Costs impact Ventanas port 9mth. results

Increased operating and administrative/sales costs cut into Chilean port Puerto Ventanas net profit, which fell 59% to 3.24bn pesos (US$5.18mn) in the first nine months compared to the same period last year. For the period, operating grew 85.9% to 4.88bn pesos and sales jumped 106% to 32.3bn pesos, the privately owned port said in a statement to the country's securities regulator, the SVS. Chilean engineering company Sigdo Koppers controls Ventanas, whose two main cargo products are copper concentrates and coal. The port moved 2.07Mt in the first nine months, up 10.7% from the same period last year. In 2002 it moved 2.48Mt. Ventanas is on Region V's Quintero bay, 130km northeast of capital Santiago and 340km from Mendoza in Argentina. The port has a 1,300m-long docking area with five berths, which can handle ships of up to 70,000DWT. In August, Ventanas closed a US$41mn financing agreement with a syndicate of local banks to cover the purchase of its 47% stake in Fepasa, and plans to invest part of the loan money in improving Fepasa's infrastructure, which includes a 1,923km freight network from central Region V to southern Region X.