(Adds details on copper production, CEO and analyst comments in paragraph 2 through 10)

April 25 (Reuters) – Canadian miner Teck Resources missed first-quarter profit estimates on Thursday, pulled down partly by lacklustre steelmaking coal sales volumes and lower zinc prices.

Teck, one of the leading producers of steelmaking coal, last year announced the

sale

of the business to Swiss miner Glencore Plc, and said it was shifting its strategy towards building its copper business.

The miner reported a 74% rise in copper production at 99,000 tonnes in the first quarter, helped by ramp-up in output at its Quebrada Blanca (QB) mine in Chile.

"We had strong first quarter performance…with steadily increasing quarterly copper production as QB ramp-up advances," CEO Jonathan Price said in a statement.

The company reiterated full-year copper production of between 465,000 tonnes and 540,000 tonnes, above 296,500 tonnes produced in 2023.

All outstanding major construction at QB operations was completed and the molybdenum plant will be ramped up in the second quarter, it added.

"The investment case for Teck is very much dependent on the company hitting the revised ramp-up timeline and capex guidance at QB2..the completion of construction and reiterated guidance is encouraging," as per Jefferies analysts.

Steelmaking coal production in the first quarter came in at 6 million tons, the same levels seen in the year-ago period, impacted by extreme freezing temperatures in mid-January that resulted in frozen plant components and unplanned downtime.

Teck's first-quarter steelmaking coal sales were 5.9 million tons, compared with 6.2 million tons last year.

The Vancouver-based company reported an adjusted profit of C$0.75 per share, for the quarter ended March 31, compared with analysts' average estimate of C$0.85 per share, according to LSEG data.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy, Tanay Dhumal and Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza, Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Eileen Soreng)