India Cements Q1 net almost halves to Rs 26 cr; company blames note ban

The India Cements Ltd has reported a net profit of Rs 26.44 crore during the quarter ended June 30, 2017, as against Rs 43.98 crore, a year ago. Company's total income rose to Rs 1,466.75 crore during the first quarter from Rs 1,205.72 crore, a year ago.

The financial statement for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 and for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2017, include that those of the merged entities of Trinetra Cement Ltd. and Trishul Concrete Products Ltd.  As far as the figures for the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year, June 30, 2016 are concerned, the financials do not consider those of the merged entities, said the company.

The company said it has been a satisfactory performance given the tight market conditions and input cost pressure. The latent effect of the demonetisation on the construction and realty sector affected the demand for cement in the first quarter. 

The cement industry, which witnessed a negative growth of 1.2 per cent in the previous fiscal, has shown a flat growth during the first two months of the current fiscal.  According to the figures available, the industry in the south has registered a negative growth of 5-6 per cent during the first quarter of the year. The industry in the south continued to reel under lower capacity utilisation regime while the cement plants in the other parts of the country were able to clock a capacity utilisation of over 80 per cent.

Overall sales during the quarter including export of clinker and cement were at 2.6 million tonnes.

With the steep hike in prices of pet coke and coal from the month of March, the cost of production was impacted resulting in increased power and fuel cost. Part of the cost increase was mitigated with the improvement in the net plant realisation which went up by seven per cent during the quarter under review as compared to same quarter of the previous year on a comparable basis.