Hindalco Q1 net up 20% at Rs 644 cr

Hindalco Industries, an Aditya Birla Group firm, today reported growth of 20.50% in its standalone net profit at Rs 644 crore for the quarter ended June 30, mainly due to higher prices of copper and aluminium.

The company had reported a net profit of Rs 534.40 crore during the corresponding period of last fiscal.

Net sales of the company during the quarter under review went up by 16.19% at Rs 5,979.03 crore as compared to Rs 5,145.51 crore it had reported in the same quarter of FY11, Hindalco said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The aluminium business of the company reported revenues of Rs 2,093.14 crore in Q1 of the current fiscal, up 12.11%, while the copper business witnessed a growth of 18.88% at Rs 3,940.21 crore, the filing added.

In a separate statement, the company said that alumina production at its Renukoot plant during the quarter has gone down marginally due to constrained bauxite availability as it produced 3,34,587 tonne vis-a-vis production of 341,419 tonne during the Q1 of FY11.

Similarly, the copper production of the company was also down marginally at 73,192 tonne due to bi-annual shut down at one of the smelters at Dahej plant, the statement said, adding that the smelter is back in operation from July.

Talking about its 1.5 million tonne per annum capacity new alumina plant in Orissa's Raigada, the company said that it is expected to be commissioned by second half of 2012.

Besides this, work on the 359 kilo tonne per annum (KTPA) capacity Mahan Aluminium plant is expected to be commissioned by the end of 2011 and the company is in the process of seeking regulatory approvals, it further said.

"Of late, the uncertainty in the regulatory environment has impacted the progress of some of these projects and has posed challenges with respect to commissioning of these projects as per schedule," the statement said, although it did not mentioned the names of the delayed plants.

Besides this, the company said that it is hopeful of getting a favourable disposition on its Mahan coal block from the Group of Ministers constituted on 'go-no go' coal blocks issue.

Talking about the future outlook, the company said that "the environment in both the businesses -- copper and aluminium, has become very challenging due to volatile LME [London Metal Exchange], spiralling energy and other cost and non-availability of coal. The regulatory uncertainty is compounding the concern".

Stating that the long term prospect of aluminium and copper consumption in India and globally augur well for the company, it added that "capacity expansions under implementation will enable the company in achieving its vision of being a premium metals major, global in size and reach".