Profits Rise at Hydro Agri

IMPROVED fertiliser markets and reduced costs helped boost performance at Hydro Agris plant nutrition arm in the first half of 2000.

Operating income rose to 56.2m, compared with a loss of almost 2m during the same period last year.

This is despite one-off charges of 26.8m mainly to cover restructuring and closure costs of fertiliser plants after the firms decision to prune production to cut over-capacity in Europe.

This helped cut fixed costs by about 38m on the year, and also encouraged higher fertiliser prices, it says.

Calcium ammonium nitrate values have risen by about 30/t since the latter half of 1999. This improved market contributed a further 63m.

But production costs rose by 27.5m, mainly due to higher energy costs, and that figure is set to grow, says the firm.