VANCOUVER, Dec. 12 /CNW/ - Westshore Terminals Income Fund (TSX: WTE.UN) (the "Fund") announced today that a cash distribution of $26,730,005 (representing $0.36 per trust unit) will be paid on or before January 15, 2008 to unitholders of record on December 31, 2007, as compared to $23,577,672 (representing $0.335 per trust unit) for the same period in 2006. For unitholder income tax purposes, it is anticipated the distribution will be substantially all income.
Distributions for Q4 2007 reflect the anticipated Q4 results together with payments of earnings realized earlier in the year but unpaid, and are not a reflection of this quarter's operating performance alone. This is consistent with distributions for Q4's of prior years.
For 2007, total paid distributions will be $1.16 per unit (which includes a special $0.035 distribution in Q1 2007) as compared to $1.205 per unit in 2006. Distributions in 2006 were based on 70,381,111 units issued and outstanding and distributions for 2007 are based on 74,250,016 units issued and outstanding.
For the fourth quarter of 2007, Westshore anticipates that its tonnage throughput will be approximately 5.4 million tonnes as compared to 5.2 million tonnes for the same period in 2006. Tonnage throughput to December 31, 2007 is anticipated to be approximately 21 million tonnes compared to 18.9 million tonnes over the same period in 2006.
Based on estimates provided periodically to Westshore by its customers, Westshore anticipates that total throughput for 2008 should be similar to 2007 levels.