On August 27, Egypt's largest steel producer Al Ezz Steel Rebars S.A.E. (EZZ) announced its consolidated financial results for the first half of 2009.
According to the statement released by the company, in the first half of 2009 EZZ's net profit after tax and minority interests plummeted by 89.9 percent to EGP 101 million ($18.26 million) from EGP 1 billion in H1 2008.
Meanwhile, the company's consolidated net sales in the January-June period of 2009 came to EGP 6.4 billion ($1.157 billion) compared with EGP 11.1 billion during the first half of 2008, down by 42.34 percent year on year, due to lower steel prices, the prevailing weakness in the flat steel market and the shutdown at the company's EFS plant.
In the period in question, the producer's long steel sales volume reached 1.57 million, up two percent year on year, while the flat steel sales volume witnessed a sharp decline from 940,000 mt in H1 2008 to 523,000 mt. Long steel products accounted for 78 percent of total sales in the first half of 2009, while flat steel products represented 22 percent of sales. Long product exports accounted for less than one percent of total longs sales, due to the continued strength of domestic market demand for long products. Flat product exports accounted for 54 percent of total flat sales.
The long steel production volume reached 1.68 million mt during the first half of 2009, representing a yearly increase of 10 percent, while the flat steel production volume was 45 percent lower at 470,000 mt in the first half of 2009.
According to the company estimates, in the first half of 2009 Egypt's domestic steel market for long products has grown by 76 percent year on year, to 4.24 million mt. EZZ's long steel market share in the period in question was 37 percent, while imports to Egypt accounted for 45 percent of the total long steel market. According to the Turkish statistics agency, in H1 2009 Turkey exported over two million metric tons of long steel products to Egypt.