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Westmoreland Coal Company (NasdaqGM:WLB) today reported its results for fiscal year 2012.
Highlights:
- Westmoreland delivered record revenue and Adjusted EBITDA in 2012
- 2012 revenues grew 19.7% to $600.4 million and Adjusted EBITDA grew 44.2% to $105.4 million
- Operating income improved 171.7% to $28.9 million
- 2012 net loss applicable to common shareholders decreased to $8.6 million from $34.5 million in 2011
- 2012 operating cash flows of $57.1 million enabled $23.0 million buyback of 10.75% senior secured notes during the fourth quarter and a year-end cash position of $31.6 million
- Net leverage ratio declined to 3.00
- Expected production volume and Adjusted EBITDA growth in 2013
- Westmoreland continued its strong safety performance achieving reportable and lost time incident rates approximately 67.9% and 42.5%, respectively, of the national averages for surface operations for the year ended December 31, 2012
“We built upon the strong trends established earlier in the year and delivered an excellent fourth quarter” said Keith E. Alessi, Westmoreland’s CEO. “We achieved these results despite the fact that our major Beulah mine customer experienced an unexpected maintenance issue, which shut the plant down for the last seven weeks of the quarter. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA increased to $28.0 million, up 145.1% from the prior year. Fourth quarter operating income increased to $8.6 million, up 296.1% from the prior year. This contributed to our record 2012 results. During the quarter,
we repurchased $23.0 million of our 10.75% senior secured notes and ended the year with a net leverage ratio of 3.00. At the time of the Kemmerer mine acquisition in January 2012, the proforma net leverage ratio was approximately 4.2. During 2012, we retired a total of $44.8 million in debt and incurred $42.7 million in debt-related interest expenses. We believe that our strategy of deleveraging is a sound one and, as we continue to do so, the related reduction in interest expense will improve our net income.”
“As we enter 2013, we expect revenue and costs per ton to be in line with those experienced in 2012. Although weather, maintenance and other issues impact our ultimate coal tonnage, we currently project that we will sell between 23.0 and 25.0 million tons in 2013, versus 21.7 million in 2012. If we are able to achieve these tonnages, we would expect adjusted EBITDA to fall in a range between $112.0 and $120.0 million. This range reflects the Beulah mine outage, which extended until February 14, 2013 and will impact first quarter 2013 results. We plan to spend between $23.0 and $28.0 million in capital expenditures and expect to continue to use any cash generated after interest expenses to retire debt.”
“We remain proud of our safety record, company-wide, and are particularly pleased with safety improvements made at the Kemmerer mine since the acquisition in early 2012.”