Westshore Terminals Income Fund - Q1 Distributions Announcement

About this update from Westshore Terminals Investment Corporation

[{"type":"text","content":"\n\n\n\nVANCOUVER, March 19 /CNW/ - Westshore Terminals Income Fund (TSX: WTE.UN)\n(the "Fund") announced today that a quarterly cash distribution of $16,706,254\n(representing $0.225 per trust unit) will be paid on or before April 15, 2007\nto unitholders of record on March 31, 2007 as compared to $20,410,522\n(representing $0.29 per trust unit) for the same period in 2006. The Q1 2007\ndistribution is solely derived from the operations of Westshore Terminals\nLimited Partnership. Performance in subsequent quarters will determine the\nsustainability of the level of quarterly distribution.\n\n\nIn addition, the Fund announced a special distribution of $0.035 per\ntrust unit payable on or before April 15, 2007 to unitholders of record on\nMarch 31, 2007. This represents a portion of the discrepancy between taxable\nincome allocated to unitholders for 2006 and cash distributions in that year,\nwhich resulted principally from a combination of better than expected\nperformance and a number of year end adjustments. Because the Fund's\ninvestments now consist of substantially all the limited partnership units of\nWestshore Terminals Limited Partnership, virtually all of the taxable income\nof the Partnership for any year is automatically allocated to the Fund. While\nthe Fund attempts both to estimate its taxable income for the year and to make\ndistributions for the year as close as possible to that taxable income, there\nwill always be some discrepancy between the taxable income of the Fund and\ncash distributions by the Fund.\n\n\nFor the first quarter of 2007, Westshore anticipates that its tonnage\nthroughput will be approximately 4.5 million tonnes as compared to 4.4 million\ntonnes for the same period in 2006. As announced by Fording Canadian Coal\nTrust ("Fording") on March 1, 2007 adverse weather conditions from November\nthrough January reduced inventories at Westshore and restricted the ability to\nload vessels which affected volumes in the first quarter.\n\n\nBased on the information currently available, Westshore is budgeting for\napproximately similar volumes in 2007 compared to 2006 and a lower average\nloading rate. However, Fording has not yet announced its average coal sales\nprice.\n\n\nFor 2007, tonnages shipped at fixed rates are expected to account for\napproximately 22% of the Terminal's thro...

More updates from Westshore Terminals Investment Corporation