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Jindal Steel Q4 net drops 39% to R475 cr

Naveen Jindal-promoted Jindal Steel & Power on Thursday reported a 39% drop in net profit at Rs477.45 crore in its fourth quarter ended March compared with Rs783.62 crore during the corresponding period last year.

Naveen Jindal-promoted Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) on Thursday reported a 39% drop in net profit at R477.45 crore in its fourth quarter ended March compared with R783.62 crore during the corresponding period last year.

JSPL managing director and chief executive officer Ravi Uppal said, ?The fall in net profit is due to a challenging environment and dipping steel prices. Prices of steel fell by 5% from January-March, this has sizeable impact on the net profit. We hope that steel prices would go up and that will help us to improve our bottom line.?

However, the company did manage to get a marginal increase of 1% in net sales to R4,213.70 crore during the fourth quarter compared with R4,174.02 crore for the corresponding period last year.

With the steel industry going through a rough patch, the company has recorded a growth in production by 11% on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

JSPL plans to increase steel capacity to double at 7 million tonnes per annum in 2013-14.

JSPL deputy managing director S Maroo said, ?We have a capex plans of R10,000 crore for 2013-14.? The board has decided for a final dividend payout of 160% at R1.60 for each share for 2012-13.

The company?s power plant are operating at a plant load factor (PLF) of 99.5% in the fourth quarter compared with 83%. ?We sold power at R3.17 per KwH in the fourth quarter up from R2.98 each KwH in the previous quarter. But, we are able to generate power but not able to transmit it. We hope that going forward these problems would be solved,? Maroo added.

JSPL international mining businesses at Mozambique has started operating and the company expects it will to grow it?s bottom line.

?We have invested more than $1 billion overseas. The Mozambique mine is operational now. We are able to produce coking coal and bring to India,? said Maroo, adding first consignment of 50,000 tonnes is expected to be imported in the first quarter of 2013-14.

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First published on: 26-04-2013 at 01:40 IST
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