SAIL net down 23% in third quarter

State-owned Steel Authority of India (SAIL) reported a 23 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 484 crore mainly due to lower net sales realisation amid subdued market conditions.

The company's net profit in the October-December quarter of the last fiscal was Rs 632 crore.

"As far the net sales realisation (NSR) is concerned there has been a decline in the third quarter...as a result of that, our profit fell down by Rs 590 crore. Globally steel prices are coming down, in India also it has come down," SAIL Chairman C S Verma said.

The company's average NSR was at Rs 35,168 per tonne in the October-December period, down 5.78 per cent, he added.

NSR for flat products was down 8.14 per cent at Rs 33,395 per tonne, while for the long products, it was Rs 37,341 per tonne, down 2.72 per cent.

Steel demand has started picking up and the company would perform better during the fourth quarter, he said.

The steel producer firm's total income from operations also declined marginally by 0.55 per cent to Rs 10,670 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2012. Besides, its finance costs went up nearly 20 per cent to Rs 222.04 crore.

As on the December 31, 2012, SAIL's total borrowings stood at Rs 22,825 crore, including foreign borrowings equivalent to Rs 11,900 crore. At the beginning of the year, the borrowings were at Rs 16,320 crore.

During the quarter, SAIL's saleable steel production was 3.06 million tonnes (MT), while its blast furnace productivity went up by 3.9 per cent.

Talking about company's expansion activities, Verma said some of new units at Rourkela and IISCO, Burnpur plants have already been completed and the rest will be commissioned as scheduled.