Metals firm Tata Steel reported a 116 percent year-on-year increase in its consolidated net profit in the April-June quarter to Rs 2,078 crore owing to the Union Government's safeguard duty on some grades of imported steel.
In provisional figures released earlier in July, Tata Steel said that its delivery volumes in India for Q1 FY26 were 4.75 million tonne (MT), compared to 4.94 MT in the same quarter last year. For the January-March quarter, the same was 5.60 MT. Delivery volumes in the company's Netherlands operations rose slightly over the same period to 1.50 MT, while those in the UK, its other major overseas presence, declined to 600,000 tonne for the quarter.
The company's production figures in India were also flat year-on-year. In a statement, Tata Steel said that its production and delivery volumes were affected due to maintenance shutdowns at its Jamshedpur and Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd (NINL) plants.
The Tata Group firm's consolidated revenue decreased by 3 percent to Rs 53,178 crore.
Price support, cost trimming
Owing to the decrease in imports of cheaper steel from China, Vietnam, and elsewhere after the Union Government imposed a 12 percent safeguard duty on a number of grades of steel, Tata Steel's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) improved to Rs 7,480 crore on a consolidated basis, compared to Rs 6,822 crore in the year-ago period.
On a per-tonne basis in India, EBITDA improved sequentially during the quarter to Rs 15,760.
The company also cited its longer-term cost rationalisation programme as one of its key contributors to a stronger set of results for the quarter.
"Higher steel realisations offset the decline in volumes across geographies. Our cost transformation program, focused on multiple levers including operating KPIs, supply chain and procurement, has delivered around Rs 2,900 crore during the quarter. We remain focused on cost optimisation, operational improvements and working capital management to maximise cashflows," said Koushik Chatterjee, executive director and chief financial officer at Tata Steel.
Overseas geographies
Despite its pending green transformation project in the country, Netherlands remained the more profitable overseas market for Tata Steel, with the production of 1.7 MT of liquid steel during the quarter being close to the rated capacity at its IJmuiden facility, said T.V. Narendran, managing director and CEO at Tata Steel.
In the Netherlands, revenues for the quarter were reported at around 1.5 billion euros, with Tata Steel Nederland, the steelmaker's Dutch subsidiary, also remaining profitable on an EBITDA basis. For the quarter, its EBITDA was 64 million euros, compared to 14 million euros in the January-March quarter.
"In Netherlands, our liquid steel production was 1.7 MT and was close to rated capacity and performance was aided by favourable sales mix and higher realisations in the downstream business," Narendran added in a statement.
In the UK operations, where crude steel production has been halted at the Port Talbot facility in order to carry out a 1.25 billion pound-green transformation project, its revenue for the quarter was reported at GBP 536 million. While the company's UK subsidiary remained loss-making, it managed to narrow its EBITDA loss to GBP 41 million, compared to an EBITDA loss of GBP 80 million in January-March.
The company declared its financial results after the close of trading. On July 30, its shares on the National Stock Exchange closed 0.2 percent lower at Rs 161.30 apiece.
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