Egypt's largest steelmaker Ezz Steel has announced its financial results for the first nine months of the current year, reporting a net loss of EGP 1.38 billion ($77.83 million), compared to a net loss of EGP 564 million in the same period of 2016. The company's sales revenues in the given period amounted to EGP 29.35 billion ($1.65 billion), rising 97 percent year on year. In the same period, long steel prices were up 83 percent and 126 percent respectively in the local and export markets, with flat steel prices rising by 120 percent in the local market and 160 percent in the export market, all on year-on-year basis.
In the first nine months this year, Ezz Steel's sales, in terms of volume, totaled 3.29 million mt, increasing by three percent year on year. In the same period, Ezz Steel's long steel production volume totaled 2.4 million mt, down four percent, while its flat steel production volume increased by 49 percent to 917,000 mt, both year on year.
Paul Chekaiban, Ezz Steel’s chairman and managing director, stated that during the third quarter of the current year, the company benefited from a favorable market environment; the sustained recovery in the international steel sector coupled with the antidumping duties applied in Egypt allowed it to improve its selling prices and therefore substantially increase its global turnover. However, Ezz Steel continued to suffer from adverse conditions in the Egyptian financial environment; the extremely high level of interest rates, coupled with the acute shortage of liquidity in the banking system, prevented it from meeting its working capital minimal requirements. According to Mr. Chekaiban, as a consequence, the capacity utilization of the company’s plants remained at very low levels, resulting in a negative bottom line, which was in line with its results from the first half of this year. Accordingly, the company expects the financial authorities in Egypt to quickly reverse their monetary policy in a way to accommodate the company’s working capital needs which will allow it to fully benefit from the prevailing favorable conditions in local and international steel markets.