Amid disruptions, JSPL reports 29% rise in July steel sales

New Delhi, Aug 4 (IANS) Jindal Steel & Power Limited (JSPL) has beaten the trend reporting healthy growth in production and sales volume during the month of July in the midst of economic crisis triggered by coronavirus pandemic.

This follows company reporting equally good performance in the April-June quarter when it clocked 8 and 12 per cent growth in stand alone production and sales respectively.

In the month of July, company's stand-alone steel production (including pig iron) grew 13 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) while it recorded a 29 per cent growth (y-o-y) in sales volumes during three months.

The sales volume in July stood at 6,37,000 tonnes beating the highest ever steel production of 626,000 tonnes just a month back in June.

Impacted by Covid-19 induced lockdowns, several steel companies have been forced to go in for production cuts due to fall in sales.

JSPL on the other hand has been able to maintain and grow its sales by focused sales in domestic market while increasing the quantum of overseas sales.

The export sales contributed to 39 per cent of total sales volumes in July for JSPL. On absolute terms, export sales stood at 2,50,000 tonnes in the month.

Along with growth on a standalone basis, the Company's consolidated sales also rise by 25 per cent in July to 7,62,000 tonnes.

The company is also strengthening its financial by cutting down the debt. It had earlier announced that it will sell its entire stake in its Oman asset, Jindal Shadeed Iron and Steel Co LLC (JSIS Oman) for an enterprise value of over $1 billion. The divestment is in line with JSPL's vision and commitment to continuously bring down its debt and deleverage its balance sheet, the company had said in a regulatory filing earlier.

"India Inc is getting back to normalcy, as companies can mend supply chains, getting more workers back on the job, resulting in the increased domestic steel demand. Thanks to the Government's efforts to reboot the economy by announcing the stimulus package," said V.R. Sharma, Managing Director, JSPL.

Marching towards achieving the dream of 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' by import substitution, in addition to the first-ever domestic order of Head Hardened Rails of 3000 tonnes from RVNL (Kolkata Metro), JSPL has bagged orders from Pune Metro (3000 tonnes) and a Konkan Railways (1960 tonnes).