JSW Steel second quarter profit up 27 percent

REUTERS - Steel producer JSW Steel Ltd reported a 27 percent rise in quarterly profit on Tuesday, helped by higher steel sales.

Favourable international markets during early part of the quarter and an increased domestic demand helped the company to post its highest ever consolidated quarterly saleable steel sales, the steel-maker said. http://bit.ly/2xFqXik

Total revenue from operations for the quarter jumped about 17 percent to 168.18 billion rupees, with total saleable steel sales rising 2 percent to 3.96 million tonnes, it said.

Net profit for the second quarter ending on Sept. 30 rose to 8.39 billion rupees ($129.6 million) from 6.59 billion a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected net profit of 10.76 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Shares of the Mumbai-based company ended 2.05 percent lower ahead of the results on the NSE index that lost 0.27 percent.

($1 = 64.7375 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Vishal Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and David Evans)