Reuters reported that New World Resources owner of the Czech Republic's largest hard coal mines, swung to a Q3 net loss on falling demand, although it said that the market was showing signs of improving and raised its output goal.

The company posted a net loss in the period of EUR 27.6 million against an average forecast of EUR 21.1 million in a Reuter’s analyst poll and compared with a EUR 70.3 million profit a year ago.

NWR said that there was a pickup in QoQ sales boosted by rising demand from the steel industry, although levels were still down more than a third from a year ago. However, the miner also raised its full year production target to 11 million tonnes from 10.5 million.

Mr Mike Salamon chairman said that NWR chairman said that "General market conditions began to show signs of improvement during the Q3 of 2009 after a difficult H1 of 2009. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the regional market remains volatile, with prices remaining flat, demand uncertain and visibility limited."

Revenue in the quarter fell to EUR 291.3 million from EUR 455.2 million a year ago, but met analyst expectations. NWR showed EUR 10.3 million operating loss after a 119.9 million profit a year ago. It said that it was still negotiating 2010 contracts and would update the market in the future.

(Sourced from Reuters)