BlueScope has recorded a half-yearly profit of $359.1 million – 79 per cent more than the the same period last year.
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Profit for the second half of this financial year is also tipped to improve.
The half-year figure is a $159 million improvement on the July-December 2015 result of $200.1 million.
“The strong growth was generated through delivery of productivity and cost improvements, sales growth, improved steel spreads and the benefit of the North Star acquisition,” said CEO Paul O’Malley.
“We are now seeing the benefits of our strategic initiatives flowing through to the bottom line.
“There are positive trading conditions across most of our businesses and BlueScope has been generating strong cash flow.”
Mr O’Malley said the Australian steelmaking arm delivered good results “supporting the 2015 decision to continue operations at Port Kembla”.
But he said this needed to continue so as to justify a reline of the Port Kembla blast furnace in 10 to 15 years time.
The CEO said he expected BlueScope’s profits to improve in the second half of the 2017 financial year, as compared to the 2016 period.
In the back end of the 2016 financial year, the steelmaker recorded a $340.3 million gross profit.
Over the next months BlueScope expects to improve on that figure by 50 per cent – which would mean an estimated second-half profit of $510 million.