SAIL Q4 profit rises 1.35% to Rs 452.58 cr; FY14 net up 20.6%.

New Delhi: Steel giant SAIL registered a marginal 1.35 percent increase in net profit to Rs 452.58 crore in the January-March quarter, affected mainly by wage revision provisions and higher expenses.

State-owned Steel Authority of India had posted a profit of Rs 446.53 crore on a standalone basis in the fourth quarter of 2012-13.

"We have to provide Rs 471 crore towards the wage revision of non-executives of the company during the fourth quarter, which basically cut into our profit margins during January-March period, but we registered an impressive 20.6 percent growth in net profit to Rs 2,616 crore in FY14," Chairman C S Verma said.

The company had approved wage revisions for its 85,000 non-executives, which were pending since January 2012.

Total expenses rose 10.37 percent to Rs 12,804.67 crore in the fourth quarter of the previous financial year from Rs 11,600.58 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2012-13, it said in a filing to the BSE.

Total income climbed to Rs 13,509.21 crore from Rs 12,284.74 crore in the year-ago period.

Verma said SAIL's gross turnover at Rs 51,866 crore in FY14 was the highest ever and had increased more than 5 percent from Rs 49,350 crore in FY13.

"The thrust on development of infrastructure and industry would provide more avenues for steel consumption. This certainly augurs well for the Indian steel industry," Verma said.

The company produced 12.9 million tonnes of saleable steel in FY14, an increase of 4 percent over the previous financial year.

"The corresponding rise in total sales was 8.6 percent, at 12.07 million tonnes. Growth in domestic sales was in conjunction with growth in exports of 28 percent in FY14," the company said in a statement.

Continued emphasis on value-added steel production resulted in output of 5.4 million tonnes of special quality steel in FY14 as against 5.09 million tonnes in FY13.

During the fourth quarter, production of saleable steel was 3.13 million tonnes, up 4 percent.

On the modernisation plan, Verma said, "SAIL's focus in the current fiscal would be to complete the balance facilities under our modernisation and expansion programme and ramp up production from the new units in the shortest possible time.

"We are confident of expanding our hot metal capacity to 19.5 million tonnes by September 2014," he said.

SAIL has cumulatively spent Rs 53,270 crore on the modernisation and expansion programme until March 2014.

The company is implementing a Rs 72,000 crore expansion programme to raise hot metal capacity by 70 percent to 23.5 million tonnes per annum.

During FY14, projects worth about Rs 6,500 crore were operationalised, resulting in the addition of 2.5 million tonnes a year of hot metal capacity.

The projects include a new blast furnace and slab caster at Rourkela, a new ore handling plant and sinter machine at Bhilai and a rebuilt coke oven battery at Durgapur.

SAIL shares declined 2.94 percent to Rs 90.90 at the close on the BSE.

Source : zeenews.india.com