Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) has reported record quarterly domestic production of crude steel and related products with a 22 per cent year-on-year growth in fiscal third quarter ended 31 December.
Total production of crude steel and related products stood at 1.61 million tonnes, compared to 1.32 million tonnes in the corresponding period last year.
The Naveen Jindal-led company also saw strong performance across all locations, especially in the Angul (Odisha) operations.
The company’s total sales in Q3FY20 stood at 1.66 million tonnes against 1.27 million tonnes in the same period last year, an increase of 30 per cent year-on-year .
Export shipments during the quarter increased to more than 3 lakh tonnes, showing an increase of 213 per cent.
“Being the most challenging quarter, where core sector output fell for the fourth straight month to a dip of 1.5 per cent and steel growth rate of -3.4 per cent in November 2019, JSPL’s demonstrated a robust performance,” the company said in a regulatory filing.
The news buoyed Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL) shares which rose over 3 per cent on Thursday. The stock gained as much as 3.42 per cent to touch intraday high of Rs172 on the BSE.
JSIS-Oman also observed highest ever sales & production during Q3FY20, it added.
Steel sales increased by 27 per cent on year to 0.572 million tonnes and steel production increased by 10 per cent to 0.502 million tonnes.
"We are going to start our DRI-CGP (Coal Gasification plant) unit at Angul during January 2020, and together with a favourably evolving product mix, we expect to further drive growth in sales and profit,” said VR Sharma, managing director, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd.
"As we begin 2020, we are excited about the prospects, and confident that the coming quarter would be even much better for JSPL Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently unveiled Rs 102 Lakh crore of projects under National Infrastructure Pipeline, which is to be implemented in the next five year as part of the government’s spending push in the infrastructure sector,” Sharma said.
He further expects that increased demand from infrastructure projects especially for segments like railways, defense, petroleum, and pipelines will certainly drive steel demands for JSPL.