India-focused miner Vedanta Resources today posted a sharp increase in third-quarter underlying profit on strong commodity prices and metal output increases.
The London-listed company, which also has operations in Zambia and Australia, said today earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 174 per cent to a record $724 million in the three months to end-December on revenue of $1.76 billion, up 81 per cent.
A poll of seven analysts by the company had put the mean EBITDA forecast at $698.4 million on revenue of $1.68 billion.
Vedanta, which said in November it wanted to achieve annual production of 1 million tonnes in each of its primary metals - aluminium, copper and zinc - by 2010, said nine-month EBITDA rose to $2 billion.
Shares in Vedanta, which hit a record high of 1,822 pence in May and moved roughly in line with the UK mining index for the past 12 months, rose 4.05 per cent to 1,155 pence by 8.05am, valuing the firm at around £3.3 billion sterling ($6.5 billion).