Turkish rebar producer Izmir Demir Çelik Sanayi A.Ş. (IDC) has announced its financial results for the first half of 2019.
Accordingly, in the first half IDC registered a net loss of TRY 346.93 million ($61.3 million), compared to a net loss of TRY 194.94 million in the first half of 2018. In the same period, the company's sales revenues increased by 3.8 percent year on year to TRY 2.14 billion ($378.8 million). IDC recorded an operating loss of TRY 224.98 million ($39.8 million) in the first half, compared to an operating loss of TRY 12.18 million in the same period of 2018.
IDC said that in the first six months of the current year its steel billet output decreased by 1.25 percent to 621,531 mt, while its rebar production totaled 442,733 mt, falling 12.86 percent, both year on year. Besides, 113,243 mt of rebar was also produced by the company's contractual partners in the given period, with a year-on-year decrease of 32.1 percent. In the given period, the company produced 128,775 mt of steel sections, down four percent year on year.
In the first half of 2019, IDC’s finished steel sales increased by 16 percent to 648,742 mt, while export sales increased by 7.6 percent to 205,717 mt, both year on year.
The company statement said that during the first half of the year finished steel prices remained low on average on year-on-year basis. Amid declining sales prices, production using high-priced inventory caused a loss for the company. As the decline rates of raw material and finished steel prices were not the same and as other costs excluding raw material increased, the company said that in the first six months of the year margins saw sharp decreases. The fact that the Turkish lira kept losing value in the first half of 2019 caused a foreign exchange loss. The Turkish lira weakened by nine percent in the first six months of the current year.