Essar Steel Q2 net up 52 pc to Rs 154 crore

Mumbai, Oct 31 (UNI) Steel major Essar Steel has registered a growth of 51.70 per cent in the net profit at Rs 154.34 crore for the second quarter ended September 30 this year as compared to Rs 101.74 crore for the comparable quarter of the last fiscal.

Announcing the results, the company release stated that its total income for the quarter under review went up by 30.97 per cent at Rs 2,081.58 crore as compared to Rs 1,589.30 crore in the same quarter of the previous year.

The growth in net profit by 51.70 per cent at Rs 154.34 crore was after providing for Finance Cost at Rs 136.86 crore (as against Rs 119.13 crore in Q2'06), depreciation at Rs 149.01 crore (Rs 101.04 crore), Provision for Fringe Benefit Tax at Rs 1.13 crore (0.92 cr.), Deferred Tax at Rs 78.81 crore (Rs 33.91 crore), Provision for current Tax at Rs 7.06 crore (Credit) (Rs 12.54 crore).

On manufacturing performance, the release said, the capacity expansion programme of the plant has gone up to 4.6 million tonnes from 3 million tonnes per annum and as part of this activity, the company had to plan a major shut down for upgradation of its steel mill and allied facilities. This, coupled with the unprecedented floods in Surat, impacted the production of steel at Hazira. In spite of this, steel output increased by 18 per cent to 6.86 lakh tonnes (5.81 lakh tonnes) for the quarter ended September 30.

During the period under review, input costs continued to rise, especially those of critical raw materials such as iron ore. The company has also incurred much higher costs on energy due to rising prices of LNG.

UNI SN SSS AW1922