In morning trade, the Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS) share price is pushing higher on Tuesday.
At the time of writing, the lithium miner's shares are up 4% to $4.78.
Why is the Pilbara Minerals share price rising?
Investors have been bidding on the Pilbara Minerals share price this Tuesday in response to the company's quarterly update.
In case you missed the after-hours release, for the three months ended 30 June, Pilbara Minerals reported an 18% decline in quarterly revenue to A$800 million.
This reflects a 10% increase in spodumene concentrate to a record of 162.8k tonnes and a 22% jump in sales volumes to 176.3k tonnes, which was offset by a 33% decline in the average realised spodumene concentrate sales price to US$3,256 per tonne.
For the full year, Pilbara Minerals achieved the top end of its upgraded production guidance with 620.1k tonnes of spodumene concentrate. This underpinned a 238% increase in revenue to A$4 billion in FY 2023.
How does this compare to expectations?
Pilbara Minerals' production of 162.8k tonnes has come in comfortably ahead of expectations during the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs was expecting 160k tonnes of spodumene concentrate, whereas the market had pencilled in 153k tonnes.
It was a similar story for sales volumes, with Goldman and the market expecting sales of approximately 160k tonnes of spodumene concentrate.
But one key item that fell significantly short of expectations was its average realised spodumene price of US$3,256 per tonne.
Goldman was forecasting an average price of US$4,432 per tonne, whereas the consensus estimate was US$4,236 per tonne. That means its actual realised price was over 23% lower than consensus expectations.
This is likely to have analysts scrambling to downgrade their earnings and dividend estimates this morning. However, it hasn't been enough to stop the Pilbara Minerals share price from pushing higher today.
