors, followed by a similar statement coming from their Brazilian peer, has generated a more reasonable pricing environment for sinter feed fines in the international market for iron ore, which continues to be short in lump ore and pellets.