Krakatau Steel's revenues improved in Q3 2017

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - PT Krakatau Steel (Persero) Tbk (KRAS), a manufacturing company
Indonesia's largest steel posted revenues of US $ 1.04 billion during the first nine months of 2017 (9M2017). The value of the income rose 5.87% over the same period last year.

"Until September 2017, the Company's steel selling price still shows an increase of US $ 599 per ton from US $ 520 per ton in January 2017. The trend of performance improvement will be faster in the future by seeing the improvement of steel price" explained President Director of PT KS Mas Wigrantoro Roes Setiyadi this weekend in Jakarta.

The strength of the average selling price of the Perseoan steel product became the driving factor of KRAS's revenue increase in 9M2017. The average selling price for HRC products (hot rolled coil), which contributed the most to the Company's revenue, increased by 33.33% to US $ 583 per ton, as well as the average selling price of other steel products CRC (cold rolled coil), long product, and pipe.

The increase in the selling price of steel products of the Company was also able to boost the Company's gross margin increase during 9M2017. The gross margin increased by 94 basis points (bps) to 14.99%. EBITDA Margin also experienced a significant increase of 268 bps to 13.45% with EBITDA value of US $ 139.90 million or an increase of 32.19% on an annual basis.

Consistently the Company continues to show improvement in performance, in which the Company's revenue increased by 5.87% to US $ 1,039.91 million in 9M2017 Compared to the same period last year US $ 982.29 million. The improvement in the Company's revenues was also reflected in the significant increase of the Company's cash flows in 9M2017 by 499.71% to US $ 121.13 million from US $ 21.20 million in 9M2016.

The Company's performance improvement is also evident from the significant decrease of the Company's net loss by 34.57% to US $ 75.05 million compared to the loss in 9M2016 of US $ 114.70 million. In addition to improvements in terms of revenues, the improved performance of KRAS also due to a sharp decline in exchange rate loss of 95.13% and a decrease in financial expenses by 17.59% over the same period last year.

Mas Wig added that for infrastructure projects until September 2017, KRAS has supplied 20,369 tons of steel for the Jakarta-Cikampek II (Japek II) elevated construction project of 225,000 tons of steel that will be supplied up to 10 months ahead. The Company also continuously strives to increase the capacity of hot rolled steel sheet products (HRC) by establishing the Hot Strip Mill # 2 (HSM #2) factories in Krakatau industrial area, Cilegon. Until September 2017, the physical construction process of HSM # 2 has reached 35.93% which is planned to start operation in early 2019.

"As a national steel producer, our goal is to keep growing and growing simultaneously with our partners and shareholders. The expansion project undertaken by the Company is currently an effort to improve the future steel trade balance deficit that could potentially reach US $ 15 billion ", added Mas Wig.