Aurizon, Incitec Pivot and Resolute Mining count costs of Queensland floods

Aurizon, Incitec Pivot and Resolute Mining all detailing impacts from the Queensland floods.

Weather disruptions weighed on Aurizon’s first-half profit. Pic: AAP

Corporate Australia is counting the costs of the flooding in Far North Queensland, with Aurizon Holdings, Incitec Pivot and Resolute Mining all detailing the impacts from the disaster.

All three companies have operations in and around the area inundated in recent weeks during the one-in-100-year monsoon.

Aurizon confirmed that the flooding had disrupted its bulk haulage business between Mt Isa and Townsville, adding further pressure to earnings that had already taken a hit from bad weather, strikes and an unfavourable tariff decision by Queensland regulators.

But it maintained its full-year forecast for underlying earnings from all businesses except its network arm at $390 million to $430m, excluding redundancy costs.

Aurizon chief executive Andrew Harding said the main impact of the floods had been on its employees and their property in the region.

“There has been an impact on the Queensland Rail infrastructure, at this stage I have not been advised as to what that impact means to our above-rail business in that area,” Mr Harding said.

But he noted that the rail network affected was only used by Aurizon’s bulks business, which he said was “many times smaller” than its mainstay coal haulage business.

The outage of the Mt Isa-Townsville rail line has also forced the shutdown of Incitec Pivot’s Phosphate Hill fertiliser plant.

Incitec warned that it would lose around $10m a week in earnings before interest and tax while Phosphate Hill was shut down after being cut off from Townsville.

“IPL understands that the rail infrastructure provider is waiting for conditions to improve in order to allow full access to the rail line and assess when rail services are likely to resume,” the company said.

“IPL began a progressive shutdown of plants within its Phosphate Hill facility over the weekend and is continuing to run each plant for as long as possible given storage and input constraints.”

Resolute Mining said it had enacted a partial shutdown of its Ravenswood mine to allow staff to be with families and protect their homes.

But it said the operations were now back to normal, and the company expects the several days of production delayed during the shutdown to be made up in the weeks ahead.

Aurizon’s update on the storm damage came as the company announced a sharp 19 per cent fall in first-half earnings.

The company recorded a net profit of $227m in the six months through December, down from $282m a year earlier. It declared an interim dividend of 11.4 cents a share, a payout of 100 per cent of its underlying net profit after tax.

The main driver of the fall in earnings was Aurizon’s decision to end its fight against the new tariff charges set last year by the Queensland Competition Authority.

That decision prompted Aurizon to flag it will have to issue $61m in revenue refunds this year, with some $30m of those refunds recognised in Monday’s half-year results.