OREANDA-NEWS. November 10, 2011. Aditya Birla Group Company, Hindalco Industries Limited’s performance for the second quarter has been significantly better than that of the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Net sales and operating revenue at Rs. 6,272 crore in Q2FY12 were up 7 per cent over Q2FY11, driven by higher volume and improved realisation, despite lower sale of value-added products.

PBITDA increased by 8 per cent with higher volume and realisation in aluminium business and better TcRc and by-product realisation in copper business. Other income was higher by Rs. 94 crore driven by improved treasury yield and enhanced corpus and is inclusive of Rs. 60 crore dividend received from Dahej Harbour and Infrastructure Limited, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary. Higher rates led to higher interest and financing charges of Rs. 68 crore vis-a-vis Rs. 53 crore in Q2FY11.

The results for the quarter have been impacted very severely by the cost escalations and constrained bauxite and coal availability during the monsoon.

Net profit increased by 16 per cent to Rs. 503 crore in Q2FY12 from Rs. 434 crore in Q2FY11. EPS stood at Rs. 2.62 in the current quarter vis-a-vis Rs. 2.27 in Q2FY11.

For the half year ended September 30, 2011, revenues rose by 11 per cent, PBITDA increased by 12 per cent with increase in net profit by 18 per cent.

In Q2FY12 aluminium revenues were higher at Rs. 2,213 crore up from Rs. 1,911 crore in Q2FY11, a rise of 16 per cent as a result of higher volumes and better aluminium prices on the LME. Last year’s performance was impacted by smelter outage at Hirakud. Despite strong inflationary pressures and constrained supply of bauxite and coal during the monsoon, profit before interest and taxes was sustained.

In the copper business, revenues were at Rs. 4,062 crore vs. Rs. 3,951 crore in Q2FY11, on the back of higher LME and by-product credits. Copper volumes were lower on account of shutdown of one of the smelters up to mid July.   However, the copper business being a custom smelting operation, with offset hedging program, was not significantly impacted by the gain or loss on changes in LME/foreign exchange fluctuations. Profit before interest and taxes was higher at Rs. 148 crore from Rs. 129 crore due to higher TcRc and by-product credit offset to some extent by higher energy costs, lower volume due to shutdown and related expenses.

Hirakud: Unprecedented rains and the flood situation in September disrupted coal supplies to the Hirakud CPP, consequent to which there was a temporary slowing down of production in the smelter. Spot purchases of coal are being made to restore inventory in the captive power plant. Smelter production has since been normalised.