Turkish integrated long steel producer Kardemir Karabuk Demir Celik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (Kardemir) said that the company performed above industry average and maintained its profitability despite trade wars, reduced demand and extraordinary exchange rate changes. The company added that, despite the shutdown of some production facilities in order to be upgraded, high production volumes and budget targets have been achieved in the second quarter.
The company registered a net profit of TRY 102.6 million ($18.6 million) in the second quarter, 42 percent higher than the market expectation which was TRY 72 million, despite the backdrop of a 20.1 percent decline in Turkish crude steel output in the first half of the year and the challenges faced by the steel industry. The company’s sales revenues increased by 30 percent year on year to TRY 1.64 billion ($298 million), due to upward price adjustments, as a result of exchange rate adjustments rather than related to demand, Vakıf Yatırım Analiz believes. The company’s finished steel sales volume increased by six percent year on year to 565,000 mt in the given period.
In the first half of the year, the sales revenues increased by 28.5 percent to TRY 3.28 billion, while sales volume was 1.19 million mt, up 5.5 percent, both compared to the same period of the previous year.
In the January-June period of this year, Kardemir produced 1.14 million mt of crude steel, down 3.35 percent on year-on-year basis.