Industries Qatar, the parent company of Qatar Steel, has announced its financial results for the first nine months of the current year, reporting a consolidated net profit of QAR 6.3 billion ($1.73 billion), down 4.8 percent year on year.
Industries Qatar stated that the revenues from the steel segment for the first nine months amounted to QAR 4.4 billion ($1.2 billion), decreasing by 8.2 percent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
According to Industries Qatar, the year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter performances were both negatively impacted by lower DRI and HBI sales volumes, as the group's steel subsidiary continued to reserve strategic DRI/HBI stocks for the commissioning of the EF5 green field steel melt shop. Third quarter volumes were also impacted by 72 days of planned and unplanned maintenance at various plants. Rebar pricing trends, however, remained broadly consistent with previous quarters primarily due to resilient domestic demand.
The company also said that the EF5 steel meltshop project, which has a designed capacity of 1.1 million mt per year of billets, is expected to start commercial production in early 2014.
