ATLAS Consolidated Mining and Development Corp. on Wednesday said its consolidated net income grew at an outstanding pace in the fist nine months of this year driven by the strong performance of its wholly owned subsidiary Carmen Copper Corp. (CCC).

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Atlas said its consolidated net income for the first three quarters surged to P2.640 billion from just P47 million a year ago. Atlas attributed the strong growth during the period to CCC, which reported net income of P2.599 billion, or 470 percent higher year-on-year.

Atlas began consolidating 100 percent of CCC results at the end of July 2011.

The net income attributable to Atlas as parent company amounted to P1.603 billion, a reversal of the net loss of P85 million in 2010.

“The consolidated core net income for the period was pegged at P2.051 billion, derived by deducting unrealized mark-to-market gains on copper sales, foreign exchange gains, non-recurring and non-cash gains from reported net income, as well as adding back certain non-recurring charges,” Atlas said.

Atlas also said that CCC’s core net income was pegged at P2.207 billion, nearly 2.9 times higher than in 2010.

“Carmen Copper was able to sell at an average price of $9,126 per ton of copper during the period. CCC’s copper put option portfolio, which allows the company to sell at a floor price of $8,000 per ton up to early March 2012, has been in the money, and therefore, has been providing the necessary copper price protection since the end of September 2011,” Atlas said.

The Berong Nickel Project, in which Atlas has a 25.2 percent economic interest, resumed operations in May. Since reopening the mine, there have been five shipments of nickel ore to China covering a total of 262,280 wet metric tons of nickel laterite at 1.67 percent nickel and 18.74 percent iron.

As of October, the Berong mine had an ore stockpile of 223,216 WMT at 1.51 percent nickel and 24.77 percent iron. In the third quarter alone, the mine contributed P265 million to consolidated gross revenue.